To Vaccinate Or Not?

My boys on Halloween. Jonah looks so proud and Bram looks huge!!

With a new child in the house it's time for vaccinations again. No one likes to see a needle going into a baby's skin. Are these diseases we're being vaccinated for still around? Don't vaccinations cause problems? Are they really necessary?

After reading an article from TIME the answer to these questions seems to still be GET VACCINATED! I've had these questions but hadn't read up on it at all. I've only read one article now but this at least helps. Here's an excerpt.

Read the full article here.

Some parents have taken to cherry-picking vaccines, leaving out only the shots they believe their children don't need—such as those for chicken pox and hepatitis B—and keeping up with what they see as the life-or-death ones. But that can be a high-stakes game, as Kelly Lacek, a Pennsylvania mother of three, learned. She stopped vaccinating her 2-month-old son Matthew when her chiropractor raised questions about mercury in the shots. Three years later, she came home to find the little boy feverish and gasping for breath. Emergency-room doctors couldn't find the cause—until one experienced physician finally asked the right question. "He took one look at Matthew and asked me if he was fully vaccinated," says Lacek. "I said no." It turned out Matthew had been infected with Hib, bacteria that causes meningitis, swelling of the airway and, in severe cases, swelling of the brain tissue. After relying on a breathing tube for several days, Matthew recovered without any neurological effects, and a grateful Lacek immediately got him and his siblings up to date on their immunizations. "I am angry that people are promoting not getting vaccinated and messing with people's lives like that," she now says.