Relationship with Pediatrician

Pediatricians and Trust
When my son was in for his twelve month check up in 2004, I was given the option of giving him the varicella vaccine. His pediatrician said to me, "This vaccine is optional, but wouldn't it be nice if he never had the chicken pox?" I thought that it would be very nice if he never got the chicken pox. Wow! Never to have those pesky, itchy little red bumps everywhere? Luxury. Uneducated regarding vaccines at the time, I agreed, and signed the permission form for him to get the vaccine. The issue of the permission form will be addressed a little later. My first issue with this situation was that, because of my being uneducated in regard to vaccines at that time, I should have been informed by the pediatrician that all vaccines are optional, but I was not. No parent is. My second issue with this particular incident, happened when my son  getting his physical for kindergarten. The pediatrician informed me that he will need a varicella booster to get into school. Really? I thought the vaccine was optional. The pediatrician explained to me that it used to be optional, but now is mandatory to get into school. Really? She informed me that there can be serious complications from bouts with chicken pox, like when they get into your eyes. I was informed of blindness and even death occurring from runaway chicken pox. Really? Was this the same pediatrician who just a few years ago light-heartedly told me it was optional? What gives? I have no doubt that there are isolated incidents of someone expiring or becoming blind from the chicken pox, but how likely is it to happen? Not very likely, she conceded, but "what if it did?", she said. I didn't buy into the urgent-chicken-pox-vaccine-or-die mentality, and she took on a scornful attitude. As I signed the paper that she gave me which stated I had been informed of the dangers of not vaccinating, I did wonder if I was doing the right thing. I felt like a bad mom. I felt like she thought I was insane. I wanted to have my cake and eat it too, to have my son vaccinated completely, but to be safe from side effects from the vaccines themselves. In the end, I opted my son out of all boosters to get into kindergarten.

Prior to this kindergarten physical, I had already been doing research on the vaccine schedule itself. There are many, many more vaccines on it than when I was a child. Also, I had looked at the efficacy of the vaccines (to be addressed n a later post). In addition, when you look at the ingredients of the vaccines themselves, the age and weight of the child when they're injected, and the units they are receiving per pound of body weight, it's appalling. Checking into the history of some of the vaccines is even more appalling, such as the polio vaccine which was created by Dr. Jonas Salk. I will address this also in a later post.

Being treated as if I were being unreasonable for questioning my son's vaccines creeped me out. I was not treated as if my concerns were valid, it was quite the opposite, actually. It was a "you're being silly" type of brush off with all of my concerns. I did not appreciate this.

When my daughter was born in 2009, I took her to this same pediatrician. My husband and I opted not to vaccinate her at all. The pediatrician, in tears, begged me to reconsider. I had heard of pediatricians refusing to continue a relationship with children whose parents refused vaccines. I asked her if this would happen with us. She told me "no" for the time being, but that she couldn't promise what the future would bring. She gave me the vaccine waiver paper to sign. This time I did not sign it. I gathered my daughter's things and we left.