Vaccination

So, with the public discrediting (yet again) of Wakefield's "research", the homeschooling & natural parenting universe (which is by definition heavily populated with counter culture types) is aflutter again about vaccination (for humans, that is!)

Here are a couple books I'm planning to read in Feb:

Paul Offit's Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All .

PZ Myers (author of Pharyngula) reviewed this book here

Seth Mnookin's The Panic Virus: A True Story of Medicine, Science, and Fear

Mnookin was interviewed on the Current about why he thinks Wakefield still has supporters.

You might have guessed by now we're in the vaccinating camp. This is probably a good time to make that appointment to make sure my kids are utd on their 'teen' shots & I'm pretty sure I'm due for my tetanus booster. Esp, if you garden, you should update your tetanus every 10 years!


As far as pets go, I follow the vaccine reccomendations of Dr. Jean Dodds for dogs (easy peasy since there is no rabies vax requirement here), & the American Association of Feline Practitioners for cats. In effect, this means that my animals don't get shots.(just to clarify, they're all fully vax'd, but as I got all  my pets as adults, they'd had their puppy/kitten shots before they got to me. We did some titres on Daisy & boosted her once. Darwin was fully brought utd on his shots by the rescue before being adopted & I consider him 'done' for the rest of his life. Rachel (indoor cat) had an adverse reaction to a vaccination in mid-life and she's not getting any more. I didn't want to make it sound like my animals are unvaccinated. They are. They just don't get annual shots because studies are showing that the immunity conferred by the shots is longer than previously believed.)

Here's to good health!


And a propos of absolutely nothing, here is one of the bouquets (yes, I got more than one!) from my recent birthday.

With freedom, books, flowers, and the moon, who could not be happy? ~ Oscar Wilde