There is a lot of controversy about vaccines, especially when they are new on the market or quickly developed for the prevention of a new superbug. Some parents are wary of the upcoming swine flu/H1 N1 vaccine which will be promoted to stop the spread of the pandemic animal/avian strain as kids and susceptible persons resume the close contact of public school and winter imprisonment indoors.
Somebody recently brought up the scare associated with vaccines and autism. The naysayers believe that the administration of some types of vaccines cause the social withdrawal condition, though nobody knows why.
Often as a society we try to group everything in life into absolute categories dominated by time frames, cut-offs and deadlines. For example, public schools often will not accept a child into kindergarten if they have not turned five years of age within a certain time period of the start of school. This is a rather stringent but silly policy: we’ve all seen some immature six-year-olds and, on the other hand, five-year-olds who could give Ken Jennings a run for his money. Age, in these cases, is not a matter of calendar time, but of physiological time. One child at age five may not be as ready for school as another. However, in the social pecking order, everybody either fits the mold or spends their lifetime paying absurd social penalties for not doing so. It’s sad to see social stratification ruin children’s lives when they are just getting started, but that’s how we obviously prefer it (otherwise we’d change it).
So is there any scientific evidence that says vaccination is also to be set at so stringent a schedule? Is every child at such-and-such age really physically and mentally ready for the challenges of introducing a foreign substance into their bodies? Is it a possibility that delaying some vaccines in some children may prevent certain conditions, not because the vaccine causes the condition, but because the body is not ready to handle it yet?
If 100 children are vaccinated and do not become autistic, but #101 does, is it possible that child #101 was not in the same physically developed state as the other 100? If not, then the poor child’s body may not have been ready for the elements in the vaccine to become part of the mix, and the result could be autism. Think of it as putting frosting on the cake while it is still in the oven: the cake isn’t ready, the frosting melts and the cake won’t keep rising.
We naturally assume that everything happens at the same time for everybody. This trait develops at age so-and-so, and that trait should appear by age whatever: if it really isn’t ready until age so-and-so and 24-48 hours from then, we can do damage to the underdeveloped system with its body clock just a few ticks slower than the rest of the field. I wonder if the medical field should be more flexible in these matters, and do some more research into the matter of timing with vaccines.
Of course, I’m not a medical professional, but sometimes questions like this arise, and it helps to bring them out so they can be answered. We have millions of innocent children out there who need protection from disease. At the same time, we don’t want to second guess how to do something just because of the way we mark age or time. Taking our time can often prevent mistakes, and when it comes to health, the future is a whole lot longer than whatever time we take to be a little more cautious.
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