From the website The Greater Good:
A Documentary Film
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THE GREATER GOOD MOVIE
Death By Vaccine – Full Documentary from Jason on Vimeo.
THE GREATER GOOD looks behind the fear, hype and politics that have polarized the vaccine debate in America today. The film re-frames the emotionally charged issue and offers, for the first time, the opportunity for a rational and scientific discussion on how to create a safer and more effective vaccine program.
{ 7 comments… read them below or add one }
Anyone who is still resisting vaccines because they “cause autism” or “are unhealthy” is not only stupid, they are contributing to the illness and death of small children across the nation. VACCINES ARE NOT DANGEROUS. Parents refusing to vaccinate because they choose to believe misinformation, bad information, and outright lies are the dangerous ones.
Hi Michelle,
Thank you for your passionate comment, its much appreciated. I must ask though, did you watch the whole film or are you just giving opinion based on vaccine literature and dogma?
I’m not sure if I am more offended by the fact that many of these modern day vaccinations are seemingly pushed upon us and our children so that drug companies can make money or the whole mandatory vaccination agenda. It’s sad, really sad that something that was originally invented to help with serious issues is now just another way for companies to make money off the uninformed masses. This was a good video, I knew about much of this but learned a lot a few new things as well. Thank you for sharing this. Like the lady said “show us the science and give us the choice.”
Absolutely Mike. I don’t vaccinate my children and my grand daughter has never been vaccinated either. As my children come of the age when they can themselves make informed decisions, I have left it up to them as to whether they should be vaccinated. Of course I would prefer for them not to take part in the vaccine schedule, but as adults it is completely their choice and freewill to do so. I just want people to be informed about what vaccines are about and to see the vaccine debate from both sides of the fence.
I followed my convictions when it came to my grand daughter, and if I would have caved in to the pressures the doctors were laying on me (some even refused us medical care and attention of our special needs child because we refused to vaccinate), this grand baby of mine would be dead. She has life threatening food allergies since BIRTH which would have immediately caused a reaction from the first injection, and she has neurological problems as well. Her neurological problems are NOT attributed to vaccines but what would have been the affect on her had I let them inject her? Would she just become collateral damage? She has only been sick four times in the 4 1/2 years of her life. She has never had an ear infection and the colds she does get disappear as quickly as they they may come. Her immune system is excellent, despite the fact that she is a special needs toddler.
We all need to be able to make informed decisions. I have read more mommy blogs about how their children are constantly ill and suffering terribly with ear infections, constant colds and they will always attribute it to the daycare center or school. They never question the immunizations or the long term affects it could be having on their children. They just chalk it up to “so and so in school was sick and that’s how my kid got it,” but it doesn’t make up for the fact that doctors are pressuring parents to vaccinate children because it will raise their immunity to such colds and flu issues and yet for all the immunizations parents faithfully have administered, their children are suffering terribly. Not all children, but you have to wonder why some children suffer more than others (as the film touches on). Why should children suffer with ear infection after ear infection, grow increasingly antibiotic resistant and the child is in pain, but the parent is unwilling to look at the fact that it could be the vaccinations? Is it pride that keeps them in denial? Instead of looking into this issue, they take the child from specialist to specialist getting second and third opinions about whether ear tubes should be placed in the affected child’s ears. Yet, on the other hand, I’ve also known parents who vaccinate their children and no adverse affects are found. Is this an anomaly? Hardly, and as the film describes, vaccinations right now are a one size fits all type schedule, not taking into account the family history, medical history or any other factors that may affect the child’s health if said one size fits all schedule was given. If however, doctors were allowed to review the family history as well as medical history, doctors and parents can make more informed decisions on which vaccine schedule will serve best the child. In the age of information, more intelligent discussion and debate is needed, not less, about this topic. Its simply not a cut and dry issue that will be resolved anytime soon. All we can do is keep the channels of communication open and learn all we can for good and bad about the topic.
Angela, I would love to read a synopsis of the documentary. One of my weirdnesses is that I find video to be boring and difficult to watch, but I really want to know what’s in this documentary.
We don’t vaccinate our children, and the threat of autism is a hardly noticeable drop in the sea of reasons. Everyone I know who chooses not to vaccinate has invested a great deal of time educating themselves and understanding the issues around vaccination and general health–more, I would dare say, than most people. To equate the anti-vaccination movement with stupidity or recklessness is at best disingenuous.
Here are a couple of completely autism-free reasons not to vaccinate:
* The modern vaccine schedule is roughly four times the size of the schedule used when we were children and these new drugs have never been submitted to long-term testing to determine their safety–essentially, the pharmaceutical industry (and the govt & physician groups that back them) is treating an entire generation of children as guinea pigs to test a stew of man-made and naturally derived chemicals and substances that have never before in the history of mankind been injected into the human body. Oh, and they’re making a crap load of money at it, too.
* The human immune system is designed (evolved, whatever) to balance robustly between the ability to quickly defeat specific known threats (those that it has been exposed to and developed specific immune responses for) and effectively (but more slowly) defeat general threats that are not yet known. When we tell our systems what to plan for in terms of known threats (i.e., when we vaccinate heavily), we deplete its resources for attacking general unknown threats… and therefore leave ourselves more vulnerable to any new disease or epidemic that may unfurl.
Think of it this way: You have an army of 100 city guardians, and you can assign each one a task. You may train some soldiers to be exceptionally good at defeating specific threats (maybe wolves, say, or Vikings). The others you may train to be generally good at everything. Those who specialize can never be used against anything except the threat they are trained to defend against, but when attacked by that enemy they are so fast that the enemy almost never gets through. The others can defend against anything, but it may take them some time to learn and adapt to new threats, and a few enemies may get past their defenses. It stands to reason that you would want a good balance between defenders who can quickly defeat your most dangerous and common enemies, and those who can respond to anything that comes along, right? What happens if you start increasing the numbers of soldiers dedicated to specific enemies? At first, not much–you can still defend pretty effectively against other enemies as they come along. But eventually, along the way, you discover that your overall resistance to enemies is starting to diminish because you simply don’t have enough defenders to give them all specific jobs, and you are running out of defenders who can handle pretty much anything…
Obviously, the human immune system is not exactly like that city with its 100 defenders. We can build immune response through healthy diet and exercise, or compromise it through lack of sleep or exposure to extreme temperatures, so it’s clear that our immune systems are somewhat flexible. However, several studies have shown (and common sense supports the notion) that in fact there is not a limitless supply of immune response. That the more specific immune responses you “train” for (whether through vaccination or natural exposure), the fewer general immune cells your body can produce, therefore reducing your ability to respond to new immune threats. To me, that’s pretty scary.
And that’s just the tip of the iceberg–I’d be here all night typing if I were to try to provide a comprehensive list. And for anyone who wishes to accuse un-vaccinators of endangering others, I’d like to point out that on the flip side, I could as easily accuse vaccinators with endangering children. Case in point: Nobody knows what is going to happen in 20 years when immunity to chicken pox wears off in the children we are vaccinating today. A case of chicken pox is extremely dangerous to adults, but merely a nuisance to (most) children. Unvaccinated children, right along with vaccinated children, are unable to gain the permanent, lifelong immunity afforded by catching the disease, because it’s simply not around any more (for the most part). At some point, we are going to have an entire generation of adults who never had chicken pox and whose injection-based immunity has worn off… and we may well have a heck of a lot of very very sick grown-ups. I could accuse vaccinators of threatening my children by partaking of this madness and making it impossible for my children to acquire life-long immunity to the disease.
But I won’t, and I don’t. Because the questions and the answers are not clear-cut. This is not a question of whether I’m sending my children to school with loaded guns and a bad attitude, or you sending your children to school with anthrax in their pockets. This is a question of how to balance the amazing inventions and progress of modern science and medicine with the necessity to test and understand effects before mass application… it’s a question of very personal choices about our children’s health… and, if we want this to have a good ending for all involved, it’s a question of conversing respectfully and thoughtfully and listening to all points of view. And then, frankly, it’s a matter of respecting each other enough to accept that we may look at the same data and still come to very different decisions.
It’s also important to remember that truly, we are all in this together. We all want what is best for our own children AND for other children. We all want to live in a healthy world with healthy families and children who grow up strong and well. Maybe if we find a way to look into each others’s hearts and then really listen, we can learn from each other and each make the decisions that are best for our own families, while still respecting and caring for each other.
Heather my darling, as usual you do not disappoint! All I can say is brava to your comment and point of view and taking the time to write! I actually don’t think you even need to see the film because each of the things you touched on are in the film.
I felt that the film gave a balanced approach for them to let Dr. Offit weigh in throughout the course of the movie.
The movie is a bit slow, but if you can find the full movie with subtitles, you could probably turn the sound off and just view it that way. I did look for the manuscript, but I didn’t find it online.
I live in Canada and here it is a little different. This scares me quite a bit