One of the first things a new parent is asked to take care of – is vaccination. Especially, the polio vaccine among others. The recent news stating that contaminated polio drops have been administered to 1.1 lakh children in Agra district is appalling! These polio vials were apparently contaminated with type 2 polio virus, a strain that has been eradicated in our country and has not been seen for the past two decades. Most of these contaminated vials were sent to Uttar Pradesh, Telangana and Maharashtra, states a news report by The Times of India. Are lives of children so inexpensive? Are safety and quality controls, of something so critical, not strong enough? Is our children’s health at the mercy of pharmaceutical companies? This issue perhaps got exposed due to the large number of children who were affected. Does that mean other vaccines might have contamination too, the effects of which go unnoticed? “Polio Vaccine Contamination puts 1 in 2 Lakh children at risk, that's not dangerous.” – says an article on Firstpost authored by the Chairman and practicing Neoonatologist at the Cloudnine Group of Hospitals. This article seems to suggest that the matter is not so unnerving as it is made out to be. May be, statistically that’s true but why should even one child be affected negatively because of a vaccine? What if that child is ours? Is there a way to check the quality of vaccine before it is administered to our child (after all, it is made by humans in a factory and the possibility of error can’t be ruled out)? Do we know what vaccines contain (In case of food, we can atleast read the labels)? The matter is too broad and deep at the same time and can leave us feeling helpless. What young parents can perhaps do is arm themselves with information and be more aware before making decisions on vaccination for those innocent, little lives they are nurturing. What do we know about vaccines and what we do not? What we understand so far about how vaccines work - By way of vaccination, a regulated amount of disease-causing-microbes (antigens), whose disease producing power has been destroyed, are introduced in the body. Medical experts claim that by doing so, we are equipping the body to arm itself with the requisite protection. It can then identify and secure itself against any future attacks from that antigen by creating antibodies (the warriors of our immune system). This is the definition you will find in any school text book too. We decided to probe into this matter a bit more than what’s apparent and found a few startling facts that we are compelled to share.

The Secret Ingredients in Vaccines:

The current vaccine schedule exposes children to exponentially higher levels of all kinds of toxic components, ranging from heavy metals to puss and animal by products. According to the drug companies, to manufacture a vaccine, the specific disease is first grown in a culture and then its bacteria or virus is inactivated. What we don't know much about is that Vaccines also contain - * Antibiotics that are known to cause allergic reactions. * Heavy Metals and Chemicals that are toxic and have not been evaluated for human consumption by any means. They are a known cause for seizures, brain damage, dementia, cancer. * ANIMAL BY-PRODUCTS (used as culture medium) that are foreign proteins and can trigger serious allergic and inflammatory reactions leading to death. * Dead/Inactive virus and the culture medium - The so-called weakened virus can stay inactive for many years in the body. When they become active, many experts believe they are responsible for autoimmune disorders. This has been published by The Health Awareness Centre in Mumbai.  How do vaccines impact us that we are not told about? In our process of investigation, we met Jagannath Chatterjee, a victim of vaccine injury himself. His own journey has catapulted him into an activist trying to spread awareness about the risks of vaccination.  His article How Vaccines can Damage Children states – “When you vaccinate your child it suffers from a condition known as immunotoxicity. It is an allergy like condition whereby the child repeatedly falls prey to infection like illnesses. Stimulating the infant immune system that is ordinarily designed to be passive leads to hyper allergies and autoimmune disorders. A process known as cytokine storm is initiated which can cause extremely high fevers and brain/ organ damage. Though, as parents, we aren’t aware or don’t often read the labels of vaccines but the risks are mentioned therein too. If this is true, then how come are they effective in eradicating so many diseases globally, as proclaimed? “Official data have shown that large-scale vaccinations undertaken in the US have failed to obtain any significant improvement over the diseases against which they were supposed to provide protection” said Dr. Albert Sabin, M.D. (creator of the oral polio vaccine) in a lecture to Italian doctors in Piacenza, Italy on December 7, 1985. Jagannath Chatterjee shared with us (data compiled from various sources) that around 248 serious disorders and disabilities as per around 500 published studies. The Government of India concedes that its vaccination programme has killed 10,612 children in 10 years and causes upwards of 600,000 adverse effects that are not followed up. These include several diseases, mental health issues, and have also been linked to autism and cancer. Deaths only within 72 hours are recorded. We were shocked to discover that several cases, of vaccine injury, have been reported worldwide. http://www.vigiaccess.org/ allows us to look up data on any cases that have been caused by administration of drugs, including vaccines. What does everyone say about it? Well, the battle is fierce. You wouldn’t find a regular doctor on the street who would advise against vaccines or atleast ask you to make an informed choice. We spoke to a few parents who have willingly chosen to keep their child away from vaccines, after having done their due diligence on the risks of vaccination. The said parents strongly believe that nutrition plays a far exceeding role in their children’s health and they are cautious about every morsel their child eats. A senior pediatrician based in Mumbai admitted that his grandchildren have never been vaccinated. No pediatrician practising allopathic medicine has been known to explain the risks of vaccination, as apparently they have to be compliant with the norms of Indian Academy of Pediatricians (IAP). However, few homeopaths have been known to have advised against vaccination. On social media platforms, there are several forums that advocate stopping mandatory vaccination, or re-educating people about vaccination and there are several parents coming forward to share stories of vaccine injury. Though there’s hardly any unanimity on this matter amongst the medical fraternity, there’s no denial on the risks of vaccines. In case you want to study this matter further, there’s a lot of data and research presented here about the case against vaccination. While we are not asking you to feel guilty of about vaccinating your child, there’s certainly a need for introspection. Are vaccines really so critical to prevent diseases? Or, is there more to good health in the long term? We aren’t closing this one on a happy note but for something that’s seemingly such a universal truth for young children starting right at birth, we have only half-baked information. Isn’t fair, right? It may also interest you to read - Is Gripe Water Safe For Babies A Letter To My Pregnant Self & Perfectionist Moms to Be 5 Best Baby Prams And Strollers In India