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Paint the nursery pink or blue? Choose cloth or disposable diapers? Go with the name you love, or honour your dear aunt? To vaccinate or not to vaccinate?

The first three are relatively benign questions, but whether your child should be vaccinated against the common childhood diseases such as diphtheria, tetanus, pertussis, polio, rubella, measles, mumps, and hepatitis B, is a far more serious decision.

The vaccination question, usually framed as a debate between pro-vaccination and anti-vaccination camps, tends to miss the essential point: what is the best method of
preventing these common childhood diseases?

Debate–the Issues

The debate pits two very distinct groups against each other. One group believes that disease prevention is best accomplished through hygiene, nutrition, and other natural measures to strengthen the immune system generally (immune support) while the other believes that the best approach is through the more direct means of stimulating a specific immune reaction using a small dose of a particular disease-causing agent (vaccination). The natural health field supports the first, while the conventional medical system largely promotes the second.

In reality, both immune support and specific immunization measures are useful and desirable. Everyone understands the benefits of eating and living healthily; and the concept of artificially provoking the immune system with an artificial disease agent as a preventive measure is sound and resonant with natural medicine.

This concept has been understood for centuries; our pioneer ancestors used weak teas of poison ivy in the spring, for example, to protect themselves against poison ivy reactions when clearing the land.

Vaccination–the Challenges

The problem is not with the concept of immunization but with how it is administered. Conventional vaccinations use material doses of both the pathogen (such as measles virus), along with chemical preservatives. These ingredients may include thimerosal, formaldehyde, acetone, and aluminum phosphate, although Health Canada states that all childhood vaccines are now available without thimerosal.

These chemical preservatives may, in themselves, be a challenge to our immune systems. In
the US, the Food and Drug Administration’s VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Effects Reporting System) has received over 123,000 reports of adverse reactions since its inception in 1990. There have been studies linking childhood vaccinations containing the chemical preservative thimerosal with autism.

In 1998 Dr. Andrew Wakefield and his colleagues at Royal Free Hospital in London, England, found a link between the MMR vaccine and gut inflammation in autistic children, a link that has since been corroborated by Dr. Arthur Krigsman of New York University’s School of Medicine, and also by pathologists at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland.

Given these serious concerns about conventional vaccinations, the debate among pro- or
anti-vaccination camps should focus instead on how best to protect ourselves against disease. Prevention starts with good health and a strong immune system. This involves good lifestyle choices: sufficient sleep, activity, and nutrition. To bolster the immune system, there is a natural, safe, nontoxic method of immunization used by various natural health practitioners, including those practising Heilkunst.

Heilkunst–a Natural Approach

While there is a great deal of concern about the conventional medical approach to immunization, there is a safer alternative offered by Heilkunst, the system of medicine founded by Dr. Samuel Hahnemann (1755-1843), which includes homeopathy.

Dr. Hahnemann established, along with other observers before and since, that large, crude doses of poisons were dangerous and could cause damage or death, particularly if injected directly into the bloodstream. So he sought to make medicines safer, finding that very small doses still offered protection without causing adverse effects, the vaccine’s so-called “side-effects.”

Dr. Hahnemann also noticed that sensitivity to a given substance, particularly poisons, varies substantially; some people are very sensitive even to small doses. This can then provoke a shock to the system, causing all manner of negative reactions. Thus, what appears easily tolerated by one child can seriously destabilize another.

Dr. Hahnemann found that the same substance that will cure a disease on the law of similars (homeopathy) will also act preventively in those not yet affected or threatened.

Patty Smith, DMH, DVH, HD(RHom), is the co-author of the new book, Autism: The Journey Back, Rediscovering the Self Through Heilkunst (Hahnemann Center for Heilkunst, 2005). heilkunst.com

Source: alive #293, March 2007