In June 2010, there was an outbreak of pertussis (whooping cough) in California that reporters were calling the worst epidemic in 50 years. Although we’ve been vaccinating for pertussis for more than a half-century, California health officials’ answer was more vaccinations. They even went so far as to blame the outbreak on the increasing number of parents choosing not to vaccinate their children. This led to fear, fear, and more fear, as well as more confusion. Because you are more likely to wrestle with whether to vaccinate your children (or yourself) when a new school year starts, I’d like to share some information that you may not know about pertussis and give you some insights about the HPV (human papilloma virus) and meningitis vaccine.

Getting your child or yourself immunized is a culturally agreed-upon ritual, designed to shore up your first chakra. The first chakra, or first emotional center, of your body controls your bones, joints, bone marrow, blood, and immune system. (I’ve written all about how you can support first-chakra health in “Flourishing in Times of Transition," this month’s featured article in the Women’s Wisdom Circle.) The health of the first emotional center is directly dependent on two factors: your feelings of safety and security in the world, and your sense of belonging. This is the main reason it’s so difficult to question the immunization issue. You fear losing the approval of the “tribe” or being made to feel you’re a bad mother if you don’t immunize your child. A solid sense of personal safety and security, as well as information, is required to question what everyone else believes is best.¹

Most people don’t know that the pertussis vaccine doesn’t provide lifetime immunity! Unlike chicken pox, having the disease once doesn’t protect you from having it a second time. This is why I don’t believe there was an epidemic at all. According to my colleague Dr. Sherri Tenpenny, who I consider to be the foremost medical expert in vaccine safety, “Outbreaks of pertussis are cyclical and tend to peak every two to five years, regardless of the vaccination rate….” Further, “Your child can be fully vaccinated and still contract pertussis.”²

This negates accusations of California health officials who assert that when parents don’t vaccinate their children, they can create a rampant resurgence of diseases, like polio or pertussis. These conditions are thought to be under control because of mandatory vaccinations. Our society buys into something that Dr. Tenpenny calls herd immunity: If we vaccinate as many people as we can, especially the healthy ones, it will protect those who are young, elderly, and immuno-compromised. Unfortunately, this isn’t true. Just because you are healthy and vaccinated against pertussis, you can still carry the disease without knowing it and become sick or infect others.

Babies under six months of age are at risk the most for contracting pertussis and dying from it. Babies have very narrow bronchial passages, which block air flow to the lungs. Sadly, this causes death in some. Six died in California this year as of July 21, 2010. The CDC believes that these same children are at risk because they aren’t fully vaccinated before six months (if you follow the recommended vaccination schedule).

There’s much you can do to support your infant’s health, the most important of which is to breastfeed her. It’s well documented that breast milk contains antibodies against all kinds of germs a newborn is likely to encounter, organisms to which her mother is already resistant.

Donna, a member of Women’s Wisdom Circle, my online-resource-for-everything-under-the-sun, wrote to me about her daughter. Donna said her daughter had been diagnosed with HPV, and she was wondering if her daughter should get the HPV vaccine. My answer is probably not.

One of the reasons I’m against giving the HPV vaccine is, in over 90% of women, the immune system “clears” the virus (renders the virus inactive) after two years or so (often less), particularly in young women. These women are asymptomatic from then on. While there’s been so much press about HPV, the truth is that most people don’t even know they have it—and for most women it’s not likely to ever progress past a few abnormal pap smears! This is why the American College of Obstetricians & Gynecologists has just issued new guidelines saying that pap smears under the age of 21 do more harm than good. Many women under 21 have changes in their cervical cells from HPV that simply heal on their own without medical intervention.

The rationale to get the HPV vaccine after you’ve already been diagnosed with it is this: There are over 100 different strains of HPV; the vaccine allegedly protects you against four of these. Therefore, getting the vaccine may protect you against a strain that you haven’t already come in contact with.

Once you “catch” HPV, that strain stays in the body permanently, like a cold sore virus does. Although it’s with you for life, that doesn’t mean HPV always causes problems. Most of the time it simply remains dormant. When HPV is associated with abnormal cells, it means that something is “off” with the immune system. It’s well documented, for instance, that women who have had organ transplants and are on drugs that suppress immunity are at higher risk for abnormal pap smears. Smoking is another factor in suppressing immunity. There can also be unfinished emotional business in the second chakra around the issues of money, sex, and power that can adversely affect the immune system. Chronic stress can actually change the blood flow to the cervical tissue and its secretions.

I’m also concerned about the safety of the HPV vaccine, I’ve written often about its dangers, including the fact that the risk of an adverse reaction from the vaccine is about the same as the risk of dying from cervical cancer. Most people don’t realize that the incidence of cervical cancer in the U.S. has been falling for the past 30 years. And fewer than 5,200 people die of this cancer per year. Though it would be ideal if no one died of cervical cancer, you really have to ask yourself if this vaccine makes sense for all girls, given how small the risk really is. Besides, not all cervical cancers are associated with the HPV virus, so even if the vaccine was 100% effective (which it clearly isn’t), there are still going to be some cases of cervical cancer in fully-vaccinated women.

Instead of getting the vaccine, I recommend that you take a good vitamin/mineral supplement high in antioxidants, follow a low-glycemic diet, and do everything in your power to embrace and heal your sexuality.

The meningitis vaccine is one of the safer vaccines, because it’s acellular. That means there is no live virus in the vaccine. It’s also not preserved with mercury or other toxic material that are still in many vaccines. When my youngest daughter went to college, I threw in the towel and had her vaccinated. (I’m referring to the one given to college-age children, not infants.) It just wasn’t worth the fight with her school’s administration at the time. But I was ambivalent, and would have opted out if it had been easier to do.

The symptoms for meningitis, a bacterial infection, are very similar to the flu. Two things for to watch for are a rash and a stiff neck, which are not present with most flu viruses. The worry that most parents have with meningitis is that its onset is very rapid, and because it’s difficult to diagnose, children can go from healthy to severely ill (and even die) in a very short amount of time. If your child is away from home for the first time and she isn’t normally good at taking care of herself when she gets sick, you may want to consider getting her the vaccine. It’s not worth the angst.

The main reason kids get sick when they’re in college is they are run down. Meningitis is no different. Like pertussis and HPV, typically a child will be sick and recover—it’s not fatal. The main reason these adult children get sick is due to a shaky first chakra. They’re away from home for the first time, struggling to fit in, making new friends, living very different schedules, eating different foods, and so forth. Learn more about first-chakra health and how you can help your adult child adjust to her new environment in “Flourishing in Times of Transition.”

Most public health authorities contend that the overall benefit of vaccines for the “herd” is worth the price that some individuals pay. When it comes to my own children, I don’t agree. When it comes to your choices in medical care, it’ imperative that you have the courage to step away from the herd for a moment, do your research, and then decide what is right for you and your children.

Note: It is very difficult to find a balanced view of vaccines because their effectiveness and safety are sacrosanct in our culture. My colleague Dr. Sherri Tenpenny has done the best job of anyone I know in illuminating the other side of the coin, which we almost never hear about in mainstream medicine. To learn more, I recommend reading Dr. Tenpenny’s book Saying No to Vaccines and watching her Youtube presentations.