Health Articles
Vaccinations: The Facts
Posted on April 18, 2017 9:10 AM by Dr. Zimmer
There are few topics more polarizing than whether or not vaccinations, also known as immunizations, should be given to your children. One side passionately believes that the benefits of receiving vaccines clearly outweigh the risks. The other side feels just as strongly about the opposite position. Both sides feel that the other is being grossly misled.
The indisputable fact is that our children’s well-being is the most important concern. With that in mind, let me outline both sides of the argument and then give you my opinion. Keep in mind that I am only outlining some of the positions these groups have for or against the use of vaccinations. If I covered all of the aspects thoroughly this article would be 50 pages long!


The Medical Community’s View
I can tell you from personal experience that the medical community, as a whole, takes it as a kind of personal insult when anyone questions the validity of giving children multiple vaccinations. In their minds the issue of the great benefits vs. extremely small risks is not open for discussion. Their view is that any person with even a modicum of intelligence would not question the benefits of vaccinations. I can tell you of numerous incidences where doctors have even become visibly upset and verbally amplified when a parent suggests that they are considering not having their child receive the recommended vaccinations. Some even dismiss the child as a patient if they will not get vaccinations!

This begs the questions of, “Why?” Why do they get so upset? Why have they become so convinced of vaccine benefits? Why do they completely dismiss any concern of the risks involved with being vaccinated?

One reason why they get so upset is that they cannot understand how anyone can ignore the benefits of vaccinations. Prior to the widespread vaccination of children the number of cases for numerous diseases was quite high. For example, there were over 100,000 cases of Diphtheria per year; whereas now there are none. There were close to 500,000 cases of measles per year; now there are only a handful of cases each year. Smallpox has been eradicated. Polio has become a disease of the past. In the minds of the medical community these numbers prove, without a shadow of a doubt, that vaccinations are an effective and a necessary part of public health.

The next question is why the medical community, as a whole, ignores any of the risks involved with vaccinations. Those within the medical community will tell you that they do not ignore the risks involved with vaccination. They would contend that the risks are extremely low and basically negligible. And this attitude is definitely portrayed at any meeting with your doctor when it comes to discussing the topic of vaccination. You will hear how vital it is to get your child immunized and about the rarity of any potential side-effects. So, in the view of the medical community any fear about vaccines is unfounded and based on hysteria; not fact.

We will see…

The Vaccine Opponent’s View
Those who dislike vaccines are driven by the belief that there are few to no benefits from vaccines, but very real and significant side-effects. In their view vaccines cause everything from Autism to death and many ailments in between. A good number of those who are vigilantly opposed to vaccines have had children who experienced some sort of reaction after they received a dose of vaccine. NOTHING motivates a person more to take up a cause against something than when one of their children has been hurt.

Most opponents argue that vaccines are not effective and point to a number of facts that support this assertion. First, they point to the fact that the Polio epidemic was actually starting to decline naturally before the Polio vaccine was introduced. In other words, administering of the Polio vaccine was not begun until the number of new polio cases had already started to decrease dramatically, as is the case for the normal course of any epidemic. Next, they point to the fact that people who have received vaccinations actually can and do get the diseases for which they have been immunized.

Another major concern for vaccine opponents deals with the “stuff” found in vaccines. Vaccines may contain toxic substances including mercury, aluminum, and formaldehyde; to name only a few. Although these are supplied in very small amounts, opponents to vaccines blame these ingredients for the onset of a wide variety of disease states.

The other aspect of vaccination programs, which opponents dislike, is that they are basically forced upon the majority of the population. Their bottom-line view is that vaccines are forced upon the population for reasons of making money and have little to do with the safety of our children.

We will see…

Dr. Zimmer’s View
I think the best way for me to begin is to tell you what I think right off of the bat. That way you know exactly where I am coming from and you won’t have to spend any energy trying to figure me out. I will provide support for my views after I state them.
  • I believe the evidence is compelling that most vaccines are effective at protecting against the diseases for which they were intended. An exception would be the flu vaccine, which is close to worthless.
  • I believe that the protection provided by most vaccines lasts for only a limited number of years. The evidence also suggests that the immunity we got from our childhood vaccinations has decreased and may not be protective at all in a good number of adults; if not the majority.
  • I believe that we are forcing children to get way too many vaccines and at too early an age.
  • I believe that vaccines are no where near as safe as is claimed by the pharmaceutical industry and health professionals.
  • I believe that the reason why doctors get upset when a patient suggests that they may want to forgo vaccines has little to do with their genuine concern for your child’s health, as will be the claim. It has to do with bruised egos and an incomplete knowledge of the facts.
  • I believe that the government’s forcing of our children to receive vaccinations has very little to do with protecting children. It has to do with making money.
O.K., now let’s go through the reasons why I hold these beliefs. I think you will find that my positions are based on facts and sound logic. If you think otherwise, please let me know.

Vaccines Are Effective (mostly):
It is very hard to support the argument that vaccines do not work at all. The number of disease cases before widespread vaccinations compared to now gives strong evidence that vaccines can be effective. I have never seen a case of polio, but I know at least six 50+ year olds who got polio as a kid and are disabled because of the disease. How many people do you know who contracted polio in the last 10 years? My guess is that your answer is none.

Now the opponents to vaccines will argue that we are not seeing cases, in part, because we are in a naturally occurring low prevalence time between epidemics. That argument might hold more water if other diseases were not so significantly affected by vaccines. Smallpox is gone thanks to vaccinations. The number of cases of Diphtheria, Measles, Mumps, Pertussis, and Rubella are few as compared to their prevalence prior to vaccinations. I think taking the stance that all or most vaccines are not effective is not supported by the facts.

Vaccine Protection Fades:
There have been numerous outbreaks of diseases for which the population has been vaccinated. This includes the diseases Mumps, Measles and Pertussis (whooping cough). For example, in 2017 there was a significant outbreak of Mumps at the University of Minnesota Twin Cities campus. There were 41 cases of mumps where 39 (95%) of the students were fully vaccinated for Mumps!

In another mumps outbreak at Butler University in 2016, 100% of the students had received two doses of the mumps vaccine. This gives pretty good evidence that there is decreasing disease protection from the vaccinations we received as kids.

Here is a quote from Dr. Amy Middleman, at the time medical doctor and assistant professor of pediatrics at Baylor College of Medicine:
"After the immunization series is completed by age six, Pertussis immunization is rarely discussed at healthcare visits. Few parents realize that the protection from the Pertussis immunization wears off after five to 10 years, leaving teens vulnerable to whooping cough."
Thus, if unprotected people are the reason for the spread of these diseases, we should see them running rampant since the majority of vaccines anyone 20 years or older received as children have worn off!  One thing we know for sure is that vaccine effectiveness fades. The negative effect on public health is clearly not as grave as the pharmaceutical industry wants you to believe. It is grave, however, to their bottom line.
We Are Forcing Too Many Vaccines On Our Children:
In 1983 the CDC recommending only 23 doses of 7 vaccines between two months and age six. The government is now recommending (intimidating is a better term) that parents allow their children to get 50 doses of 14 different vaccinations from the DAY OF BIRTH through age six! They recommend 69 doses of 16 vaccines between birth and 18 years of age!

That is a lot of shots. The question is whether or not it is worth giving your child all of these vaccines. I think after you read the next sections you may begin to question the true motivation for these recommendations. Here comes the information that may cause you to become very uneasy with vaccines.

Vaccines Are Nowhere Near As Safe As You Have Been Led To Believe:
The pharmaceutical industry has a vested interest in creating a picture of vaccines as safe. Here is how they portray the safety of vaccines for “worried” parents in a pharmaceutical flier “What To Expect Guide To Immunizations.”.

“While reactions do sometimes occur with some vaccines (such as soreness or redness where the shot was given, fussiness, or a low-grade fever), the vast majority of these reactions are mild and short-lived. Serious reactions are exceptionally uncommon.”

Notice how they use words like sometimes, some, vast majority, short-lived and exceptionally uncommon. These words give the impression that any worries you have as a parent are being made over something of little importance. An honest statement would read more like this:

“While reactions do commonly occur with ALL vaccines (such as soreness or redness where the shot was given, fussiness, or low-grade fever), the vast majority of these reactions are mild and short-lived. Serious reactions including the need for E.R. visits, hospitalizations, permanent impairment, and death are exceptionally uncommon, but do occur.”

When you read the first intentionally misleading paragraph, you get the feeling that your concerns about vaccine safety are indeed misplaced. After reading the revised and more accurate paragraph you would be much more apt to ask your doctor further, more probing questions. This is not welcomed because in the minds of the medical community the topic is not open for discussion. So, anything that causes you to ask more questions is just a waste of their time.

Now, let me give you the facts.

The CDC (Centers for Disease Control) has a website for the reporting of adverse reactions associated with vaccines. It is called VAERS (Vaccine Adverse Event Reaction System). Here is the link:

The number of reported adverse vaccine reactions over a 10 year period of time is staggering. Keep in mind that these are only the reported reactions. I know a number of people who have called their doctor to inquire whether an observed reaction could be related to the vaccination their child received only to be told that it was probably something else that coincidentally occurred at the same time. None of these reactions get reported. Also keep in mind that these numbers come from the CDC, not from some loony website. Check out the website for yourself.

Before you look at the numbers below you need to know a couple of limitations regarding this information gathered by the CDC. These reports of adverse reactions come after a child was vaccinated and then developed a symptom. It is possible that the development of some of these cases were coincidental to the timing of the child receiving the vaccine. But, in reality, what are the chances that a relatively healthy child receives a vaccine and then needs to be hospitalized or dies simply due to coincidence? Simple coincidence or causative? I think that the number of coincidences has to be extremely low; if not negligible.

In addition, you have to know that some of these numbers are reflected in other numbers. For example, the number of Prolonged Hospitalizations is also part of the number for Hospitalizations. The point is that you cannot add up the numbers in each category to come up with a total number of all adverse events. The exception is with death and permanent disability. Obviously, these can be added as they are not associated. My suggestion is that you just contemplate the total numbers for each event.
CDC Reported Averse Events Over Recent 10 Year Period for:
DTaP (Diphtheria, Tetanus, Pertussis), HIBV (Haemophilus Influenza B), Hepatitis B & A, Polio, Measles, Mumps, Rubella, Rotavirus, Varicella (Chicken Pox)
Vaccine Related Event Age <6 months 6-11 months
Total Yearly Average
Child Death 1,752 211 234 18 31 2,246 225
Life Threatening 940 306 718 400 246 2,610 261
Permanent Disability 504 237 918 257 217 2,133 213
Hospitalizations 4,753 1,245 3,297 1,378 807 11,480 1,148
Prolonged Hospital. 202 58 99 40 46 445 44
Emergency Room 10,588 4,234 22,595 20,449 8,355 66,221 6,622
Not Serious 18,719 7,488 43,868 47,924 19,476 137,475 13,748

Let these numbers sink in for a moment.

Now let me ask you a couple of questions to put this into a different perspective. If there was an herb that gave short-term protection from a group of mostly non-deadly diseases, but also caused over 6,000 children to go to the E.R. each year, permanently disabled over 200 children per year, caused over 200 deaths per year in children, and caused over 1,000 children to be hospitalized per year; would the U.S. government allow it to even grow on this planet? Let’s take it even one step further. Would they describe this herb as being extremely safe and would they consider the 200 deaths per year acceptable enough to call it a “rare” occurrence? You and I know very well that not one of the medical doctors who tell you that vaccinations are extremely safe would ever consider giving you anything natural that had the above number of reported events associated with its use. Keep in mind if you are thinking, "But, how many lives are saved by these vaccines", that most of these vaccines are NOT for deadly diseases! So, very few lives are saved by the majority of vaccines.

Why doctors get so upset when you refuse vaccinations:
I can tell you the medical community really believes that vaccinations are vital to your child’s health. I can also tell you that the medical community is willfully and stubbornly ignorant when it comes to vaccine facts. I have never met the vaccine advocate (doctor, physician assistant, nurse practitioner, or nurse) who knows specific facts about the adverse reactions related to vaccines. Next time you see your health professional ask them if there are any vaccines they have concerns over. Almost always the answer is "none." This alone tells you that they are nothing more than biased advocates on the subject.

They do not acknowledge that many of the diseases for which we vaccinate (measles, mumps, chicken pox) are not by any means deadly. But, they commonly employ "scare tactics" regarding the potential "dangers" involved with not getting those vaccines. They have absolutely no idea of how many children die, are hospitalized, are permanently injured, or go to the E.R. each year because of vaccine adverse reactions. They simply parrot back the mindless mantra of "adverse reactions are very rare". I can tell you that they are typically shocked and question the validity of the numbers when they hear the truth! They have no idea how many people would have to contract these diseases to match the amount injured by the vaccines. Read my article on Whooping Cough to learn about this topic. They completely dismiss any correlation between behavior problems and vaccines and always claim that this subject has been studied and proven to have no correlation. Yet, this is simply not true. Read the statement by CDC whistleblower Dr. William Thompson regarding the CDC destroying information that showed a correlation between the MMR vaccine and Autism. 
So, if your medical health professionals do not know any of this information, how on this green earth can they tell you that the benefits outweigh the risks? They do not know these numbers because they will not listen to any negative information when it comes to the topic of vaccinations.
The real reason why doctors get so upset when you refuse to get vaccines is not because they fear for the safety of your child. They have no idea of any specific benefits versus the risks. The reason they get so upset is because you are questioning one of the absolute truths in medicine. The medical community mindset is that the only people who question vaccines are either quacks, nutty T.V. personalities or unintelligent people. Thus, it really comes down to the bruising of their egos. The collective thought is: How dare you question our expert and educated opinion on a subject that cannot be questioned? They are simply willfully and stubbornly ignorant on the subject of vaccines.
The Real Reason Why We Force Vaccinate Our Children:
By their own admission, the medical community agrees that the diseases for which we vaccinate are not prevalent. The chance of your child getting any of these diseases is so low that no parent should harbor any concern for their child. The chance of them dying after contracting one of these diseases is negligible. No honest health professional can argue with the validity of these statements. Yet, they continue to convey the opposite in order to scare parents into believing otherwise.
So, tell me again why we continue to kill and disable over 400 children per year? Since the late 1990’s we have destroyed the lives of over 4,000 children, including their parents, siblings, and grandparents. I guess it is not a big deal unless you are one of those 4,000 families.

The argument that will be put forth is that the reason why these diseases are not around is because of the wide-spread vaccination program. This is true, in some cases. I do not completely disagree with this argument but I say, so what! The fact is that our children are not currently at risk. Thank you, vaccines, for doing your job. Your services are no longer needed. We will call you when you are needed again.

Why do we not just wait until we see an increase in these diseases and then begin to mass vaccinate? We would only have to subject our children to a few vaccinations every now and then instead of barraging their immature immune systems to 50 doses of at least 14 vaccines!

The reason we continue our current vaccination program has NOTHING to do with concern for your child’s health. Can you guess the real reason? I bet you can.

Let me prove to you that the current vaccination program has nothing to do with what is good for your child. All we have to do is to look at the recommended Hepatitis B vaccination, which they are insanely giving to newborns (usually the day after birth). There are realistically only 3 ways that your child will be at risk for contracting Hepatitis B.
  • The first is if you have Hepatitis B and you give it to your infant during the birthing process. They can test you for Hepatitis B to rule this one out.
  • The second is if your child develops an intravenous drug problem and shares needles with the neighbor’s kids.
  • The third is if your child practices aberrant sexual activity causing blood to be exchanged.

If there is a doctor anywhere on this planet who thinks that your child is at real risk for developing Hepatitis B, we should send him or her to be the personal physician for the president of Iran. How incredibly ridiculous is it that doctors are actually urging parents to have a Hepatitis B vaccine injected into their newborn babies? They have NO expectation that your child is at risk. What is even more disturbing is that the Hepatitis B vaccine has been implicated in causing an increase in Multiple Sclerosis (M.S.) symptoms in children. Of course there are dueling studies arguing whether this is true or not. WHO CARES!? Stop giving this unneeded and dangerous vaccine tomorrow. DO NOT LET THEM INJECT YOUR NEWBORN WITH THIS VACCINE!

So, why would any caring doctor ever tell a parent to give their child this vaccine?  They cannot argue that it benefits your child in any manner in light of the most recent studies showing that vaccines loose effectiveness after about 10 years. So, I ask again…why would any caring doctor ever tell a parent to give their child this vaccine? The answer is that they suffer from willful and stubborn ignorance.

The real reason why the medical community now tells parents to get the Hepatitis B shot is because of money. The people who are at the highest risk of contracting Hepatitis B are highly unlikely to voluntarily get the vaccine. The pharmaceutical company cannot make any profit from this vaccine because of this fact. Thus, the pharmaceutical industry targeted their marketing at our politicians convincing them that this was a vital vaccine for our population to receive. Of course, they convinced them that the vaccine was extremely safe and that the eventual reduction in Hepatitis B would be economically beneficial to health care costs in the long-run. The problem is that no one knows whether this is true or not! In fact, it is most likely not true. Now, the pharmaceutical industry makes many millions of dollars off a dangerous and unnecessary vaccine.

What Can You Do?
It is extremely difficult to go against the grain when it comes to vaccinations. You are going to be belittled and ridiculed if you even suggest that you do not want to get your child vaccinated. Your doctors, school nurses, family members and friends who live within the herd mentality of willful and stubborn ignorance will try to make you feel like you are the one that has the wacky thinking. You will have a nightmare time when you have to send your child to school, unless you decide to home school your child. This is not an option for most. As I see it you have one of three choices:
  1. You can cave in to the pressure keeping your fingers crossed in the hopes that your son or daughter does not become one of the many thousands of children who experience a life threatening vaccine side effect. Put that gun against their head and pull the trigger. Good luck! The odds are actually in your favor.
  2. You can agree to have your child receive some vaccinations, but for sure forego the Hepatitis B, Chicken Pox, and Gardasil vaccines. If you decide to go down this path of only allowing a few vaccines, I want you to look again at the Adverse Events table.  Take a look at the number of events and then at the age of the child vaccinated. What do you notice? The number of adverse events reduces significantly with age. In just about every category, the older the child the fewer the problems. My recommendation is that if you just don’t have it in you to fight the system and you have to give in, wait until your child is at least 3 years old before you start vaccinations.
  3. You can decide not to have your child vaccinated. You are going to have to create a plan of attack for when your child becomes of school age. Most states have built in religious exemptions and exemptions for high risk children. You will have to check your state’s laws and formulate a letter if you are going to go down the religious exemption route. You will more than likely still have a battle depending upon the attitude of your school nurse and administration. You should investigate and research the information from as many anti-vaccination websites as possible. Here is a good one to check out:
Just know that when you buck the vaccination system you are in for a bumpy ride. Stand your ground. Force your doctor, nurse, friends and family to answer the questions I posed in this article. Force them to realize that the position they hold is not based on all of the facts, just unchallenged beliefs. They will back down on their rhetoric once they know that you are not going to just swallow the party line.
Unfortunately, some self-serving egotists will dismiss your child from their care. Let them know that you do not appreciate their attempt at intimidation and that pediatricians are a dime a dozen. I wish you the best of luck in protecting your child. I hope I have provided you with some useful insights. Please email me with your thoughts.

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