Vaccines

I have been struggling with making official mother like decisions lately. Largely I follow my instincts and things turn out great....but when it comes to things like vaccines it is hard for me...so much is at risk. Johnny is on the recommend AAP vaccine schedule, we didn't delay or split up anything and it has worked out great for us...however that is not true for everyone. Here is a website I took from Mac's blog (see side bar) ( thanks Mac's mom :)

http://iansvoice.org/default.aspx

Ian died of a sever reaction to the Hep B vaccine which is recommend to be given before the child leaves the hospital. This is a 1 in 1.1 million chance...but it happened and it scares the crap out of me. Be careful when you look at this page...the pictures of this adorable perfect little boy can be hard to see.
On the same website the mother of Ian who lost her son to a vaccine posted an article from Newsweek about the lack of trust in AAP and the vaccine schedule.

http://iansvoice.org/Blog.aspx

I thought it was very insightful. Ian's mom wrote "Parents-please pay attention to both sides of the topic, your child's life could count on it!" Though this article focuses on the autism scare, it has the same effect for all vaccines. I don't want to follow blindly anything when it comes to Johnny, I want questions answered and information given and found...but on that same note I need to be able to trust scientist and pediatricians that they have my child's and all children s best interests in mind and that they "recommend" what is truly best from all angles. I can't imagine Johnny not being able to show his true intelligence because he came down with autism because I didn't know enough about vaccines, but also I can't imagine him dieing of a preventable disease because I didn't let him get a vaccine because I was afraid of a autism.

On the same note is the BPA scare that came to light a few weeks after Johnny was born. How am I supposed to know what chemicals will leach into my son's food and how those will effect him without people who know what they are talking about...people get paid to know and research these things. The BPA was easy, we switched bottles (now thank goodness most companies are removing the BPA without being told to) but delaying vaccines is much harder and fighting with your pediatrician is not fun, especially when they are military officers.
Here are my facts as I see them. While researching vaccines it is hard to pull fact from people who are stretching stats and using very persuasive language. My son is healthy, I am blessed.

Added two hours after original post

I was reading more and there are families who are homeschooling their kids in order to avoid vaccines all together...this thought makes me panic a little...what do they know that we don't. Home schooling is such a big undertaking and changes children's lives in so many ways. We had thought about it, but I don't trust me enough :) (i got the rest of this info off the above blog from Ian's voice website, I can't understand the loss, but I can understand the position)