Risk of Vaccinations

Recently I was asked to comment on the use of vaccines in America and around the world. I am familiar with the activities of medical centers "developing" vaccines on the Navajo Reservation in Tuba City, Arizona when I was in medical school and I questioned the ethicalness of giving very young babies the meningitis vaccine. I was scolded for questioning how well the young Navajo women understood the potential risk of injecting infants with the vaccine. I was just learning about blood/brain barrier and it seemed that babies were the most vulnerable.

Since medical school, I have become aware of numerous instances where pharmaceutical companies and federal agencies approach vaccination as a "business" activity rather than a "health promoting" activities. There seems to be a myriad of motives when vaccination programs are instituted.

For this presentation, I wil limit my comments to the use of Depo Provera, a pregnancy prevention injection given every 3 months.

Contraception is not bad.Trying to limit the number of children was originally looked upon as "empowering" women because being "barefoot and pregnant" was once an avenue of male control/domination. Women who decided when to have children and how many children she would have could plan an education for herself and improve the circumstances of her offspring. Therefore introducing "birth control" to "underprivileged" and impoverished women may have been started with good intentions.

On the continents of Africa, in India and in Indonesia,  in the early 1990's, women died from post-delivery bleeding and infectious complications at alarming rates. USAID was involved in trying to reduce the rates of morbidity and mortality of women giving birth.