I have a 13-year-old girl in my house. And she won’t be getting the Gardasil shot.
No, I’m not one of those parents who believes that the HPV shot will encourage sexual behavior. The boredom and pressures of being a teen will take care of that, thank you very much.
More than one quarter of kindergartners in one school district and about two-thirds of students at two schools in Ashland, Oregon are not vaccinated.
A cardiac surgeon and Professor of Surgery at the University of Washington recommends avoiding the flu shot and taking vitamin D instead. Donald Miller, MD, says “Seventy percent of doctors do not get a flu shot.”Health officials say that every winter 5–20 percent of the population catches the flu, 200,000 people are hospitalized, and 36,000 people will die from it. The National Vital Statistics Reports compiled by the CDC show that only 1,138 deaths a year occur due to influenza alone, and more than 34,000 of the “36,000″ flu deaths are what officials estimate are “influenza-associated” pneumonic and cardiovascular deaths.
There is also a lack of evidence that young children benefit from flu shots. A systematic review of 51 studies involving 260,000 children age 6 to 23 months found no evidence that the flu vaccine is any more effective than a placebo (Cochrane Database Syst Rev. 2006;1:CD004879).
A randomized trial found that the incidence of influenza in infants whose mothers had a flu shot during their pregnancy was 4%. The incidence of flu in infants whose mothers did not have a flu shot was 10%. (NEJM 2008;359:) In the study, flu shots reduced the relative risk of influenza illness in infants by a seemingly impressive 63%, yet only 6 out of 100 infants actually benefited from the shot. The other 94 received no benefit – 4 got influenza anyway – and all are at risk from being harmed by the vaccine, particularly from the mercury, aluminum, and formaldehyde in it. - Donald Miller, MD
I interviewed a friend of mine who works in public health about breastfeeding being baby’s first natural immunization, in the hopes of sorting out perceptions and realities when it comes to germs, diseases, and vaccines from a ‘green’ perspective…
AJ: We’ve all heard doctors explain how breast milk protects newborns via antibodies, proteins and immune cells, but rather than deep dive into the science of secretory IgA molecules, I’m going to ask a simple ‘Earth mom’ question…Is breastfeeding enough of a ‘human vaccine?’
R: ‘Breast is best’ to boost immunity from infections, reduce respiratory illnesses…But breastfeeding ONLY offers limited protection from serious diseases like measles, pneumonia, and whooping cough.
Breastfeeding works synergistically with immunizations, boosting the levels of protection against disease to actually increase the protection your baby gets. ALL ingredients in vaccines serve a purpose, whether it’s triggering a child’s immune response, or keeping them germ free. Even though we’ve eradicated some diseases in this country before, our mobile society makes it easy to have them come right back over on a plane…‘Herd protection’ only goes so far.
Farming near a river bed is a great idea until it floods. Soil near riverbeds tends to be more fertile, producing more abundant crops. But when the river beds flood and drench contiguous farm land, the water can drag unwanted contaminants to the farmland, exposing health risks to anyone eating the crops from the flooded land. What kinds of contaminants? Anything in the flooded water: machine oil, sewage, garbage, medical waste, manure.
Holiday season fanfare has already begun, and I am reminded of my holiday motto: No more junk toys! Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and/or the Winter Solstice, if you have children, you know what junk toys are. Junk toys are toys that will have little educational value, are usually made of plastic, are overly commercial, and end up in our landfills. Green parents often try to make these toys
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Halloween is one week away, and the blogosphere has erupted in green Halloween posts. From The Green Guide to Eco Child’s Play, everyone is writing about having an eco-friendly, ghoulish good time. Green Halloween has also been a hot topic lately on Green Options:
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When a baby is born, it is so pure and natural, yet will soon be exposed to all of the harsh chemicals of the modern world. It is true that babies are exposed to some toxins in utero and through breastmilk, but this exposure is limited and mostly out of the control of parents. What is in the control of new parents are the kind of products they use on their baby,
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I have been living off the grid for 15 years now, and there are certain parts of my daily energy use practices I take for granted as normal. Yet, when I visit friends or relatives living on the grid, I become aware of how differently I use electricity. While watching last week’s PBS NOW program about families living off the grid in Iowa, I began to wonder if the principles of
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"Be a force of nature" is the motto of Xeko, a trading card game created by the Matter Group in collaboration with Conservation International. This eco-game asks children (and adults) to take on the critical mission of creating the strongest ecosystems in the threatened hotspots of our planet. By playing Xeko, children learn about the complexities of ecosystems while trying to save them.
Xeko doesn’t just talk the eco-talk, though:
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My son was born with a congenital heart defect, which thrust my green living family into the not-so-green world of Western medicine. We were blessed to have a natural home birth assisted by caring midwives before entering the world of surgeons and intensive care. Throughout this process, including our most recent stay in the hospital, I have looked for ways to make the experience greener, and to minimize the toxins my son
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