I am an anti-vaccination parent. My kids never had vaccinations, as I did not believe in needles and wanted to delay vaccination until they got older.
When my daughter was four she stepped on a rusty nail and altho she was fine, and tetanus is not found everywhere, because we were going to a farm later that day I thought she may as well get a tetanus vaccination now.
In NZ the vaccinations for tetanus then (early 2000) were around $85, however we could get it for free it in the combination vaccine of diphtheria, tetanus and pertussis, free which we did.
A few days or a week or so later my daughter developed a dreadful cough. Three visits to the doctor later, it was finally confirmed what my mum (pro-vaccination) had suspected - that my daughter had whooping cough. It is a ministry of health notifiable disease so all three childcare centres my daughter had attended were notified and all the children even the ones who had been immunised had to take a strong 3-week course of antibiotics.
I strongly and to this day believe my daughter had been exposed to whooping cough thru vaccination. The fact that it took 3 doctors before she was diagnosed was shocking. Two of these appointments were at a children's hospital. It was like they had blinkers on, that because my child had been immunised recently it couldn't be whooping cough.
Also a lot of other people were exposed.
I am against vaccinations. I believe sanitation and healthy habits help prevent a lot of disease. Unfortunately societyakes it really difficult with adverts for pills for cold and flu so one can "soldier on" and infect many others instead of quarantine!
My daughter is also of the age where the HPV vaccine is being touted thru schools. I let her make her own decision regarding it, she had it with all her friends but has come back since explaining that if she knew then what she knows now she wouldn't have bothered. At least it raised the issue of safe sex at the time.
There is so much we can do to improve our health that propaganda makes so difficult. Giving up wheat is another important way of maintaining health that I feel is discouraged in this way.