Vegans....?

I'm vegan and I'm very, very pro-vaccination; I consider vaccination to be one of humankind's greatest achievements.

Veganism is about minimising your personal contribution to animal suffering and exploitation as much as is - in the words of the man who invented the word 'vegan' - reasonable and practical.

Putting yourself at risk of deadly and preventable diseases is not reasonable or practical. Leaving your children vulnerable to deadly and preventable diseases is beyond my understanding

ALL medicines and medical procedures have, by law, been tested on animals. Most medicines contain animal by-products. Vegans do what they can, but we don't live in a bubble of vegan perfection.

A vegan with a life-threatening condition who takes medication, a vegan with a broken limb who has pain relief and has the bones re-set, a vegan who wants to protect her/his kids from preventable and devastating illness by vaccinating - none of these is any less a vegan. Nor are they 'overlooking' anything; they are making a rational decision.

I'm old enough to remember the terrible effects of some of the diseases that have been all but eradicated by vaccination. I'm willing to bet anyone answering this who claims vaccines are dangerous, or perhaps that they they don't need vaccines because of their good health is too young to remember, and doesn't realise how much they have to thank vaccinations for. People not vaccinating are relying on the herd immunity provided by the majority who have protected themselves and their children from potentially deadly diseases. As a medical professional YA contact of mine puts it: 'Ever seen a person who has been paralyzed by polio? No? You have vaccines to thank for that. Have you ever seen horrendous scarring as a result of smallpox? No? You have vaccines to thank for that too.'

I'm vegan to minimise my personal contribution to animal suffering. But I value human life - including my own (and yours) - way, way over animal life.

The word 'vegan' is not synonymous with the word 'martyr'.

Oh, and the autism nonsense. Read this to see how Andrew Wakefield benefitted financially from his 'research', which was a study on only 12 children: http://darryl-cunningham.blogspot.co.uk/2010/05/fa...

He was paid more than £435,000 (US$677,000) plus expenses to conduct the research - but he had a personal interest in persuading people that the MMR was dangerous and single vaccines would be safer. Why? He had filed a patent for his own single measles vaccine, which stood to make him a lot of money - but only if he could damage confidence in the MMR.

His findings have been thoroughly discredited, and no link between any vaccine and autism has been found

No, I don't oppose vaccines. When peoples lives are on the line, we don't have the luxury of choosing principles over available medicine.

I would rather eat an egg than see ONE more child suffer from polio.

I only gave my kids what was mandatory for homeschool. I skipped all the rest early in life because I was more fearful of autism.