| With the spate of publicity surrounding the possible health risks posed by childhood immunization, parents are no longer simply following doctor's orders and automatically having their children vaccinated. Instead, they are asking questions. The problem is the search for answers only leads parents to conflicting, one-sided information: doctors claim that parents are endangering their child's life if they refuse shots, while radical vaccine opponents claim parents are endangering their child's life if they accept shots. With THE VACCINE BOOK, parents finally have one, fair, impartial, fact-based resource they can turn to for answers. Each chapter is devoted to a disease/vaccine pair and offer a comprehensive discussion of what the disease is, how common or rare it is, how serious or harmless it is, the ingredients of the vaccine, and any possible side effects from the vaccine. Ultimately, parents will have to make their own informed decisions as Dr. Bob Sears is neither pro-vaccine nor anti-vaccine. But THE VACCINE BOOK will provide exactly the information parents want and need as they make their way through the vaccination maze. |
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 Gives parents the info to make their own decisions |
| Review Date: November 7, 2007 |
| Reviewer: Sue Stuever Battel, Michigan, USA |
As soon as I heard Dr. Bob Sears would be releasing a book to help parents make vaccine decisions, I pre-ordered it and waited two months for it to be published and arrive on my doorstep.
The Vaccine Book was well worth the wait. Finally, I was able to read detailed information about each vaccine choice available for my children. Dr. Sears thoroughly investigates all the options and lays them on the table for parents to decide. I worried that this approach might be a little wishy washy and leave me with more questions than answers, but he manages to get everything out there.
I've read plenty of pro-vax and no-vax literature. Most is either staunchly against any immunizations or suggests that parents should ask no questions and just do what the nice doctor says. There are even a few things written somewhere in between, in which the authors present their recommendations. It's hard to find something that presents all the facts so parents can make educated decisions. This book did it for me.
The Vaccine Book is very readable. Dr. Sears writes in language a layperson like me can easily understand. His conversational style makes it feel like he's sitting and talking to me. He's even a little funny at times. I especially enjoy his use of Star Trek wisdom (p. 220).
He goes through each of the 12 standard vaccine choices and answers the same questions for each vaccine-preventable disease: Is it common? Is it serious? Is it treatable? When is the vaccine given? How is the vaccine made? What ingredients are in the final solution? (Including "Are any of these ingredients controversial?") What are the side effects? Should you give your baby this vaccine? (Includes reasons to get it, reasons some people choose not to, travel considerations, and options to consider when getting it.) He ends each chapter with "The way I see it" summarizing key factors, yet he does not send a message that parents must do it one way or another. He covers special vaccines for travel and combination vaccines that reduce the number of shots given. There's a chapter for parents who decide to delay or decline vaccinations and one called "What Should I Do Now?" He offers Dr. Bob's Alternative Vaccine Schedule near the end of the book. It ends with 20 pages of additional resources in which he summarizes journal articles.
Reading The Vaccine Book left me confident I could make the right vaccination decisions for each of my children.
And a big plus for me: He recognizes breastfeeding as a way to reduce disease risk. On his list of eight ways to boost your child's immune system, "breastfeed" is No. 1.
The web site www.thevaccinebook.com promises online updates to the book as vaccines and data change. There's also a forum, blog and other resources. |
This book is AWESOME!
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| Review Date: October 25, 2007 |
| Reviewer: Dan Casselman, Somewhere in TX |
I got this book in the mail yesterday and have already finished it. It's great! For each disease, Dr. Sears lists the following questions: What is this disease? Is it common? Is it serious? Is it treatable? When is the vaccine given? How is it made? What ingredients are in the final solution? Are any of these ingredients controversial? What are the side effects? He then lists the reasons to get the vaccine, the reasons NOT to get the vaccine, travel considerations and his own opinion. These are exactly the questions that I wanted answered.
I would say that Dr. Sears is pro-vaccination, but also for a selective/separated vaccination schedule. He provides such a schedule in his book. He also discusses the controversies surrounding some of the ingredients in the vaccines, namely aluminum and human/animal tissues. This section will make any parent pause and question whether they really want these things injected into their child. He drew his information from the medical literature (or lack thereof in some cases). He provides a detailed "Resource" section at the end of the book so that you can pull all of his journal article, if you so choose.
Overall, this book was informative and well-balanced. Dr Sears does not go into great depth with each vaccine, which makes the book light reading, especially for a book on vaccinations. If you would like a more in-depth analysis, I would recommend Aviva Jill Romm's book "Vaccinations: A Thoughtful Parents Guide". |
A must have for EVERY parent
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| Review Date: March 27, 2008 |
| Reviewer: Jennifer Barretta, new york |
I have read many books on the dangers of vaccines, but this is the only one that presents the info in an objective, non-judgemental way.
The first part of the book goes through each vaccine, in the order that your child will receive them, and gives a brief history on the vaccine, the danger of the actual disease that the vaccination is for, how the vaccine is made (very useful if your child has any allergies) and of course the controversial ingredients.
The second part of the book covers vaccine safety research, and sometimes lack thereof. He also goes through all of the diseases for which we are vaccinated, and the statistics of contracting each disease in our general population.
The third part of the book covers vaccine side effects, what to do if your child has a reaction, and what to do to minimize the chances that your child will have a negative reaction.
The last part of the book goes through all of the questionable and sometimes unnecessary ingredients that are added to vaccines, and has a great chapter on the myths and questions that people have about vaccines.
The most useful part of this book, and the reason it is a must have for every parent, regardless of your beliefs in vaccinations, is that Dr. Sears includes a completely non-judgemental chapter on parents who delay or decline vaccinations along with 2 alternate vaccine schedules...one he thinks are 'must have' vaccines if you don't want to do the full vaccine schedule, and the other is the full vaccine schedule, but spaced out in such a way that it will help reduce negative effects.
I would recommend buying this book before you have your child, but as long as your child is still receiving vaccinations you can switch to the modified schedule at any time. It sounds like tedious information, but it is presented in a way that made me read this book from cover to cover effortlessly. |
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| Review Date: October 24, 2007 |
| Reviewer: Shawn C. Powell, Lafayette, CO USA |
| Finally, some trustworthy information about vaccinations. I just got this book in the mail yesterday, but once I started reading, I was so excited to hear a doctor acknowledge that it is reasonable for parents to be wary of vaccinations and to decide against some of them, that I have read most of it already. The information about flu shots was especially valuable to me, because I didn't know most of it. I was delighted to read that Dr. Sears believes it is a good idea to space out vaccinations for infants and as a mother my instincts told me that from the get go. I feel very vindicated after a very long struggle with our Pediatricians. I also really appreciate the recommended vaccine list that Dr. Sears puts in this book and I think it is the best guide a parent can have. I am so thankful that Dr. Sears decided to write this book and I couldn't be happier with it's contents. It's not pro-vaccine and it's not anti-vaccine. It really takes into account all of the information that is out there about vaccines and definitely takes into account the things that scare many parents away from vaccines. Thank you, Dr. Sears. I have been waiting for a book like this for a very long time. |
Best book I've read in 9 years researching vaccine issues
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| Review Date: October 23, 2007 |
| Reviewer: Julia Ziobro, Bellevue, WA USA |
Dr. Robert Sears is an MD (in pediatric practice for over 10 years), the son of Martha Sears, RN, and the famous William Sears, MD (both in pediatric practice for over 30 years and the parents of 8 children, including Dr. Bob). He is not a radical guy. He is pro-vaccine, for the most part. He wrote this book because vaccine questions are the number one kind of question he gets from parents in his pediatric practice, and there are two kinds of information out there: biased/scary stuff from the medical/pharma industry, and biased/scary stuff from anti-vaxers.
(Just to make my personal position clear, my Jan 2000 baby has had very few vaccines based on the research I did in 1999/2000/2001. The baby I'm expecting in April 2008 will probably have more vaccines than she did because the mercury's mostly gone, but I will still be delaying the schedule a great deal.)
This book is the result of 13 years of researching ALL the sources of information out there. He goes through the 16 major diseases vaccinated against in the US using 12 vaccines (and references the 2007 AAP schedule for the vaccines). For each disease/vaccine pair (or vaccine/disease set), he discusses:
What is the disease?
Is the disease common?
Is the disease serious?
Is the disease treatable?
When is the vaccine given?
How is the vaccine made? (including ingredients lists, with controversial ingredients identified)
Should you give your child the vaccine?
The way Dr. Sears sees it (includes recommendation for delayed/reduced vaccinations for parents who don't want to undertake the risks of this particular vaccine)
I've found that I have a few quibbles with some of the judgments in the book (for example, he makes it sound like HPV is the fault of sexually-active women, but of course, the men do in fact SPREAD it to us), but mostly, the information is well-researched and thorough but it's expressed in language that most parents will easily understand.
IF you have questions about vaccines at all, or IF you want to understand what you're signing up for when you sign your baby up for the standard American Academy of Pediatrics US vaccine schedule, this book lays it out very neatly.
If you decide not to vaccinate at all, you'll have clear information about the risks of the diseases and even some idea of how to prevent your child from being exposed (he said that the biggest preventatives he recommends to non-vaccinating parents in his practice are breastfeeding for at least two years and no day care for at least a year).
If you decide to reduce the number of vaccinations at any given time or overall, his information will help you come up with a rational schedule that will best protect your child from disease while minimizing their exposure to certain ingredients.
Even with all the research I've done, it's been very helpful to me to see more statistics gathered about how common the various diseases really are and what the real risk of death from them has historically and recently been (information that is VERY hard to find and understand, in my experience). Dr. Sears promises that he will be updating the information in the book with periodic print updates (in the form of new editions) and that he will be updating the website http://www.TheVaccineBook.com whenever he gets substantial new information.
I honestly think this book is a great way to invest less than $15 in the health of your new baby. |
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