The Vaccine Book: Making the Right Decision for Your Child (Sears Parenting Library)
The Vaccine Book: Making the Right Decision for Your Child (Sears Parenting Library)
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.
User Ratings and Reviews
1 Stars Completely misleading, dangerous, plays upon parent’s fear in order to make $$
Since the anti-vaccine craze began, it’s proved to be a cash-cow for any doctor willing to twist the data. If only there were a real doctor, trained in communicable disease to answer parent’s questions without trying for financial reward.
Fortunately there is, http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=512#more-512
Please read this review before you decide not to vaccinate.
1 Stars The Danger of Dr. Sears
Dr. Sears is a genius. No, not in an Albert Einstein or Pablo Picasso kind of way. He’s more of an Oprah or a Madonna kind of genius. He’s a genius because he has written a book that capitalizes on the vaccine-fearing, anti-establishment mood of the zeitgeist. The book tells parents what they desperately want to hear, and that has made it an overnight success.
Dr. Robert Sears is perhaps one of the best-known pediatricians in the country. The youngest son of Dr. Bill Sears, the prolific parent book writer and creator of [...], Dr. Bob has become the bane of many a pediatrician’s existence. He has contributed to his family dynasty by co-authoring several books, adding content to the family website, and making myriad TV appearances to offer his sage advice. But Dr. Bob is best known for his best-selling The Vaccine Book: Making the Right Decision for your Child. This book, or at least notes from it, now accompanies many confused and concerned parents to the pediatrician’s office. Parents who have been misled by the onslaught of vaccine misinformation and fear-mongering feel comforted and supported by the advice of Dr. Sears, who assures parents that there is a safer, more sensible way to vaccinate. He wants parents to make their own “informed” decisions about whether or how to proceed with vaccinating their children, making sure to let them know that if they do choose to vaccinate, he knows the safest way to do it. And for $13.99 (paperback), he’ll share it with them.
In the final chapter of his book (entitled “What should you do now?”), after reinforcing the common vaccine myths of the day, Dr. Sears presents his readers with “Dr. Bob’s Alternative Vaccine Schedule.” He places this side-by-side with the schedule recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics and the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. He then explains why his schedule is a safer choice for parents who chose to vaccinate their children. Without a doubt, the alternative vaccine schedule is among the more damaging aspects of this book. It’s the part that gets brought along to the pediatrician’s office and presented as the the plan going forward for many parents today. But the book is also dangerous in the way in which it validates the pervasive myths that are currently scaring parents into making ill-informed decisions for their children. Dr. Sears discusses these now common parental concerns, but instead of countering them with sound science, he lets them stand on their own as valid. He points out that most doctors are ill-equipped to discuss vaccines with parents, being poorly trained in the science of vaccine risks and benefits. He then claims to be a newly self-taught vaccine expert, a laughable conceit given the degree to which he misunderstands the science he purports to have read, and in the way he downplays the true dangers of the vaccine-preventable diseases he discusses in his book. He then provides parents with what he views as rational alternatives to the recommended vaccination schedule, a schedule designed by the country’s true authorities on vaccinology, childhood infectious disease, and epidemiology.
So what does Dr. Sears have to say, exactly, about the risks of vaccines, and just how out of touch is he with medical science and epidemiology?
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5 Stars Vaccine Book
Great non-partial information. Just facts upon which you can make an educated decision about when to vaccinate your child and which vaccinations are most important to you.
1 Stars Beware of Dr. Sears!
This book is misleading! It just pretends to be neutral advice from a “famous” pediatrician. Dr. Sears is cashing in on current vaccine fears by reinforcing those fears based on his presumed expertise, a practice he repeats on his website and in his speeches. If his advice is so good, why do the vast majority of pediatricians and family practice doctors, the American Academy of Pediatrics and the CDC reject it? Oh yes, I forgot, its that vast conspiracy between the government, big Pharma and doctors. The Sears family is making a nice living stoking the fires of vaccine fear. I wonder how they sleep at night. Look at the evidence and make your own decision as a parent, but don’t use this book in making that decision.
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1 Stars What about the recommendations of the AAP or AAFP or ACIP
It is always good to have great minds come together to review research on vaccinating chilfren, weighing the benefits versus the risks of vaccinating children. Luckily, there are the greatest minds in the area of vaccines that serve on the: CDC, AAP, AAFP, ACIP. These are scientist that know the devistating results that can occur if you chose not to vaccinate your children against diseases that at one time claimed the lives of many. That is why they serve on committees such as these, because they want to make proper recommendations for children. They are not conspiring to kill kids or to give them autism. They care about public health and know the outbreaks that can happen when there is not herd immunity for a disease (for instance flu and pertussis in todays time). All of these great minds in the area of vaccination have continuously reviewed te data and information based on the best science that they have in front of them at that time. And these great scientific minds came up with a vaccination schedule that takes into consideration the risks and benefits of vaccinating your children. Yet one man, who stands to profit from the sales of this book I might add, comes up with his own “alternative” schedule which preys on the fears of people who don’t know what meningitis, HIB, Hep B, etc can do to the live of those who become infected with and suffer from the disease. And to my knowledge, he is not even currently practicing in the area of Pediatric Medicine. Could it be from profits of his book sales??
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