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| The Vaccine Book: Making the Right Decision for Your Child (Sears Parenting Library) | 
 enlarge | Author: Robert Sears
Publisher: Little, Brown and Company
Category: Book
List Price: $13.99
Buy New: $7.93
You Save: $6.06 (43%)
New (38) Used (10) from $7.88
Avg. Customer Rating:  174 reviews
Sales Rank: 157
Media: Paperback
Edition: 1
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 304
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.6
Dimensions (in): 8 x 5.4 x 1
ISBN: 0316017507
Dewey Decimal Number: 614.47083
EAN: 9780316017503
ASIN: 0316017507
Publication Date: October 22, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Condition: BRAND NEW
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Product Description
With the recent 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 will be 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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| Customer Reviews: Read 169 more reviews...
 Gives parents the info to make their own decisions November 7, 2007
126 out of 132 found this review helpful
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.
 Frustrating.... November 25, 2007
76 out of 97 found this review helpful
This book is well written, well organized, and useful to a degree. Unfortunately all the well organized information comes from the product literature by the pharmaceutical companies and rather depth-lacking governmental data.
If you want regurgitated information in an easy to understand format, this is your book.
I was hoping for more discussion about the more controversial issues, but in the end he generally goes with "conventional wisdom". He often states that there is no research to support some of the concerns parents have, but I believe this lack of research is the root of much concern. His delayed schedule still requires 11 vaccinations before 1 year and most are multiple vaccines per visit at one month intervals.
I will keep looking for a resource that balances up-to-date research with a healthy level of skepticism. Wish me luck.
 Provides good research, but I don't agree with all his conclusions November 30, 2007
73 out of 84 found this review helpful
I really liked this book. It is written by a mainstream, famous medical doctor. He's the darling of La Leche League, has written several books, and been on TV. He provides a lot of good research as to why we don't need to follow the traditional vaccine schedule.
Chapter 1-A note to fellow physicians
He says "we receive little information on vaccines, other than that they are safe and effective..." He also says that a number of pediatricians have dismissed families who won't vaccinate, and that goes against what the American Academy of Pediatricians says a doctor should do. Instead, continued refusal to vaccinate after adequate discussion should be respected, and doctors should avoid dismissing patients from their practice simply because they don't vaccinate.
I don't like the order he uses to discuss each vaccine. If I were doing it, I would have gone in the order the vaccines are given. I have no idea how he chose his order. But chapter 2 is about the HIB.
Chapter 2-haemophilus influenzae type B and the HIB vaccine
Haemophilus influenzae type B is a bacterium that normally remains in the nose, ears or throat and only causes cold symptoms. Only rarely does it invade further into the body, but it can on occasion and has been know to cause serious illness such as meningitis, blood infections, bone infections and pneumonia. There are only about 25 serious cases a year today, although in the `80s there were about 200,000 cases per year. Of the serious cases there is about a 5% fatality rate and in 25% of the cases there is residual brain damage. A serious infection is rare beyond age 3. It is treated with intravenous antibiotics.
In vaccine trials more babies who received the vaccine caught a serious infection than the unvaccinated.
Dr. Sears also points out that a breastfed baby that does not go to day care is at particularly low risk of contracting this illness.
He says on page 11 that to be get protection from a vaccine, for instance in the case of travel, you need to have it 3 months prior to the event.
Some versions of the HIB have aluminum as high as 1500 micrograms. He discusses aluminum in great detail later. He points out on page 195 that a toxic dose of aluminum for a newborn can be as low as 10 to 20 micrograms.
Unfortunately, even given all this information, he still recommends this particular vaccine, which I disagree with.
This is just a synopsis of 2 chapters, there are 17 others, most of them with loads of good information. There are several vaccines that he does not think are necessary and he provides detailed insight into why. I do recommend you read this book, but don't just blindly follow his advice. Look at the facts yourself before you decide if the risk is worth it.
If you are interested in the vaccine debate, I also recommend Vaccines: What CDC Documents and Science Reveal. It is an excellent DVD created by a mainstream ER doctor who stumbled across the vaccine debate, and became obsessed with it. I like it because there are some people who simply won't take the time to read a book on vaccines, but they will watch a DVD. Hopefully, you will do both.
Review written by Tenna Merchent, author of He's Not Autistic But...: How We Pulled Our Son From the Mouth of the Abyss.
This book is AWESOME! October 25, 2007
47 out of 51 found this review helpful
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".
 Propaganda!!! November 9, 2007
36 out of 84 found this review helpful
Dr. Sears comes off knowledgable because he is. As a physician myself I feel he should know better. There are multiple references in the book where he says we're not going to talk about the dangers of it because it's been discussed. I have to admit the book is well written, but you can see and read between the lines that his agenda is not to present a fair review of vaccinations, but to be a spokesman for the drug industry. That's his choice, but don't hide behind the appearance of "fair and impartial". Dr. L.
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