Within minutes of giving birth, I made my first decision as a parent – not to give my baby the Hepatitis B vaccine. The only way a newborn can contract hepatitis B at birth is from his mother. My own hepatitis B test was negative, so I knew my baby was in no immediate danger of contracting the disease. Even though I hadn’t yet decided to not to vaccinate my children, I already knew vaccinating my baby so soon after birth was completely wrong and irresponsible.

Since the hepatitis B vaccine was one of the many new ones added after I had been vaccinated as a child, I had no prior knowledge of it. But once I started researching the hepatitis B vaccine, I found my concern was completely justified. The first clue that my baby didn’t need the hepatitis B vaccine came from the information sheet given to me by the pediatrician. Here’s the excerpt:

A person can get infected in several ways:

          • By having unprotected sex with an infected person
          • By sharing needles when injecting illegal drugs
          • By being stuck with a used needle on the job
          • During birth when the virus passes from an infected mother to her baby

Seriously? I am asked to give my newborn a vaccine for a disease that he can only contract during sex and using drugs? I can guarantee there is no chance he will be doing any of those activities for a quite some time, if ever. There is no way any doctor can convince me this vaccine is necessary for children.

At his next checkup, that is exactly what I told our pediatrician when she asked if I wanted to give our son the hepatitis B vaccine. While the doctor agreed with my statement, her reply managed to shock me anyway. She said, “You’re right, he doesn’t need it right now. We just give it to him now because we can.”

“Because we can” is not a sound reason for administering any medication, much less a toxin-laden vaccine that hasn’t been proven to be safe or to even work. Especially when one study found that after just 5 years, 60% of those vaccinated are no longer immune to hepatitis B. Basically my children would be subjected to all the risks associated with the vaccine for none of the advertised benefits.

Additional studies have linked hepatitis B to increased risk of causing SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome), developing multiple sclerosis and diabetes among other life-altering conditions. But the report that really caught my eye found newborn boys who receive the hepatitis B vaccine triple their risk of autism. I have three boys and tripling their chance of developing autism by giving them a vaccine for a disease they have next to no chance of contracting is more than irresponsible, it’s criminal.

A doctor would never give a healthy patient a prescription drug for a condition he didn’t have nor was in a high-risk group to contract. If the doctor did, any adverse effects of the drug would open him up to malpractice charges. Vaccines should be treated no differently. There should be full disclosure of long-term testing showing effectiveness, safety and all side effects to allow parents to weigh up the risks and benefits of a vaccine. Though, I expect if there was such an open exchange of information, very few parents would vaccinate their children.

In 1996 out of the 3.9 million births, only 54 hepatitis B cases were reported to the CDC for children under the age of one. However, during the same time 1,080 reports of adverse reactions to the vaccine, including 47 deaths were filed. Forty-seven babies died for a disease that only 54 babies contracted that year!  Given all I’ve read on this subject, I can find no legitimate reason for giving the hepatitis B vaccine to my children or any children for that matter.

For more additional information on vaccines, please visit the Vaccine Dangers section of this site.