I have been researching the vaccine debate for my upcoming book on raising healthy children (coauthored with Monique Bastien from the Raw Divas team).

I made my decision not to vaccinate our children when my son was about 1 1/2 years old.  He already had the beginning shots when I first became aware of the controversy.  After much research to be certain about my decision, I felt confident to go against the doctor's recommendations.

This was about 7 years ago, so I needed to make sure I have my facts straight for the book, including the latest up to date information.  It is so easy to get inspired when you reread all the reasons why you choose to do something and so easy to get incited about the reasons why you choose not to do something!

Tonight I had to stop writing for the book and pass this along to you.  No, it is not data or research for or against either side.  I will save that for the book.  It is simply a point I need to make:

My trail of thoughts was this...go the the American Academy of Pediatrics website to get the most current recommended vaccination schedule.  From there, I clicked the link to the VaccinateYourBaby.org website to see what they were about.  (I am looking into both sides of the issue, not just all against.)

Right there on the home page of this site was a video of actress Amanda Peet giving a very compelling speech to "learn the facts," "explore this site" (not this one, but vaccinateyourbaby.org), because it "features the kind of reliable information we were looking for when doing research"  and you should use the site to "make the best healthcare decision for your family."   She also goes on to say that she is proud to be a part of the campaign, Every Child By 2.

What was my next step?  Look up Every Child By 2 campaign, of course!  According to their website, "The goals of ECBT are to raise awareness of the critical need for timely immunizations and to foster a systematic way to immunize all of America's children by age two."  My first question was, "Who funds these campaigns and websites?"

The page named About Us says, "Every Child By Two's Vaccinate Your Baby campaign is made possible through an unrestricted, educational grant from sanofi pasteur."  That sound pretty neutral and non-biased right?  After all it is educational grant money...

So I Googled "sanofi pasteur" and you will never guess what the top result was.  Let me just copy it here, straight out of Google:

Welcome to sanofi pasteur

Sanofi Pasteur, the vaccines division of sanofi-aventis Group, is the largest company in the world devoted entirely to human vaccines.
www.sanofipasteur.com/ - 30k - Cached - Similar pages

Let me repeat that..."the largest company in the world devoted entirely to human vaccines." 

Of course they are going to hire a beautiful actress to be just as convincing as Jenny McCarthy who is so actively speaking out against vaccines and about recovering her son from autism.  Is this website a neutral, reliable source of information which you can use to make the best healthcare decisions for your family?

Or is this just another deceptive advertising scheme to convince parents to follow the crowd while the company grows richer off the health dangers to countless children....in fact, hoping for every single American child?

Ok, so I obviously believe that vaccines are a danger to our children (and I will blog a personal story on this topic soon), but I hope to present all the facts on this controversy in a straightforward and honest manner as I write this part of the book.  I will share my opinion, but not skew the facts or sway the parent based on financial gain.

Don't we wish they would, too?