Vaccinations was a bit of a hot topic for me. From a scientific point of view, there was no question that the benefits for outweigh the consequences. However, as a mom, if there is even a shred of possibility of severe effects, I had to research this more in depth. The argument is all around heavy metals in the vaccinations, especially aluminium which is needed to activate the immune system, but has been linked (in other, non-vaccination related studies) to brain deposits and thus questions around notably autism.
In the end, for us, the question turned into a bit of a non question. First, because the kids got all the shots according to the Swiss vaccination plan, which is pretty complete. That meant that the only open discussion was thus really only about yellow fever, rabies and typhoid. Yellow fever vaccination is mandatory to even enter some of the countries we’re visiting, so that was not optional. Typhoid I actually caught as a 17 year old and that was touch and go, besides, I don’t want to be overly stressed about food hygiene on the trip so that was a go. Left rabies which I hesitated on for a very long time, especially since i) the risk is pretty low to be bitten by bat or monkey, ii) it’s one of the few that you can actually vaccinate after the fact. However, my research showed that it is actually one of the vaccinations that doesn’t contain aluminium, and that if you do have to vaccinate after a bite the treatment is very heavy. Besides, I can totally see Nilay grabbing a monkey by the tail to swing over his head….🐒🙈
Net – we got all three, I did the homeopathic drainage (they will devise a treatment plan for you before, right after and 3 weeks after depending on the exact vaccination you take. Also, some people may start to salivate heavily after the rabies vaccination which was the case for Nilay who then took another homeopathic treatment) and all kids took it far better than I…..