Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #47517 in Books
• Published on: 2007-10-22
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 304 pages

Customer Reviews

Very poorly researched to the extent that it is possibly dangerous
If you are a parent thinking of buying this book, then don't.

I'm an expert in immune system modelling, and I received a copy last week to review. I was shocked that anybody would release something so poorly researched. To the layman many of the claims made inside may sound reasonable, but in fact the "science" presented is deeply flawed, and some of the advice - such as deliberately exposing children to chicken pox - is extremely dubious.

Vaccines to some extent are a victim of their own success. We have grown complacent of a number of childhood illnesses that were once common, and we have forgotten that, for example measles killed hundreds and left thousands brain damaged until recently. Suggesting that parents skip or delay vaccination, rather than explaining that the overwhelming majority of evidence shows their safety, simply feeds parents' fears, and endangers public health.

For a detailed review of why this book is fundamentally wrong, go to the website of the scientific journal "Pediatrics" and search for the title.

0 out of 5 is too high for this nonsense.

Complete nonsense preying on the fears of parents
This book has recently been comprehensively debunked by an article in the American scientific journal 'Pediatrics', it's full of factual mistakes and the usual 'Big pharmaceutical companies are making lots of money, therefore everything your doctor says is suspect' drivel.

For instance, he states: "A new medication goes through many
years of trials in a select group of people to make sure it
is safe. . . . Vaccines, on the other hand, don't receive the
same type of in-depth short-term testing or long-term
safety research.". This is simply not true, vaccines generally are tested on larger numbers of people for longer periods of time.

He also mistakenly gives the numbers of reports to VAERS (equivalent to the UK's 'Yellow Card' system of reporting side-effects) as CASES of serious side-effects from vaccines. They are not, they are simply people saying "My child had the vaccine, then later had one or more symptoms", these reports may or may not be reports of side-effects of the vaccine, or just the normal background number of kids getting ill.

Let's be clear, vaccination has saved countless lives, these kind of books are not scientifically researched, they're opinions, and their purpose is to sell more books. They're calling on parents to take risks with their children's lives. Thanks to the MMR hoax, there have already been unnecessary suffering, disability and deaths.

Of course, the kind of parent who buys and believes these books aren't going to take proper scientific research like that done about the faults in this book seriously, because they generally form an opinion early on and don't let anything as trivial as evidence and hard fact interfere with it.

A factual, non-hysterical, medical overview of vaccines
Thank goodness for Dr Sears! At last we have a non-hysterical, factually based book, clearly setting out the pros and cons of each vaccine. Each chapter addresses a different vaccine and includes a section on whether the disease is common, serious and/or treatable; how the vaccine is made, the final ingredients and its side effects. At the end of each chapter he gives reasons why people choose to get the vaccine or decline it.

At the end of the book he discusses vaccine ingredients in detail. He suggests a sensible and age-appropriate alternative vaccine schedule for parents who want to fully vaccinate their children, as well as a schedule including only what he considers to be the most necessary vaccines.