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The accidental activist

In the 1970s, in a dress shop on Barrington Street, a straight salesperson provides professional and helpful service to Halifax’s emerging drag queen population. Is she a gay crusader, or just a decent person? Or are they the same thing?
- by Lezlie Lowe
- Jul 22, 2010
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Anti antigens: the H1N1 refusers

Some people refuse to get themselves and their children vaccinated against H1N1. One explains why.

by Lezlie Lowe

Rachael Smith-Bakhache won't be dragging around her kids for H1N1 shots this week. And not anytime after that, either.

"It's my choice," says the 38-year-old mother of two. "And I don't think I have to stand up and tell you why it's my choice."

But she will, if you ask.

And explaining why her family won't be vaccinated against H1N1 influenza is easy for Smith-Bakhache, because her reasons aren't the most obvious and easily refuted---too busy to stand in line, too pissed off about the seeming lack of organization, too lame to Google clinic locations and times.

Smith-Bakhache says, simply: "There are other ways."

Neither of Smith-Bakhache's kids---an 11-year-old girl and a boy just past one---has ever been vaccinated. Not for mumps, rubella, polio. None of it.

"We are a holistic family. We have been right from the get-go."

Smith-Bakhache replaces immunizations with a host of other tactics; the same ones she'll keep up, or even ramp up, instead of lining up for an H1N1 poke. She does homeopathy, uses natural remedies and practices homegrown immunity-boosting---she lists breastfeeding her one-year-old, giving her daughter limited amounts of sugar and dairy products, plus supplements like garlic pills and feeding everyone fresh vegetables and natural meats.

"Some parents think that's not going to matter," says Smith-Bakhache. "But it's little steps. [It's like] saving the environment---turn your lights off. It adds up."

Smith-Bakhache can't understand why parents will pony up their kids for a vaccination when they don't bother with everyday measures to keep them healthy---she cites sending them to school without proper clothing, "with a lunch that is full of sugar. Even dairy products, that is something I do not do. Sending your children to school with a healthy lunch is very important. They need fresh vegetables. They need lots of fresh water."

But there's a bigger piece of pandemic preparedness that goes along with all of Smith-Bakhache's baby steps and everyday actions.

"I am always keyed into my children," she says. "I have watched [my daughter's] behaviour, her diet, just keying into, and being focused on, my children and not being too busy within my own life."

That's what people should be spending time thinking about, Smith-Bakhache says. "I mean, why are people putting so much thought into [the vaccine]?"

If you ask other parents to answer that question, they will likely cite the H1N1 deaths of 10-year-old Vanetia Warner and 13-year-old Evan Frustaglio, two otherwise healthy Ontarians who died after contracting the virus. Frustaglio, a minor league hockey player in grade eight, was sick for only 48 hours. A friend told me yesterday it's outright terror from hearing of those deaths that is driving the rolled sleeves of her and her kids to the closest clinic. Before she heard about Warner and Frustaglio, she didn't really see the point of getting the shots.

And those mind-rending deaths aren't the only thing to think about: a Journal of the American Medical Association study last month found two-thirds of Canadians who fall gravely ill or die from H1N1 are young, healthy women---exactly the profile of Smith-Bakhache.

But Smith-Bakhache has run through the what-ifs.

What if she is a vector---someone who doesn't get sick but passes the virus along?

She says the best way to avoid that is to steer clear of the virus in the first place, which she's already doing.

What if one of her kids gets sick?

"I will feel horrible," she says. "Definitely. And like maybe it wasn't the right choice for me to make."

But she still thinks it is the right one, in the context of the way she raises her family. And, after all, according to the Centres for Disease Control, the regular flu kills 36,000 people a year in the US alone.

Smith-Bakhache's husband works in the armed forces, and was vaccinated at work this week. Still, he told his non-vaccinating wife, "I trust your judgment." Smith-Bakhache's mom reserved opinion, telling her daughter (who, yes, was immunized by her parents as a child), "You do what you want to do." Smith-Bakhache admits: "A girlfriend of mine, she is going to be outraged."

But Smith-Bakhache can let it roll off her back. That's kind of her style, really: taking matters into her own hands, despite what the rest of the world is telling her. That, and reiterating that vaccination is her choice.

"My children are healthy," she says, "because of other choices I have made."

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Yeah, yeah. There's lots of folks around who refused the vaccine. Some couldn't be bothered, some didn't think it was safe, and some were convinced it was a conspiracy to sell vaccines.

What can you do?

You can't force people to take it, they just end up mad and it drives the conspiracy theorists apeshit.

You can't do much more to convince people it's safe. The government did a pretty good job of letting the public know it was fine, and there were a lot of nutjobs on the internet saying it wasn't safe. If you can't figure out who to listen to, the public health agency or some spacecase with a keyboard, you can't be helped.

And you can't argue with conspiracy theorists or people that don't "believe in" vaccines or Western medicine. Scientific data or "facts" carry no weight with this crowd.

So I guess it's up to the rest of us.

Sigh.

Posted by gaitercrew on May 27, 2010 at 5:31 PM | Report this comment

Has anyone ever stopped to wonder why we still have occasional outbreaks of mumps among young adults?

Contrary to how these outbreaks are categorized by the media as being the fault of those who have not been immunized, when the cases are investigated it turns out that most of those who fall ill have been immunized against mumps as children. Apparently the mumps vaccine hasn't been as effective as many health professionals and pharmaceutical companies would like to pretend. This is an epidemiological fact. Check the record for yourself.

On the other hand, most people of my demographic (50+) received lifetime immunity from mumps by actually contracting this relatively innocuous childhood illness. People who have previously contracted the actual illness don't get the mumps again.

Many of the other childhood diseases which are now routinely vaccinated against fall into the same category as mumps. For the overwhelming majority of the population it meant a week or so of missed school and then a lifetime of immunity. Yes, in extremely rare cases there could be complications which led to serious medical issues, but we now have the specter of supposedly fully immunized young people getting the disease and possibly the complications anyway.

In the same way, the measles vaccine is not even close to 100% effective, a fact of which your doctor is probably unaware, and many of those vaccinated reach adulthood without full immunity against the measles, but not for lack of having the foreign protein matter contained in the vaccine injected into them at a young age.

While it might seem counter-intuitive, I blame the periodic outbreaks of what were once common childhood diseases on the vaccination programs themselves. Ineffective vaccines and flawed vaccination programs that we have had foisted on us by well-meaning medical professionals and unscrupulous pharmaceutical companies have reduced the natural immunity to many of these childhood diseases in our populations to near zero.

Many of these vaccination programs are driven, in part, by the companies that manufacture the vaccines. Never underestimate the power of the pharmaceutical industry to warp public policy to its own ends, ie. to sell a lot of drugs and make a lot of money.

Here's another historical fact to ponder: the incidence of diseases like measles and mumps were on the decline long before the MMR vaccinations became routine and the incidence of polio had already dropped over 97% from the early years of the last century up until the late 1950s, before the use of Dr. Salk's polio vaccine became widespread. Improved nutrition and more sanitary living conditions likely went a long way towards accomplishing this.

These kinds of statements are considered heretical or just plain ignorant in our current environment, but for those who still feel that modern medicine is on balance the best that we can do consider the fact that iatrogenic deaths (that is deaths caused by medical mistakes or mistreatment) outnumber deaths due to heart disease or cancer when taken separately, in other words, the our medical system kills more people through mistakes every year than die due to either heart disease or cancer.

Posted by Commandante Esposito on April 14, 2010 at 7:27 PM | Report this comment

Agreed, sixxes! Exactly the way I feel.

Posted by Lisababe on April 5, 2010 at 5:39 PM | Report this comment

evolution eventually weeds people out like the author.following a system that has never worked in recorded history can work.fuckoff take your new age shit,ideas , that western medicine is faulty.it does have its faults but it is the most effective medicine out there.i wonder if she would have taken anti biotics when they where first discovered or died like the rest.ignorant fool.

Posted by Arische Kampfer on April 2, 2010 at 11:28 AM | Report this comment

@More: Of course, I agree that it is a personal decision and I would never call someone "stupid" for not taking the vaccine. My comments were directed at the several alarmist and unsubstantiated allegations made by Jennifer regarding the motivation of the health authorities. We will never know how widely the H1N1 virus would have spread without vaccination. Have you considered the possibility that the pandemic was averted by a significant minority (some say half) of the population accepting the vaccine? It is not just about protecting oneself, but halting the spread. In other words, the vaccine refusers likely benefited from the vaccine whether they liked it or not. Also, the flu can be extremely miserable without resulting in death, so focussing on mortality rates does not tell the whole story. I believe we may have survived the flu season this year without serious mishap, for which I am glad. Best wishes...

Posted by DaveChapman on March 18, 2010 at 10:00 PM | Report this comment

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