The Vaccine Book: Making the Right Decision for Your Child (Updated in 2023) (Sears Parenting Library)

We have been undecided on whether to vacconate our baby. We found this book very helpful and informative - in terms of providing information about the illnesses (how common/ rare they are; symptoms); vaccine ingredients; why people have the vaccine, why they might not; alternative schedules. Another reviewer has said the book is pro-vaccination and Sears does recommend most of the vaccinations but is not pushy or in the camp of 'your child will die if yu do not do this'. it is respectful that having your child vaccinated can be a diffiult decision for many parents. Note this is based on US research/ vaccination programme - but as a UK resident I still found it very helpful.

Was looking for a book that could give a balanced view on the pro's and cons of vaccination. As a parent of a new parent who's partner has opposite views I was looking for an unbiased publication that could support both views that could clearly and honestly give information about the benefits and risks of such an important decision. This book does that and gives the opportuntiy for compromise. It offers more than I was hoping to find and would definately recommend to anyone looking for clear factual information for and against the immunisation issue leaving out hearsay or scaremongering.

A must buy for anyone in my opinon. It's very straight forward, tells you side effects and answers all your questions. On the fence? This is a good book. It's always best to make decisions after you know all the facts. So I felt this book gave me what I needed to make the choice for our family.

I bought this book and 4 others about vaccines as I'd heard that Amazon was going to destock them. The mainstream media is controlled by the vaccine makers. Soon Facebook will also be controlled so how can parents make a fully informed choice. That is, assuming they have any choice at all ! It is criminal that we are being denied access to the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. If this comment is moderated out then it will only prove my point.

It was an interesting book that is not against vaccination but is very informative about everything that has to do with vaccines. Ingredients, research, side effects and also why parents don't choose It will help you either you are for or against vaccines. For the ultimate decision you need more.

Excellent book for those looking to make an informed decision. The author is a pro-vax paediatrician so any criticisms he has in regards to vaccinating are not coming from an emotional or anti-vax biased position. We read a number of anti-vac books and many contain rubbish writing and examples which put us off believing some if the information in them. This is US based and he includes reduced vaccine schedules for those considering partial vaccination

like all the information in the book and the way everything seems more clearly after reading it. Hope everyone ejoys it

Would highly recommend to any parent thinking about vaccination

Thank you so much, Dr. Bob, for consolidating so much information so parents have all the information, good and bad, to make informed decisions. I have so much peace with my decisions after using this book to help inform them. A must read for all vaccine parties.

Extremely informative book, giving the pros and cons for vaccination from a doctor that is pro-vaccines (we've read all sorts of books from doctors that were anti-vaccine so we thought we should hear both sides). The book helped illuminate the current problem with the existing vaccine schedules in the US and Canada and provided guidance and alternative schedules for those not comfortable with the current vaccine schedule. This booked further confirmed that we made the right decision not to vaccinate our child, and also provided tips on how to guard our child against these contagious viruses and what are the available treatments for each virus if our child did become infected. Very good book, easy to read for all parents. It should be a must for all parents before making the very important decision on vaccines. I bet a lot of physicians would also learn a lot from this book!

if you have kids, please read this book, inform yourself and discuss with the health provider if needed

I bought this book wanting to get the anti-vaccine side of the argument, because I was told this book had references to real white-paper studies and not just the endless string of tear-jerking but scientifically meaningless anecdotal stories that you see on TV and read about online. I was very impressed with and surprised by this book. It was not anti-vaccine at all, it simply described each vaccine and each ingredient and presented the most current scientific safety study findings on each, along with the corresponding risks of each disease. Drawing no conclusions, Dr. Sears challenges each parent to make their own decision about each vaccine's use and schedule one at a time, with specific advice for various scenarios (breast-fed at home vs 5 days/week in daycare, for example). My wife and I were pleased to find ourselves intuitively designing our own custom vaccine schedule as we read through the book, custom tailored for our unique situation. After reading, we choose to almost fully vaccinate, but on a schedule we were comfortable with and against a set of risks that we now understand very well and can defend to anyone based on scientific evidence. All facts in the book are backed up with specific white-papers which Dr. Sears annotates as you go through the book, so you can cross-reference the research yourself (some vaccines intrigued me more than others). This is the only resource (including FDA and CDC) that we have found so far that provides a balanced, fair-minded, non-dogmatic approach to the broad topic of vaccination. The reality is made clear: each vaccine is an individual medical treatment, not a component in a holy war. This book if not for parents who are trying to find a new religion, overthrow the government; instead, it's for parents who prefer to proactively make medical decisions based on white papers they have read and understood (e.g. Engineers). If you don't like making your own spreadsheets, at the end of the book Dr. Sears describes the 4-5 categories most people find themselves in after reading (from fully vaccinating on CDC schedule all the way to no vaccinations at all), and provides specific recommended plans for each category of parent. But don't be lazy; make your own plan as you go. If you want, you can then compare you plan to the various plans Dr. Sears recommends, and if you can't justify why your plan is different than one of the recommended ones, do more research until you can explain those differences confidently. Our plan is slightly different than any recommended in this book, but this book gave us the tools we needed to form our plan with confidence that it is optimal for our daughter.

In this book, he goes into the plus and minus of each vaccines. Just great if you are looking to create a custom vaccination plan.