Re: Vaccinations and travel

February 20, 2007

>

Selma, Wow, sounds like you've had an exciting life! ;-)

I thoroughly enjoyed reading about your adventures and couldn't agree

more with your perspective about travel.

I once told a friend that even if I'd contracted Lyme traveling, if I

eventually heal from the illness the travel experiences would have

still been worth enduring a few years of Lyme hell! Perhaps I am crazy

but man, isn't it such an invaluable experience! My understanding of

humanity is so much greater for having lived and traveled overseas.

So are you half-Brazilian?

Thanks for the post...Connie

> Just personal opinion. I guess I would never more get any more

> vaccinations to travel. Unless I do fear death due to a real local

> epidemy. You can check bouts of diseases in governamental sites

> before you go.

>

> I was born in Brazil and always traveled there without being

> vaccinated for specific regions. There's now dengue, that's viral and

> deadly, I guess no vaccination possible. And dengue's everywhere. I

> guess everyone there got used to danger.

>

> Then Chagas, a sort of similar disease to lyme (fortunately not much

> lyme there). I guess, no vaccination for that either. And malaria,

> deadly too. Yellow fever, and so on...

>

> The more I read about vaccinations, the more I believe my immune

> system can be 'shut down' due to them. I really fear being vaccinated

> since I caught lyme and I'm thinking about what to do with my

> daughter in the future (she's been vaccinated so far, but got eczema

> and caught lyme once). I'm going to study each of the vaccinations

> she will still have to take and do only the most important.

>

> It's funny that I always backpacked and stayed with locals and never

> was REALLY afraid of getting sick. I guess I feel like Buhner when he

> says he drinks water from sources and if he falls sick with

> salmonella or something else, there's always a plant that can cure

> you.

>

> I know people that almost died due to eating pork meat with worm

> ('solitary', we call it in Portuguese). The worm develops in the

> brain and can kill you. A friend of mine was not killed, but he lost

> most of his body movements. He was a dancer, that's very unfortunate.

>

> I agree with everyone that said that the sense for adventure and

> profound experiences you get when you travel are much more important

> than being safe at home and doing nothing. Specially if you have no

> little one dependent on you. I did lots of 'unsafe' travel, and I

> never regreted a single one! With my little one, I'm doing

> more 'safer' travels though. When she grows a bit older, I hope to do

> unsafer travels with her too! Africa is the only continent I've never

> been and I dream about traveling all around there!

>

> I guess that's my Brazilian side, I'll never change for that. One can

> die just going out to buy the morning bread in big cities there.

> Theft with death are not rare. But we don't stop living and life is

> much more intense and 'alive' there than in Europe, for example,

> that's a bit like 'dead' for me.

>

> Not much popular music going on in bars, streets, no life on streets

> except for some occasions, not many exchanges with 'unknown' people

> you cross here and there... It varies from country to country here,

> but so far, nothing compared to the exchanges I got when traveling

> in '3rd' world countries, in general.

>

> I also traveled and lived in East Asia and Southeast Asia. I guess I

> got the tetanus vaccination once. I traveled in areas with malaria

> falciparum, ate with locals, slept in their houses. I guess when we

> do like they do, we don't risk much to get sick, I mean, not as much

> as we would imagine.

>

> Once I took Lariam as preventive, but second and other times I went

> to Indonesia, I just checked with local sources about epidemies and

> went without anything (I had something in my medicine bag in case I

> fell sick with malaria, but no more preventive treatment). I

> travelled by myself, but never felt really alone.

>

> We have to have ears to listen to locals and see what are their

> warnings (like don't go to the forest there now, because they heard

> someone fell sick or so). Local knowledge is the most valuable, in my

> opinion. Of course you can check governamental sites to look for

> epidemies.

>

> Not only epidemies but many other dangers are always around when we

> go to places we don't know. I believe, disease is not

> that 'dangerous' as other things when we travel, specially if you

> don't speak the local language.

>

> More than vaccination, I would learn to speak/ understand their

> languages before traveling (a bit, enough to go around), that's for

> me the best health and life insurance. Besides, you get a lot of

> respect when you can speak a bit of the local language. I never

> regreted having studied a language before traveling, it only helped.

> I can give loads of examples.

>

> I thoroughly agree with Connie and others that say that staying put

> is sometimes the best thing that can happen while you travel. My best

> trips that are imprinted forever, are the ones I literally did

> nothing but enjoyed being in nature, lived in its rhythm, met whoever

> was there at those moments. No hurry AT ALL, those were my best

> trips. Rather rare, though, because we get contaminated by the 'must

> see' spots...

>

> Selma

>

February 21, 2007

Selma,

You have really been around!

I agree with you vaccines can be dangerous.

I saw this morning that Merck has decided to stop its campaign to make

vaccinations *mandatory* for cervical cancer. They caved to pressure

from the radical right which thought the vaccine would enable young

women to have sex. The other pressure was from people who know the

dangers of vaccine. Merck (and the government) were willing to use

hundreds of thousands of young girls as guinea pigs - nobody knows the

effects of the vaccine, short-term and long-term. And it's just a

coincidence that the former deputy chief to the Texas governor (Tx was

the first state that was set to make it mandatory) works for Merck!

Another point that your post made me think about Selma-

there is a drive among modern human to think they can control

everything, including death and illness. Like they can attain

immortality, and be free of all disease. Science can be a wonderful

thing, but I hope it never conquers death.

You know, there are people who still won't eat spinach. People do live

in fear a lot. And they don't even fear the right thing. The media

makes a big splash about an occasional problem, like spinach.

But they don't look at the structural, systematic, institutional

problems. like the health (mis-)care system, like how are food is

prepared, like genetic engineering. Ah... well..

ellen

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