By Penny Scheenhouwer, Brisbane
Growing up, I had all the recommended vaccinations. My mother never questioned the wisdom of vaccinations, or indeed any other recommended medical tests or treatments of the time, for any of our family.
When I was 18, my mother was diagnosed with breast cancer. At this time she started a very different relationship with medicine. She started to look at all the natural and alternative medicines. As she went along this path, she began to dismiss much about conventional medicine and what it had to offer. I watched her go into complete remission (medically stated) using ‘natural’ methods, and I found this very inspirational.
Through this process I began to read many of the books that she had (and she had literally hundreds). I too began to see things in a ‘different’ way than I had before. Somewhere along the way my mother became anti-vaccination and I too took on her anti-vaccination stance, after reading much of the material that supported that stance.
I decided that the harms of vaccination seemed to far outweigh getting a disease. I came to the decision that if I ever had children, I would not vaccinate them and intentionally put them at risk.
At the age of 35 I had my daughter. Both my husband and I had no intention of vaccinating her, and we did not. Just before her 3rd birthday she contracted chicken pox – a very bad case. From that I began to question whether or not we should have vaccinated her, after the doctor stated that the vaccination may have prevented the disease, or at the very least she would have only had a mild case.
I had met Serge Benhayon a few years previously, at the age of 31. In a conversation with Serge not long after my daughter’s illness, I asked whether we should vaccinate our daughter or not and what his views on vaccination were. His reply was that he could not and would not tell us what to do, but that he knew vaccinations do what they are supposed to do and that all his children had been vaccinated.
Following this, my husband and I talked and decided to vaccinate our daughter. Still caught up in the fear a little, we vaccinated her for everything except MMR (measles, mumps and rubella). Although we vaccinated our daughter, we never took responsibility for our selves and our own health, and did nothing to ensure that our own vaccinations were up to date.
Over time even this attitude has changed. We recently chose to vaccinate our daughter for MMR, as well as travel vaccinations. Not only that, but my husband and I also got all the shots we needed to bring ourselves fully up to date.
If it were not for the support and wise words of Serge Benhayon, offering us a greater perspective upon which to make our decision, my husband and I would never have vaccinated our daughter. We understand now that this put not only her at unnecessary risk of preventable diseases, but also others in the community. Our initial choice not to vaccinate was made out of fear, and not wishing to do her harm, but there is a bigger picture here, one that includes us all.
You can read more about Serge Benhayon’s views on vaccination on the blog “Serge Benhayon on vaccination – choice and responsibility”.