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Yesterday, my 2 year old daughter tripped while we were hiking. She fell down and hit her head on a flat rock which gave her a pretty bad cut. We weren't sure whether or not stitches would be required in order to preven scarring, so we took her to emergency just to be cautious. Up to that point, my daughter had not been vaccinated for tetanus. The doctor strongly recommended that she be given the vaccine as well as tetanus immunoglobulin in order to prevent infection. Initially, I told the doctor that I would rather not... that I would go home an research it a little further, and take her in that night if I though it was necessary. So he went away and came back with a second doctor. Together they used manipulation and scare tactics (no facts) to finally get me to aggree to the vaccine. Last night I did some research, and I am now very much regretting my decision. Not that I found a ton of evidence to suggest that I should be really worried about some adverse reaction from the vaccine... but what I did find is evidence that the vaccine was completely unnecessary. Here are some ot the things I found: 1. The liklihood of death from tetanus in Canada is roughly 1 in 6 million (and even if you make the assumption that immunization is 100% responsible for the decline in tetanus infection/deaths over the past several decades the likelihood only increases to 1 in 2 million). 2. It is nearly impossible to get a tetanus infection from an open (bleeding) wound since tetanus is an anaerobic infection. 3. A very high percentage (as high as 77%) of tetanus infections are from intravenous drug use (mostly affecting herroine addicts). 4. At least up until 2002 the US government admitted that only 60% of the population was immunized against tetanus. So even if you assumed the vaccine was 100% effective, you would only expect the frequency of infection to drop by 60%.. But the drop in the rate of infection is closer to 99.5%. 5. Of the known cases of infection in the US from 2001 until 2008, the percentage of vaccinated individuals was the same as the general population (ie. 60% of people who were infected with tetanus, had received the vaccination). 6. The rate of tetanus infections in the US was already on a rapid decline prior to the vaccination becoming commonly used. 7. "Unlike childhood diseases, it isn’t possible to gain natural immunity to tetanus. If you’ve had it once, you can have it again. The body does not produce antibodies to Clostridium Tetani. Vaccination is the act of injecting a viral or bacterial substance into the body to make it produce antibodies to that disease. However, since no natural antibodies can be made, then there is no possible way that artificial antibodies could be made either. If the disease cannot give you protection, then how can a vaccine?" Please let me know if you can find anything that contradicts/supports these findings. I apologize for the lack of citations. I just made a bunch of quick notes as I was going through the material last night. Most of this information comes from government sponsored websites. I can get you the sources if anyone is interested in something specific. (fyi.. no stitches were necessary for my daughter