MMR - thoughts

[Idoitforthelove]

I have two friends (one a GP) who are convinced that this particular vaccine caused, or was a factor in causing, their children's (severe) autism. They believe that Andrew Wakefield's research was valid and that the drugs companies are simply holding the NHS to ransom.

Thoughts?

My one year old is due to have the MMR next week and I don't think I'm going to be able to take her. It feels utterly unnatural to fill her tiny body with three vaccines at the same time, even if I hadn't spoken to my friends about it.

[Idoitforthelove]

Has anyone paid to have the vaccinations seperately?

[MrsWembley]

Ben Goldacre on many subjects including Wakefield

Buy it, read it, educate yourself

[MrsWembley]

Sorry, bad link - try this one for his website:

http://dscience.net/2008/08/the-medias-mmr-hoax/

[MrsWembley]

Ahh fuck it! Google Ben Goldacre and his website Bad Science and read what he has to say on the subject. Then google the Cochrane Organisation and search for MMR on there - check this out from their website - "We could assess no significant association between MMR immunisation and the following conditions: autism, asthma, leukaemia, hay fever, type 1 diabetes, gait disturbance, Crohn's disease, demyelinating diseases, or bacterial or viral infections. The methodological quality of many of the included studies made it difficult to generalise their results."

[GrizzlebertGrumbledink]

As Wembley said. This shouldn't even be a discussion any more, Wakefield has so much blood on his hands.

[IssyStark]

GPs aren't taught that much about evidence based medicine nor yet medical statistics. A parent, even if they are a GP, will want to blame something rather than nothing, however there is no evidence to link MMR to autism and loads to link lack of MMR to measles outbreaks and complications. Even the highly educated can be conspiracy theorists.

[Fugghetaboutit]

I got my ds the single measles jab last week. Didn't want to give him 3 at once either. Followed my gut.

[Fugghetaboutit]

www.skepticalraptor.com/skepticalraptorblog.php/italian-mmr-autism-decision-overturned/

I'm not an anti-vaxxer at all as my ds has had all his jabs. The above article is about a court who ruled the MMR did cause autism in a boy. He had a severe allergic reaction to the jab and it left severe disabilities.

[Fugghetaboutit]

The above article is in disagreement but a court did overrule it so surely there was some evidence. I don't know, so many children have it with no problems. I just wanted to give my son the single one.

[ShowOfHands]

Did you give the multiple jabs at 8, 12 and 16 weeks?


I delayed my dc having them until they were older and gave them singles. This was on GP advice though and back when all three were still available.

I have a particular family history which means that my dc were at a risk of reacting to the MMR. My nieces reacted badly and had their future vax in hospital as a precaution (turned out to be necessary). I had the MMR at 21 (measles outbreak at university) and reacted badly to it. Again, it's due to a familial history, not random chance.

There are a tiny minority of people for whom the MMR is possibly not the right choice. For the vast majority of people it will be completely safe. Do you have any reason to believe you fall into one of the small at risk categories?

[MrsGinnyPotter]

Single Jabs every time for me. Seeing first hand the effect this jab has had on a child means for me I would never go for the combined one. I don't want to get into an argument with anyone who says the research is rubbish or not valid as those people have clearly never seen the devastating effect it can have.

[VashtaNerada]

MMR is so important! My DC all had the jabs exactly as recommended by the NHS. It's simply not in their interest to cause more children to be sick, they want children to be well!

[Idoitforthelove]

Thank you for not dismissing me as crazy. I'm not an 'anti vaxxer' at all. DD is up to date with all previous vaccines. My husband is a scientist. Of course we know that vaccines save lives. Ultimately, it's my gut instinct that is screaming at me to pay for the single vaccines.
We have no reason to fear the MMR particularly - no health problems of any kind on either side - I just feel very, very uneasy after hearing many stories from parents, particularly my very well educated, down to earth GP friend whose son's autism came from nowhere.
I would feel better about it if it were acknowledged that the vaccine has SOME effect on SOME children in very rare circumstances. But nobody will even admit that.

[Idoitforthelove]

Mrsginnypotter- my point exactly.

[Roonerspism]

Deep breath....

Ok, my understanding is that Dr Wakefield's research methodology was flawed- notoriously so which led to him being discredited.

But has anyone considered the results of his flawed research? Has anyone conducted further research into his gut theory. I don't think they have.

I got my kids vaccinated singly. I don't tell anyone this. I don't give a fuck about being slated on Mumsnet. As far as I am concerned, Wakefield's research threw up some stuff that hasn't been investigated fully.

[Idoitforthelove]

Roonerspism - thank you!

[staverton]

GPs ARE taught a lot about medical statistics etc- both at new school, in GP training and in journal clubs etc. Just this GP, however nice, has decided to ignore the evidence. There is no link, it has been proved time and time again.
Some people just like to have something to blame.

[Idoitforthelove]

I think that's a bit unfair.

[canyou]

We did all vaccines at a later age (think 6 months delay) and one at a time. DD was a premie as was I and 30 yrs ago premies were not vacinated I had all mine as an adult. DP's brother is 42 and has non verbal autism and deaf and had MMR but even their DM said there was signs of autism long before his 2nd birthday when he got MMR.
It will be a personnal choice you need to do what you as a parent are comfortable with, only then will the choice be the right one.

[Roonerspism]

Interesting....

Wakefield was considering bowel inflammation and finding the measles virus in the gut of kids with inflamed bowels. That research has been replicated.

My understanding is that it hasn't then been linked to autism per se I.e. The gut may be inflamed from the measles vaccination but that doesn't necessarily link it to autism.

We need more research. Everyone will be too scared to do it and there will be sod all funding.

I'm not anti-vacc either OP.

[Ubik1]

From bad science:

In 1998 Wakefield published his paper in the Lancet. It’s surprising to see, if you go back to the original clippings, that the study and the press conference were actually covered in a fairly metered fashion, and also quite sparsely. The Guardian and the Independent reported the story on their front pages, but the Sun ignored it entirely, and the Daily Mail – home of the health scare, and now well known as vigorous campaigners against vaccination – buried their first MMR piece unobtrusively in the middle of the paper. There were only 122 articles mentioning the subject at all, in all publications, that whole year.
This was not unreasonable. The study itself was fairly trivial, a “case series report” of 12 people – essentially a collection of 12 clinical anecdotes – and such a study would only really be interesting and informative if it described a rare possible cause of a rare outcome. If everyone who went into space came back with an extra finger, say, then that would be worth noting. For things as common as MMR and autism, finding 12 people with both is entirely unspectacular.


Google bad science MMR and read up.

[Roonerspism]

Maybe ubik. But we need more research to be done. Wakefield was discredited due to his methodology. Not his science.

[Ubik1]

Further research? Well there was this, again from Bad Science:

What was this frightening new data? These scare stories were based on a poster presentation, at a conference yet to occur, on research not yet completed, by a man with a well-documented track record of announcing research that never subsequently appears in an academic journal. This time Dr Arthur Krigsman was claiming he had found genetic material from vaccine-strain measles virus in some gut samples from children with autism and bowel problems. If true, this would have bolstered Wakefield’s theory, which by 2006 was lying in tatters. We might also mention that Wakefield and Krigsman are doctors together at Thoughtful House, a private autism clinic in the US.
Two years after making these claims, the study remains unpublished.
Nobody can read what Krigsman did in his experiment, what he measured, or replicate it. Should anyone be surprised by this? No. Krigsman was claiming in 2002 that he had performed colonoscopy studies on children with autism and found evidence of harm from MMR, to universal jubilation in the media, and this work remains entirely unpublished as well. Until we can see exactly what he did, we can’t see whether there may be flaws in his methods, as there are in all scientific papers, to a greater or lesser extent: maybe he didn’t select the subjects properly, maybe he measured the wrong things. If he doesn’t write it up formally, we can never know, because that is what scientists do: write papers, and pull them apart to see if their findings are robust.

[Ubik1]

Methodology is a fundamental part of science.

[Roonerspism]

I'm sorry - but there is more to it. People love to pull apart Wakefield and he clearly fucked up. But has anyone ever shown that the measles vaccine isn't in the bowels of kids with colitis? The research hasnt been continued and probably won't be.

So in the meantime, some of us choose to go separate. And I make no apology for doing so.