whats this about the bcg

[starshaker]

my friend has just told me that her son has just had his bcg. i thought they got it at school but she said its been stopped and they only get it under 1 and u have to shout to get it. any1 else heard this

[starshaker]

any1 else heard this

[Milliways]

DS is 10 (YR6), and had letter with questionnaire which basically was were you, parents or grandparents born outside uk!

Only those in high risk areas or categories will get BCG now.

[Potty1]

I don't know what they give to babies these days starshaker but the one they used to get at secondary school has been cancelled.

[starshaker]

yeah my friends ds got his bcg yesterday

[kreamkrackers]

i think it's stupid tbh. tb is still one of the worlds biggest killers and everyone should be vaccinated against it, the goverment are going to regret this in a few years time.

[agalch]

Havn't heard about this,my son 14 got his last year in around Sept/Oct.

[lailag]

Not thought to be stupid by several other Western European countries. The protection is about 70-80%, relat low as far as vaccination go, it also makes it more difficult to differentiate beteen vaccinated and real tb pos people when using Mantoux/Heaf.
Sorry, a bit of a sore point for me; had some problems with occupational health departm some years ago as I refused BCG vaccination. I was then asked to sign a form that would say it was my fault if other people in my work place would get tb.

[ruty]

that appalling lailag. That sounds very dodgy in legal terms. I thought the reason it was stopped was because of problems with its effectiveness.

[kreamkrackers]

tb is caught through droplets that come from sneezing, talking, coughing, etc. it can live in the body for a long time before it's noticeable spreading from one person to another. 7000 people in the uk still get tb each year, it was declared a global emergency in 1993. i think prevention is better than cure, i would not like to be on a 6 month course of antibiotics. for most people it is a low risk of catching the disease at the moment, but with the way people are so easily travelling around the world these days and the bcg only being given to higher risk people i think this will soon change. i would love to be wrong but tb is still a very infectious disease.

[lailag]

Can'r resist replying. I don't disagree that tb isn't a huge world wide problem. Just saying that some countries don't agree that giving BCG is the best way to go about it.
It makes it more difficult to find an infected person as everyone who has had BCG vaccination wil have a pos skin test. (Would be more keen to take 6 months of antibiotics if there was more "proof" that I might have caught it).
The vaccination doesn't ptrotect very well against tb (read somewhere that 50% of studies in fact showed no protection at all, other say it is only useful in preventing the more serious forms of tb (meningitis etc), ).
BTW
Both of my children had BCG as baby as I considered them high risk.O, and I never signed the stupid thing from my occup health department

[mummytosteven]

lung x-ray should establish one way or the other whether someone has TB.

[Kidstrack2]

starshaker they still do the bcg in secondary schools here, my cousin got hers not long ago at 14 and they do the bcg on babies if there is a need to do it, if you look in the red baby book they give you it asks if a bcg was req at birth etc maybe your friends baby needed it

[lailag]

on the continent, someone who used to have neg skin test and now has become pos, they would give antibiotics with a clear chest xray, to "prevent" soneone who has become infected to develop active disease.

[starshaker]

sorry should have said my friend is in london so maybe its different there (im in scotland) will ask hv when i see her

[Potty1]

My ds had his last year too but it's not being given this year here. (Midlands)

[Potty1]

NHS immunisation info

[SofiaAmes]

I have just moved back to the usa from the uk. Here in california, the bcg is not given and in fact was strongly discouraged by our very pro-vaccination paediatrician because it has such a low protections rate (i was quoted around 60-70%). Instead you are required to be tested for tb in order to get your child into school, group childcare or in order to work with people in any sort of group setting (ie for teachers, nurses, doctors, etc.). The problem with giving your child the bcg, is that it then becomes problematic testing them (including risking a severe reaction at the test site) for tb. Unfortunately, I didn't know this when my ds was born and he was given the bcg (we lived in a high immigrant neighborhood in london) and now that we are in the usa, I have to jump through hoops getting him to be exempt from the required test for school (had to sign a form saying we are opposed to it on religious grounds...pretty funny since we're atheists). Luckily I won't have to go through the same with our dd.
It is important to remember that if you don't do the bcg and you are in a high risk area, then you should get test regularly.

[Furball]

Heres a previous thread on the subject as well