To vaccinate newborn or not

https://www.gponline.com/biggest-overhaul-gp-vaccination-payments-30-years-new-gp-contract/article/1673383

what are you talking about? I'm very familiar with the gp funding system and none of what you are saying makes sense.

All I will say is, I was born in the 1950s. I went to school with a boy who wore a calliper on his leg because of polio. He could have been in an iron lung.

I cannot tell you how grateful my parents' generation was that all these vaccines were appearing

And now you have so many protections.

Use them

And research what happens when you catch

Measles
Mumps
Rubella
Diphtheria
TB
Meningitis
Polio

Etc, etc

As a biological scientist I am absolutely triggered by some of the content in this thread. 😂 Fuckin hell, get down to big pharma and apply for a job if you think you know better

sadly I don't have any children to give the hpv vaccine to. yes, I am so volatile, asking questions on a discussion forum, absolutely.

will you have me arrested for my volatility if I ask if your research consisted of you having an actual scientific background or familiarity with statistical methods?

No they get a incentive if they teach a number , maybe you need to research this yourself . They do , not always in money , often I large discounts , new machines or access to them .

This !

I get really do get the wanting the very best for your child, but while nothing in life is 100%, the factual evidence for vaccinating definitely supercedes that for not vaccinating.

If your reply was to me I didn’t google.
I was a student midwife and researched through much academic literature, case studies and trial outcomes (some of which were hidden after animal trials).

OP honestly I’m not surprised you are worried because yes, it is scary making the best decisions for a newborn. And the whole anti vax agenda plays on that, they wind up your anxieties and emotions. But they do that by misrepresenting facts, that’s the bit you have to remember.

The fact is that the NHS is not a massive
money-making conglomerate the way the health service is in other countries. It only spends huge amounts of money on, for instance, a vaccination programme if there is good evidence - reviewed by people with a lot more expertise than you or I - that it will have a positive effect overall.

Yes, the NHS can feel very impersonal when you’re dealing with it. But that’s just because it is such a huge organisation dealing with a huge number of people. It has to be done on a box ticking basis, anything else just wouldn’t work.

Vaccinations have saved millions of lives. They’ve been given to millions of people the world over. Yes, there are a small number of people who have had an adverse reaction to them, but the likelihood of that happening to your baby is lower than the likelihood of them contracting one of these awful diseases if you do not vaccinate them.

No they don’t. They get paid per service they provide, getting paid anything else is illegal in the UK, especially if you’re trying to imply they get paid by pharmaceutical companies to give out more vaccines.

I'd say BertieBotts post is really well written and thoughtful.

My reasoning is that we aren't that good as Joe Public at assessing relative risk. Yes, vaccines can cause problems to a very small proportion of people, but the benefits far, far outweigh the risks, at both a population level, which the government is concerned about, and at an individual level, which parents are concerned about. That's of no consolation to the very small number of individuals who do suffer an adverse reaction, but many more children are saved from the occasionally extreme effects of the diseases.

I agree with the PP who said that parents who don't vaccinate real shouldn't be parents. One of my mum's cousins died of measles in the 30s and her older sister was a whisker away from death after contracting diphtheria. My dad always told me of the day he was walking to work in the mid 50s at about 7.30 in the morning. He passed the local children's clinic, and there was a queue snaking twice round the block of parents with children. Apparently the clinic opened at 8, and it was the first day that polio vaccine was available. At that time there would have been no one who didn't know someone affected by polio.
I think some people are ignorant of the devastating effects of some childhood diseases simply because they have never come across them as vaccines have mostly eliminated them. But as figures are showing, some are sadly making a comeback.

Can I marry you please? :)

You haven't done peer reviewed research, you've googled.

My view is that I either trust the medical consensus and doctors opinion, in which case I trust the anticibiotocs they prescribe or I dont. If I trust them, be that a first ir second opinion, then I trust their advice on vaccination.

If you vaccinate, what is the worst that can happen?
If you dont vaccinate, what is the worst that can happen?

Which is more likely? That's your decision.

I spent well over a year researching the HPV vaccine as did many others.
With my family, we made that choice.
Im not having a go at you because you chose to give them….something quite common with pro-vaccine people you tend to find is that they’re extremely volatile towards people who choose not to. 🤔. Vaccines in the UK are not mandatory so people can choose either way.

It’s different. They get paid a incentive not to give the vaccine so your comparison makes nil sense .verbena is right they get bit incentives , I don’t think people realise this .

They get paid per patient they see with cancer. Do you think they're encouraging their patients to get cancer? They get paid per smear test they do. They get paid health check they give. They get paid for every. single. thing they do. So of course they get paid per patient for vaccinations. How else would the GP's / nurses / admin staff etc etc be paid? You think they work for nothing?

I can only give you my perspective .
As someone with a child that is vaccine damaged , I can completely understand your doubts . Oldest was vaccine damaged when he had his mmr quite a few years ago . In insight the signs where there , she reacted very badly to the 8 week vaccines and then again to the second boost . In that time vaccines used to be 3 in one ? I think they are even worse now and they actually have 8 vaccines in one go and then again another 8 weeks after so based on that , her younger siblings are vaccine free . Even the vitamin k , the oldest of the siblings is 8 and youngest 2 .
We travel a lot , including 3 rd world countries . Until now , I can honestly say their health is amazing . None had antibiotics , none had any procedures and apart from colds and chicken pox no illnesses .
I’m by no means anti vaxx , you won’t find me telling anyone to not vaccinate . But I will say to people as you that have doubts , that you owe it to yourself to be 100% , vaccines can be delayed if you are unsure , side effects for those affected seem to be considerably smaller if vaccines are given at 6 months as a example .
I absolutely hate multiple vaccines , as a example children get hepatite B vaccines at 8 weeks , Hep b can only be transmitted by sex or sharing needles so in developed countries makes literally nil sense to have it . Why people don’t question this , I don’t know . I think we are on autopilot when we have our kids , we trust NHS implicitly. Once there is a issue we tend to research a lot more . I also have the benefit ( or not at times ) of having dealt with clinical negligence and vaccine injury issues so I think I analise a lot more and have realised over the what the NHS and medical professionals make a huge amount of life changing mistakes .
Just do your research , if unsure wait , you live in a country with good sanitation , access to health care and good food . Your baby won’t contract all this illnesses the moment you delay a vaccine . Just be a peace with yourself no matter what you choose . That all we can do as parents .

Being kind - yes, as a parent you should do what you can to protect your baby from an entirely foreseeable and painful death/disability causing illness.

On the one hand, you have a huge body of medical research, testing and studies. On the other, you have a few websites, insta accounts and wannabe celebrities saying it's all a big conspiracy.

I can't help but be angry with people who see this as a both-sides, let weigh it up issue. They're not only risking their own children's lives, but the lives of other children who have medical issues that mean they can't be vaccinated and rely on other kids being vaccinated.

Hi OP. The amount of misinformation in the media can be confusing. Molecular biology bachelor here with a PhD from Oxbridge, working in the same institute where the COVID vaccine was developed and even took part in clinical trials for other vaccines myself. I was also a COVID expert between 2021-2023. Hope my background reassures you.

We could discuss the benefit-risk analysis of vaccines considering the PP who mentioned her COVID vaccine-induced injury. Some side effects or injuries can happen as a result of vaccination; however, they are extremely rare. If you compare, for example, rates of COVID vaccine-induced heart inflammation in vaccinated people, it was still lower than the number of heart inflammation as a result of having COVID infection in people who were not vaccinated (one example here for those interested: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38046477/). This is the case for most side effects - that’s why we call it a benefit-risk analysis. It means the benefit is far greater than the risk. So all in all, the publication I mention - while not denying that there might be some side effect to COVID vaccine - still points to this particular vaccine being very safe and beneficial. With newborn vaccines, which have been around for a long time, there is ample evidence that they do save lives and are safe. This means, yes, the risk will always be there, but it’s a much smaller risk than not vaccinating your baby and them becoming ill with potentially fatal consequences. It’s OK to question things, and it is a fact that pharmaceutical companies make money selling products such as vaccines and drugs (it is a business after all). Still, vaccines are definitely not something we are needlessly "upsold" by big pharma - they truly do save lives.

I echo this. Measles cases are rising because of parents who not vaccinating their children. Your child is more susceptible if they are not vaccinated. Why would you risk that?

https://www.england.nhs.uk/london/2023/09/07/more-than-32000-children-across-london-at-risk-of-catching-measles-as-new-school-term-gets-underway/

I would like to see long term studies showing general health of vaccinated vs. unvaccinated.

The first people to have diphtheria and polio vaccines are now past retirement age. How long term do you want?

I was in the first cohort to be given the polio vaccine when it was first rolled out. I had it at school, younger siblings had it at the baby clinic.

I knew two people, only slightly older than me, who had polio before the vaccine was available. They were left with permanent disabilities.

OK.

So questions - Why insist on so many different injections in one single visit? Surely much much safer to give a vaccine for one thing, let the baby's body deal with it and then go back for the next one when they're well again?

If the baby is seriously ill, and you've whacked in 6 different vaccines at the same time, how on earth is the Dr in the hospital supposed to know which vaccine has caused the problem?

Why such an insistence on vaccinating against measles but no one seem to give a shit about chickenpox? Looking into both diseases, both can be equally fatal. One of my children was very seriously ill with chickenpox, admitted to hospital. Yet I had measles as a child and breezed through it. I remember having chickenpox a year later and also being very seriously ill. So clearly my 'genes' and those of my son's do not agree with chickenpox.

Why do we stigmatise measles and not chickenpox? Both can be a 'normal' childhood disease - both can be deadly, depending how your individual body reacts to it. Why is the same parent who is deemed negligent for not having the MMR not being told the same for not getting a chickenpox vaccine?

MMR - why oh why do they not still offer single vaccines? A lot of people who currently do not have the MMR would have single vaccines. I definitely would have vaccinated my two earlier if single was available. As it is, I've waited until their bodies were big enough and strong enough in my mind. Both were still poorly after their MMR and neither wants to go back for the booster (they will but you get my point, they're not 'nice' vaccines and do make you sick)

Why keep telling people vaccines are the only way to prevent serious illness? They're not 100% efffective. I saw this myself when my child , vaccinated, got taken into hospital with whooping cough. Seriously ill. Doctor iniitally refused to believe it was whooping cough as he was vaccinated and then had to admit he was wrong. The vaccine simply hadn't worked for him. Please don't tell me it would have been much much worse without as that's just rubbish! He had the disease , a disease he shouldn't have been able to get according to the the information vaccinators give out.

Why do we not acknowledge at all the huge numbers of people, adults and children who are permanently damaged by vaccines? They do exist. Yes, your chances of being seriously affected or killed are higher by the disease itself, but let's not pretend they're 100% safe. They're not. I've read some heartbreaking accounts of babies who have died days after their MMR. True stories. Unbelievably heartbreaking true stories. I can guarantee those parents 100% regret getting the vaccine.

There's always two sides.

But on MN we only ever seem to push the one side.

I was very very grateful that I had a Nurse at my Dr's surgery, and a GP, who were both very open to the idea of spaced out vaccines. GP actually said it was very sensible of me.

But listening to you, it's just get them vaccinated, as many as possible, as quickly as possible.

Are you 100% sure that a vaccine you've given hasn't severely affected a child?

Your baby, your decision. But try Googling pictures of measles infections before you decide. It can be a serious, debilitating illness the outcomes of which can be blindness, mental impairment or death.