I hate anti-vaxxers

I agree everything has a possible side effect. I worked an event for thymidimide victims. My heart broke for them all, all because it was too new. My children are all vaccinated but we didn't take the covid ones because it was too new. I'm sorry this happened to you.

Off subject slightly, but if you are concerned about catching covid, you can get a booster jab from some chemists. Costs vary, but I paid around £100. As a vulnerable person (though not, in my eyes any more vulnerable than me!) my husband was invited to have a spring booster vaccine on the nhs. But as I wasn’t, I paid to have it privately.

Totally agree with you, OP.
And schools should only allow vaccinated children.
I say this as an Asian. Everyone in my family is vaccinated though.

Not at all. There is a communal responsibility to do what we can to keep others safe.

Your attitude is ignorant & selfish.

Many years ago I worked on a Meningitis helpline. Sadly I spoke to many parents who had children that were unvaccinated and went on to contract meningococcal meningitis / septicaemia - some of these children died (a few were found dead in their beds) or were left with devastating after effects including amputations. Many of these conversations were harrowing. Consequently my children were vaccinated.

You would think that, but some people don't think that way.

When DD started university 6 years ago there was an outbreak of mumps among many university students because these young people were due to be vaccinated at the height of the Andrew Wakefield scandal.

My godmother was deaf because she contracted measles and came from the generation where there wasn't so much provision for deaf people as there is now. Also polio, do we want that out there again?

Totally agree @An89

I had to deal with a student who had measles (at 21) because their parents hadn't had them vaccinated. The student was undiagnosed for about a week as the measles presented as flu. The student was in a large class of largely young women, with a lot of female staff. If any of then had been pregnant and caught measles, it could have been quite tragic.

And we had to rearrange assessments etc so this student's illness had an impact on another 4 or 5 students' workload & schedules.

PParents who don't vaccinate their children are deeply deeply selfish.

And it just goes to show that having children does not make anyone a better person - sometimes, it makes people far more selfish.

The person who mentioned about getting cancer young and the covid vaccine, it's much more likely it's either bad luck or possibly to do with covid itself. There is a massive body of research showing how covid messes with the immune system and that it's potentially oncogenic, and most of us have had it multiple times by now. Who knows how cancer rates will be affected in future and the long term impacts of so many infections. But the covid vaccine does a great job usually of preventing serious illness and keeping you out of hospital.

Also, measles is so scary. Aside from causing death or disability, it can give you immune amnesia, which wipes the body's ability to recognise illnesses it has previously been exposed to, including ones you've been vaccinated for. Anti-vaxers disgust me.

Well I'm hardly vulnerable now am I. Having actually had measleles I'm sure I have immunity from that infection

Yes they are though when you have children under 1 who cannot be vaccinated and are at risk of catching measles.

I got measles at 11 months caught from an unvaccinated older child, I was really sick.
This was back in the 80s, measles could have been eradicated by now if people just vaccinated their kids.

For the OP - it could be worth calling your HV/GP because sometimes they will give the MMR early if you’re in an area with a measles outbreak.

Did you fail GCSE biology as well?

Do you never, ever use the NHS because you know better?

It’s certainly not a blame thing. It’s a natural consequence of globalisation. We have to get yellow fever vaccines before visiting certain countries, so it’s not unreasonable to require MMR to come here.

Er how did they get Covid three times if they had immunity?

The difference is that in London it is on the automatic childhood vaccine register. There may be other cities that also do this. In the rest of the U.K. you have to request it and prove your child’s eligibility (parent born in a country on the high prevalence list for example). If not you have to pay for it. I know because when my eldest child reached 14 and still hadn’t received it I enquired and was told it wasn’t offered to everyone anymore. I wanted my child to have it so was willing to pay, then I was told that we were eligible for it free of charge based on where my husband was born.

Many doctors and nurses I know, refuse to get vaccinated or choose only have some vaccinations, for one reason or another. If you go to your GP surgery or Hospital, do you actively ask their vaccination status before they treat you?

You cannot say a medical consultant is ignorant or uneducated in this field. Quite the contrary.

btw I and my children have had all our vaccinations

Herd immunity is so important.

DC have had all their major childhood vaccinations.

I was always very pro-vax, then got myocarditis (it did happen to a lot of women) and a clotting disorder from a Covid Vaccine. Not an anti-vaxxer, I got it willingly. Devastating at a personal level (heart failure, massive amounts of treatment and it doesn't get better). Also very sad that Covid vaccines and the suppression of side effects gave anti-vaxxers ammo to use against vaccinations for severe childhood disease.

Until your baby catches measles and dies because someone else's decision to risk their own kids' lives has real world consequences for other children too.

Is that "never" - say on a scale of 1 - 10, where 10 is never under any circumstances would you vaccinate and 1 is absolutely, I would always vaccinate no matter what - what number would you give yourself on that scale?

They might not be poorly educated, but they are dim.

Yes. Unfortunately there is a minority of people who just cannot build up or gain immunity from certain diseases. Again, it is up to responsible parents to vaccinate their children to create the herd immunity to protect the more vulnerable members of society like yourself.

I imagine that many of the people who claim to be anti vaccinations have benefited from being vaccinated as a child. They are now choosing to not pass on disease-preventing, potentially lifesaving, free privilege to their own children.
They also do not seem to be able to understand/cognitively process that through not vaccinating, they are sabotaging the very system (herd immunity) that has given them the sense that it is safe to leave their children unvaccinated. In the risk/benefit evaluation they are not confronted with the raw, stark reality and consequences of outbreaks of disease as parents were prior to the development of preventative measures.

I know a man who doesn’t speak to his parents. They believed the autism-MMR ‘link’. He caught mumps, which caused orchitis, and now he and his partner are having to go through fertility treatment as it effected his fertility. He blames them entirely, says their stupid decisions have ruined his whole future.

See my post 7.54