Parents choosing not to vaccinate their children

Vaccines in their infancy? What on earth do you mean?
Plus can you explain any mechanism by which a vaccine which clears the body quickly after priming a natural bodily process could have any long term effects?

Are you smoking crack?

Vaccines are life-saving, however, we do not have enough data on the long effect of vaccines as it is still in its infancy.

You don’t think research will have been done as to the optimal time to protect safely while not leaving a child vulnerable any longer than necessary?

Polio is back in some parts of the world. We were SO close to eradication but a few leaders believed a conspiracy theory that research into the polio vaccine had unleashed HIV on humans, and stopped vaccination programs.

We need to start teaching critical thinking and how to decipher research papers and what makes a reliable study as a core part of the curriculum. It's downright ignorance behind the anti-vax movement combined with naivety - big wellness far outstrips big pharma when it comes to profits but they'll churn out the usual nonsense over money being put before health by the vaccine producers then feed their child hundreds of pounds of supplements and alternative remedies.

You're right! We fight off pathogens all the time. All day, every day, and we do it really well. There are just some we need help with. Bundling the vaccinations isn't a problem, it helps with uptake if we have fewer appointments to manage and it's not a problem for the body.

As a country we are regressing.

Our standards are slipping.

Either there is very very drastic action which is taken to change course or we face chaos.

What is the point of spending tens of billions on the NHS, billions on vaccines and public health prevention and then giving people the choice to behave stupidly and endanger their children's health and spread diseases across society?

The idiocy of some of the people who want to give some lazy/stupid parents the ability to spread diseases across society is beyond me.

Societal collapse doesn't happen overnight but over decades and we can see it happening now.

It great that you had a support GP.

What age?

I'd be more uncomfortable personally. It would mean them staying vulnerable for longer.

It was probably the yellow fever vaccine specifically that caused the illness. That vaccine is known for sometimes having nasty side effects and is not recommended unless you live in or are travelling to somewhere where yellow fever is prevalent. The effects of yellow fever itself are of course much worse than those of the vaccine!

I have sympathy to the extent I understand some people of Liverpool distrust the government due to the past and for good reason but my sympathy ends when we start talking about the safety of other children.

I think I would be comfortable with if they gave them at older age.

"Sounds mean"? Education is a human right. Depriving a child of it due to their parents' poor decisions surely isn't the way to go unless ALL OTHER AVENUES have been exhausted to get us back to the 95% vaccine uptake required for herd immunity. I've mentioned a couple of more conservative ones, but we also need to make appointments more accessible - visiting at home in the evenings if necessary - and offer spread out jabs / seperate vaccines for those who need or want them. The cost will be at least 3 x higher than bish-bash-boshing it out at a standard GP clinic in the form of 2 x MMRs, but SURELY these avenues need exhausting before leaving children - of likely poorly educated parents - out in the cold to form an echo chamber of misinformation.

Do they realise that adults can die of it too? My DH's grandma lost a 21 year old son to measles.

@Jeska7 I don't disagree with your points. It wasn't the chances of a side effect that worried me - it was the complete shutdown of medical professionals to even begin to admit the vaccine was at fault. It took two years - and use of the extremely expensive legal system - before it was admitted. If you are one of the very unlucky ones, this should be quickly identified and treated as such.

Exactly this. Sounds mean, but i have little sympathy.

As someone who had a child who was immunocompromised after chemotherapy, I feel a bit like ''oh well''.

At least those children wouldn't be around children like my child at school.

People dont reliese how important it is?! Maybe we should wheel out the iron lungs - they’d soon remember!
If measles is making a come back, it won’t be long till polio is back.

So what happens to all these unvaccinated children who aren’t allowed to attend nursery or school? Do we expect their parents to home educate them? How do we think that’ll go, given the parents are most likely to be poorly educated themselves?

I completely understand the thinking but in reality it cannot be implemented.

"Stopping unvaccinated children from going to school and nursery as a sole measure will only feed that distrust. Also, it will mean that these vulnerable children who are being raised on fast food, in homes where pot smoking is rife will become further entrenched into this mindset of distrust of the government and authority."

I agree with this. If we exclude children that are not vaccinated then we marginalise this group and they will become more entrenched in their views. Plus children will be home-educated and only exposed to the same views which make it more likely that it is maintained down generations. I think this is true whatever the reasons behind not vaccinating but more so if it's a distrust or religious reasons. I can understand why people want to exclude, but I fear it could do more harm than good.

People don't vaccinate for many reasons:

Wakefield/other misinformation
They are working and need time off

They can't get a GP appointment

Transient (having to move/temporary homes) so don't register with a GP

They have morning sickness with baby two so child one gets theirs late.

Egg allergy. (If severe)

Medical reasons

Don't realise how important it is as they are too young to remember or don't know anyone old enough who remembers and passes it on.

It's scarier to actively do something (vaccinate) and it harms your kid than to not vaccinate it just happens, but it might not because noone I know has. (Not understanding risk)

Life's are too difficult to get round to it (don't realise how important it is)

My late grandmother used to tell me that the fear parents had during summer that their children would catch Polio. Absolutely alien to use today.

I don't think people should have a choice about vaccines. Make it simple no education without a vaccine, no child benefit without a vaccine.

I think this shows that the approach to vaccinations needs to be different depending on the area, demographic, take up rate. A one size fits all approach is not working.

I don't usually comment on threads in such detail, but just wanted to give my experiences as I live in the city being discussed in the OP :)

I think you have nailed it with the mention of Liverpool culturally distrusting the government. I live in a similar northern city and it's the same, the government (are perceived to) care only about the Southerners so why should we fall in line with what they say? Things like the anti-Brexiteer rhetoric with a side order of head tilting "well they're thickos, they don't understand" have not helped. Covid was an absolute joke, the way some cities (Leicester, Manchester) were treated in the lockdowns was deplorable.

I vehemently disagree with stopping child benefit payments for families who are anti-vax, what's that got to do with the price of fish? I get that the "carrot" (encouragement and support to recognise that this could save your child's life) approach isnt working... as a mum of several youngish children I haven't ever seen any simple marcomms around vaccines for kids, just the very dry, NHS-y leaflets. We need to try carrot first - paid time off to take your child to the appointment, a £30 supermarket voucher for completing the course in areas where uptake is particularly low - before we move on to "stick".

The idea of stopping the child accessing education because they don't have a vaccine is absolutely abhorrent to me. No no no.