Measles vaccination.

I remember being lined up at school for the polio jab. I swear they didn't even sterilise the needles between kids and God help you if you were last to get it as the needle would be blunt. Nothing like the fine once use needles now.

I can see that's awkward but seriously protecting your child against life changing and life threatening illnesses is worth a day's leave. What greater service could you do them?

What are your scientific qualifications @Poohbear333 ?
I'm curious as to how, despite "months of in-depth research" you appear to have dismissed the many, many peer reviewed papers, meta analyses and systematic reviews disproving your claims?

I did put off my youngest having her 1 year vaccines for a few months. She was so little, she wasn't very well and I did worry that it would completely overwhelm her because she was so poorly after her earlier jabs.

Now I'm not a daft woman (or so I think!) but I did think quite a lot about asking for individual jabs on a different timescale because one in each limb just seemed like so much all at once but we did eventually just do it as per the schedule.

It was also an absolute ball ache trying to get the time off work. They would only do childhood vaccines on a Thursday, and DH and I were at work. She couldn't go in to nursery after she'd had the jabs because they advise to give calpol because they feel a bit grotty, so nursery was a no. I eventually had to book a day of holiday just to take her for her jabs, when if she could have just had them on another day (literally any other day and me or DH could have been with her but Thursday is the one day of the week we're both at work!) if would have been fine.

The irony is that the huge success of vaccination over recent decades means that modern parents have no memory or awareness of deaths and disability as a result of measles. Sadly, it may take more deaths/outbreaks to actually convince people that measles is a serious and dangerous disease.

So nothing medical or immunological? Because the claims you made in yesterday's post were both inaccurate and far fetched, especially the nonsense about foetal cells. I trust you're aware that the cell component of vaccines comes from foetuses aborted in 1960?

The fact that you made the foetal cell claim without qualifying it leads me to take the rest of your post with several tons of salt.

@Slimagain It’s 73% uptake in Liverpool. I suspect this puts vaccinated dc at risk too. They are seeing lots of cases. We are a very foolish nation.

There are over 50 papers and reports — not just one link— and they span several disciplines, including child psychology, family law, and trauma-informed practice. I spent months independently reviewing not only peer-reviewed research but also court judgments, witness material, and safeguarding guidance to ensure a comprehensive understanding.

I won’t be replicating months of in-depth research for the purpose of having it dismissed or debated in bad faith or ignorance. If you’re genuinely interested, I’d encourage you to explore the available academic and legal literature directly - it’s all out there and accessible with a bit of effort.

@poohbear333 I would love a link to those research papers you mentioned. I trust they're peer reviewed?

One thing that won’t change anti-vaxxer’s minds is calling them stupid.

i am 100% pro-vaccine—mine have always had the full schedule plus private (chickenpox) when we lived in UK. But people are distrustful of Big Pharma, which actually is very understandable. That’s what needs to be addressed and it’s not clear how.

I agree all Children who can be vaccinated should be before they are allowed to start school. I also think all people emigrating should have proof of full vaccinations as well unless they have medical proof they cannot be. Including asylum seekers should be vaccinated unpon arrival if they cannot provide proof vaccination status due to missing paperwork.

People have become far too complacent because the vaccines work. Without proper herd immunity we cannot protect those who cannot have the vaccines because of the people who believe licking rocks will save them while letting their children eat so much UPF crap ironically. Lip fillers/botox/tattoos fine. Vaccine oh no.

I preface this by saying I fully support vaccines and do not hold any of these views. I live in Liverpool and there’s a massive anti-establishment rhetoric that goes around. They think the GP’s are receiving money for vaccinating kids, they genuinely believe the ingredients in the vaccine will be harmful to their kids.

Plus they also think that if the vaccines work so well, if your kid has had their vaccines - what difference does it make if their kid doesn’t? A lot believe in homeopathic remedies if their little one does get sick - the list goes on and on. Either way there’s a massive distrust in the “establishment” - I honestly don’t know what we can do to fix the problem, calling people anti vax idiots won’t work and I think people with genuine concerns should be able to voice them and have their questions answered in a respectful way. It’s a vicious circle because they don’t believe or trust medical reports and evidence that gets presented, but how else do you evidence that vaccines are safe? Will it take more kids getting sick to prove the point, hopefully not but I’m genuinely at a loss on how to convince people other wise.

I understand this logic, I really do but fear is the greatest judgement-clouder! It was a friend's child and was proven to be the vaccine (they had a large payout) and equal to a worse case scenario of measles.

I am desperately trying to rationalise that this does not mean my child will be injured but then I think "what if?" and I am back to square one. It also doesn't help that my partner with a science PhD is also reticent (for the same reasons as myself) but is open to do whatever to keep our son safe. I will book him in today and what will be will be - I can't let my fear dictate this.

What serious vax injury? Becase of course, there ARE people who can't or shouldn't be vaccinated. But was this injury really genuine? Was it more serious than measles? Was it an injury that your child suffered or someone else?

These are the questions you need to ask.

I know a woman who has terrible reactions to vaccines. She therefore does not want to have any more vaccines for herself. Fine. I get that. But I don't understand why she thinks therefore that it's reasonable for everyone else not to get vaccinated. They are HER side effects, they're not THAT serious and they only affect HER.

I just want to say, not everyone who doesn't vaccinate is a mad conspiracy nut. or neglectful parent. Some of us (me) have seen horrendous vaccine injury first hand (not supposed "autism regression") and, as a result, they terrify us. I am equally as scared of the vaccine as I am of measles. I had spent the last few days in abject panic about what to do for the best. I have read every research paper I can and I have also looked for examples of where the vaccine has caused damage so that I have a balanced view. I have called the GP surgery to speak to a nurse (and potentially book in for the MMR), was told I would be called back and haven't heard a peep. I am scared. Scared of doing the wrong thing. What if I vax and he's inured - I couldn't live with myself. I equally couldn't live with myself If he caught measles and died. For what it's worth, I am on the verge of just booking him in and throwing caution to the wind - but he's my precious "baby" (6) - the only kid I'll ever have. I know some of you will think I am some monster with blood on my hands but I'm not - I'm just a scared, anxious mum who is struggling to see past serious vax injury.

This. My GP explained herd immunity to me when my first DC was born and I get so irritated by smug anti-vax parents explaining to me that their children don’t get sick - that’s because the rest of the vaccinated population are protecting them but sadly, diseases that were almost eradicated such as Measles, Mumps and Whooping Cough are now back due to people who refuse to vaccinate. It’s so unnecessary and many more children will die due to this. Make it make sense?!

Complacency about vaccines makes me so cross. We are so fortunate in the UK that a comprehensive vaccine schedule exists for every child, bar a tiny minority who cannot have them. Around the world there are so many children who don't have this ready access. The idiots who smugly refuse to vaccinate their children have for years been able to rely on the majority of us who do use vaccinations to protect their children. Now it may no longer be the case. I feel sorry for the children who had no say in the matter and are now at risk, as well as those who are too young to have been vaccinated yet.

There was a lot of talk about herd immunity though when they were pushing people to vaccinate. Not quite so much in the UK, but where I live, and the US, for certain. It was used as justification for letting people go from their jobs - and I don't mean in healthcare, but people working at mechanics shops and things like that.

Covid was so international, even more moderate places like the UK are now suffering the social effects that more far out policies created in the population.

Covid is due to a rapidly evolving corona virus and the way it acts, the way the immune system reacts to it and its highly contagious nature means its effects can only be reduced, in most cases. Many other diseases are caused by more stable viruses or bacteria and can be completely prevented by vaccination for the majority of people.

I think the sciences and medical professions have lost the confidence of much of the public. And almost entirely through their won fault.

I'm not far out on the fringes person, fwiw - much of my birth family is in medicine, at high levels, and I've worked in that sector too, and my spouse and ILs are largely scientists or medical.

Trust in process is a hugely important part in science, and yet we all (should) know there is a serious crisis in peer review, publishing, around commercial interests in the pharmaceutical industry in particular, the number of experimental results, even in hard sciences, that prove not to be reDeGrasse-Tyson.peatable. And more.

And we increasingly have a cohort in the media who treat certain topics as dogma rather than science, where questions and alternative models are decried as blasphemy.

Idiots in public facing scientific "public intellectual" roles, like Neil DeGrasse-Tyson don't help, which is perhaps unfair to working scientists but it certainly affects how people perceive those roles.

More immediately, Covid has the most to answer for. So much scientific nonsense not only proposed, but pushed on people who were punished if they didn't toe the line. From putting up plastic screens in shops, to insisting paper surgical masks stop respiratory viruses, the 2 meter rule, to calling people who though the lab leak theory was plausible racists - all supported by governments, none of it science based. (A crazy local one to me, for a while we had to wear masks into a restaurant, we could take them off as long as we were sitting, if we got up to go to the toilet we had to take them out of our pocket and put them back on.)

And anyone who works in vaccination programs in countries where there is a distrust of vaccines will tell you the main thing you should not do is try to force people to be vaccinated - it has the opposite of the desired effect. (Public health people knew all this stuff, btw. They just... chose not to care.)

People see the authorities telling fibs to manipulate people into doing what they want, often for reasons that don't make sense, most scientists don't speak out.

Plus all the usual stuff. Vaginal mesh scandal. Contraceptive shots causing brain tumours, after many years of use. But apparently no need to worry about new products/vaccines/etc.

The result - massive distrust.

The covid vaccine was never intended to eradicate covid, much like the flu jab hasn't eradicated flu. The vaccine works against the most dominant strains and is designed to lower the risk of contracting it, reduce the risk of severe illness and/or complications if it is contracted, and lower circulation within the community by reducing contagion.

Which is why others need to be vaccinated to give the extra herd immunity
if measles wasn’t circulating, the child wouldn’t have got it
I can’t have the MMR and couldn’t as a child

What you mean, like how the Covid vaccine eradicated Covid.

Re areas with low takeup, maybe they ought to run vax clinics at schools for Reception children - take the vaccine to the children, rather than trying to get parents to bring the children to the vaccine.

I was in the first cohort to have the polio vaccine. I had it at school, my younger siblings had it at the baby clinic.

At secondary school, there was a girl in my year who had had polio and been left with a wasted leg and foot. She had been unlucky enough to catch it before the vaccine was available.

We all had measles, mumps, chickenpox. because there were no vaccines available then. Fortunately with no lasting effects.

I think many people still distrust MMR. I have wondered in the past if there was still an option to have them separately (or even just Measles separately as that generally seems to be the most serious in children I think?) then there'd be an increase in uptake.

I do vaccinate in general but am completely convinced I react badly to the flu jab and so I'm not quite so inclined to believe it's all automatically good.