I actually do think anti vaxxers have a point to a certain extent

[HairHereThere]

Like with ANY medication/treatment there are risks
I feel the government are letting us down with such a one sided ‘vaccines are safe’ argument and how they never want to admit that vaccinations cause problems.
I think, I’m some cases they do. Not being able to claim under the vaccine damage scheme for under 2s gives the wrong message too it’s just too.......defensive ?

If they said actually there is a risk, it’s small but it’s there and we’re honest then had more of a balanced reasoning that yes there’s a risk but it’s a choice and presented it better that the scaremongering would die down

I’m theory I’m anti vax but I’ve vaccinated my children fully because I believe it’s a risk but a risk that is worth taking if that makes sense.
Some I spent to though are terrified and feel there’s such a brick wall up around balanced discussion and it makes things worse ?

Cost-effectiveness analysis on CP vaccine, using 2004-2013 data. £7mln spent per yr on CP admissions. Italics are mine. Herpes zoster is shingles (who knew).

"The average yearly number of hospital days was 10,748 for varicella and 41,780 for herpes zoster.... The average yearly hospital costs (£ 2013/14) were [midpoint estimate] £6.8 million for varicella and £13.0 million for herpes zoster. The average annual numbers of deaths [] due to varicella and herpes zoster were 18.5 and 160 respectively....
Conclusions: Most of the hospital burden due to VZV-virus in England occurs in the immuno-competent population and is potentially vaccine-preventable."

Is £7 mln/yr a mild illness? Common cold may cost US economy $40 bln/yr. Scaling down & exchanging currencies, suggests British economy cost is £5.2 bln/yr. tbf we still call colds a 'mild' illness.

We had a lovely tiler come and do our kitchen tiles recently and we had an interesting chat about this. He had believed the autism/mmr link and not vaccinated his children. In his late teens his son contracted measles. Unusually, the virus travelled upwards to his brain causing life long brain damage and the need for 24 hour care. His parents were of course devastated, angry that they had believed this and he was telling me how he wishes every day how he had vaccinated his son. When he and his wife are not caring for their son, they campaign for vaccinations and tell their story.
I found this so sad, a completely preventable disease and their son could be living a normal happy life if he'd had a simple vaccination.

Bebebeouf
That Jodie Marchant case really doesnt make sense. The parents are looking for something to blame and a typical case of recall bias and conspiracy theories. Its very sad for the family.
She has a chiari malformation which would explains all her symptoms. There are some anti vax sites trying to link chiari malformation with vaccine damage because people who claim vaccine damage have been diagnosed with Chiari malformation, but its usually congenital but symptoms are not present at birth and in some cases not until adulthood.

it’s just too.......defensive?

I'm inclined to agree with you tbh. When my DD was small (14 years ago) the attitude to any alternative to MMR was a bit 'Big Brother', bearing in mind it was fairly early stages in the Andrew Wakefield stuff being debunked.

We opted to go private and have the measles, mumps and rubella jabs separately, but there was little information and the NHS refused to give any info or recommendations on any alternatives.

Personally I think a more balanced approach (ie, we strongly recommend the triple jab but separate ones are available privately and company x, y and z are who we would advise you use) would have been more helpful.

“Personally I think a more balanced approach (ie, we strongly recommend the triple jab but separate ones are available privately and company x, y and z are who we would advise you use) would have been more helpful”

Well, if there was the remotest evidence to support the idea that separate vaccines have any benefit at all then I suppose that would be a good idea......

Well, any benefit except to the charlatans that profit from parents fears by charging for “individualised vaccine programmes, I mean.........

@lljkk There are adverts in my country that encourage people to stay out of the emergency departments when they have a common cold, a sniffle or a cough because this happens so often and it clogs up the system for genuine patients. Wouldn't surprise me if people going to the hospital were encouraged or did it out of fear of immediate death (because that is the message being pushed about measles/varicella etc)

I would say (and actual evidence and statistics say) that it is a mild illness, yes, despite the propaganda. There have also been several chickenpox outbreaks in my area, a couple each year. My own children had the cp and yet, where I live, vaccinations are the highest they've ever been with varicella being on the schedule for quite some time now (all of my children have been vaccinated). I am convinced this unwavering belief in and support of vaccinations is due to a combination of fear and ignorance, I support the OP and agree that there must be open and considered discussions had about vaccines.

And no, it is not my responsibility to medicate myself and my family to provide you with piece of mind. What else would you have people do in order to put you at ease?

Best not use a car in case you are involved in a life changing road accident. Which is statistically more likely than an adverse reaction to a vaccination.
Even Trumpkopf, who pandered to antivaxxers to get their vote has said people should get vaccinated. If even a snake oil salesman realised how stupid and dangerous this is, maybe that should give you pause for thought.

Yes. Sorry. Companies selling single jabs are generally ripping people off, profiting from fear, you can trace back a good portion of the antivax stuff to them as well. Including Wakefield.

Why would the NHS give info about that? They are perfectly within moral grounds to say "We don't recommend single jabs, we offer the combined MMR for free." NHS don't give details of private homeopathy clinics or crystal healers either, because the evidence does not point towards these things being effective and the NHS is in principle evidence based. It's generous in many ways that these private clinics are allowed to operate at all.

Yes they do handle some aspects of vaccination reassurance poorly IMO but not that one.

Also I appreciate that 14 years ago they probably seemed like a safer alternative (and I am not saying they are dangerous) but today the MMR has been studied and examined far more closely than any single jabs have. Certain ingredients have been removed from standard jabs as a precaution, not necessarily the case for optional alternatives. You will also tend to need more adjuvants, preservatives, and so on for several single vaccinations as opposed to a combined one.

Antivaxxers pushing single jabs over combined ones is really a headscratcher, because you're adding more risk for less gain. I know the point is that you can pick and choose but it still doesn't make sense. Unless people pushing vaccine fear have money to make from single vaccines, anyway. Then it starts to make total sense, but it's awful IMO.

Well, if there was the remotest evidence to support the idea that separate vaccines have any benefit at all then I suppose that would be a good idea......

As I stated in my OP, at the time I had to make the decision, people had only just begun to realise there was something amiss so it was a much more grey area than it is now.

We did our reseach as thoroughly as possible and were very happy with the choice we made.

x post Bertie

We just made what we felt was the best choice for our family with the info available at the time. I wouldn't necessarily make the same decision again (not that'll have to as my my baby days are over!).

I'm not anti-vax at all, but I do believe that people should be given information and options as far as possible rather than being dictated to by the 'powers that be', which was how it felt to me at that time.

@bellinisurge If you decide the benefits do not outweigh the risks in regards to driving a car, than by all means, stay out of cars but again.. you don't get to make those choices for me.

Yeah I totally get that, to be fair, I probably would have made the same choice. I thought about it for DS1 (10). In the end fewer needles and lower cost won me over.

I'm not sure about being dictated to, though. It is not like the government forces people to be vaccinated (and I would be very against this, even though I believe following the recommended schedule to be the most beneficial) - the NHS simply decides what they offer. It is not really their job to provide information about all vaccination options to parents, it is their job to decide what would benefit the nation as a whole and recommend/offer it. I think it's fair enough that if you want an alternative you should research this yourself. I don't think private clinics should be allowed to make claims that their offers are "safer" unless this is evidence based (I don't know if they do, I think purveyors of "homeopathic vaccines" might though).

I don't think private clinics should be allowed to make claims that their offers are "safer" unless this is evidence based (I don't know if they do

One very well known baby jabs clinic did make claims that it was safer to go down the single route, and was prosecuted by the ASA and told to take them down. The owner is an author of scaremongering vaccine books, He makes his living out of scaremongering over vaccines .

Natsku - Personally I don't think the NHS is driven by financial considerations re. leaving CP out of the vaccination programme. The info on their website makes perfect sense to me. The vast majority of children who get CP are absolutely fine. A few children suffer complications but I assume the NHS would adjust it's stance if this was a significant number.

I think leaving it as a vaccination that parents can pay for if they wish is a good idea - no need to make it mandatory.

Incidentally DD's best friend caught it over Easter. When the first spots appeared her mother messaged me and said DD's friend had the CP vaccination last year so she would likely get a very mild case of it. She was completely covered head to toe in spots and looked worse than DD when she caught it

It might have still been a mild case - mild doesn't automatically mean every vaccinated case will be milder than every unvaccinated case. Perhaps she meant she wasn't worried about complications etc. Or maybe the vaccine didn't work.

@Nothankyounotforme , but you are happy to make those choices for me by undermining herd immunity and putting immunocompromised people at risk of death. Your attempts to make this a personal choice issue are not as well thought out as you imagine.

When Dd got measles at 5 months I rang the dr. (Didn’t want to go into the surgery with a poorly child)

Dr I spoke to said he wouldn’t know how to diagnose measles so it was pointless bringing her in.

I could if I wanted and see another dr but I would need to sit in a separate waiting room.

Went in and saw another dr who confirmed what I already knew that it was measles. Then was sent home.

Dd was over heated and grouchy but then turned the corner and was back to her old self. About 1 week or so later it was over.

Eastie77
It absolutely is based on cost, you can read it here, the concern about the potential increase in shingles cases is because of the cost of those cases, not about health concerns <a class="break-all" href="https://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20120907151231/www.dh.gov.uk/prod_consum_dh/groups/dh_digitalassets/@dh/@ab/documents/digitalasset/dh_109874.pdf" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20120907151231/www.dh.gov.uk/prod_consum_dh/groups/dh_digitalassets/@dh/@ab/documents/digitalasset/dh_109874.pdf

And they assume that the shingles rate will increase without evidence for that, which does not seem to be the case in the US which has had the chickenpox vaccination for decades (the rate has increased, but it is not thought to be related to the vaccine as the increase started before the vaccine was introduced and similar increases are in countries that don't use the vaccine) www.cdc.gov/shingles/hcp/clinical-overview.html

@Oliversmumsarmy measles can kill. Particularly if you are immunocompromised. Thank you for being sensible enough to be mindful of the risk of infection.

How about reading some actual scientific papers instead of the Daily Mail?! There is so much overwhelming scientific evidence out there that I can't believe this is even still a conversation in 2019. Anyone who doesn't vaccinate their child based upon hearsay or what their uneducated friends believe is being extremely stupid and selfish - there are children who are chronically ill - eg heart conditions etc who rely on herd immunity to survive. To me people who don't believe in vaccinations are in the same category as flat-earthers; both being equally ridiculous!

@WeirdPatient

I don’t really understand your point about from a couple of days ago But the opposite is also true. How do you have a reasoned discussion if the medical professional won't listen to you and just tell you that vaccination is best [full stop]? Without being willing to e.g. give you data on the risks of the illness vs the risks of the vaccination

Surely if you get an obnoxious doctor you can still look at medical websites like the NHS, or look at medical journals? Those are the ones which detail potential vaccination problems.

@April80 your post makes no sense.

@Bigearringsbigsmile what has formed your opinion that having the illness is better than the vaccine?

The most comprehensive study to date shows no increase in shingles in the US following widespread pediatric vaccination for CP:

Examination of Links Between Herpes Zoster Incidence and Childhood Varicella Vaccination

281k shingles cases were examined. Here's the conclusion:

Conclusion:Age-specific HZ incidence increased in the U.S. population older than 65 years even before implementation of the childhood varicella vaccination program. Introduction and widespread use of the vaccine did not seem to affect this increase. This information is reassuring for countries considering universal varicella vaccination.

The study was published in 2013 so the NHS is certainly aware of it.

just a fever and spots