to be worried about this consent form?

[LightShinesInTheDarkness]

DD (12) has brought home the NHS Consent form for the HPV Immunisation for Year 8s.

We have decided, in a discussion involving me, DD and DH, that we do not want her to have the vaccine.

However, I am upset that the form says : (quote) Please note that while your consent is important, if you refuse consent the vaccination may still be given

It also says, 'Reason consent refused (PTO for additional space to give us your reason for your decision' - do I really have to give details?

AIBU to feel concerned?

"The hospital doctors also admit it could be the vaccine."

No they don't. There is no admitting, this is hyperbole to try and suggest that after repeated denials, they have been forced to acknowledge the truth.

It could be the vaccine. It probably isn't. But unless you have a known cause, you don't rule anything out. 'It could be' isn't the same as 'I think it is'.

yes I agree. 'It could be' means that it is possible that the vaccine could have caused this i.e. it is not an impossibility. Given that it occurred a few days after the vaccine, I can understand why the parents think that the possibility may be quite high.

"Given that it occurred a few days after the vaccine,"

The story says "days", not "a few days". Hard-won experience says that when these sorts of accounts are examined close up, "days" become "weeks".

What the parents think isn't really the point though is it?

Any potential vaccine reaction should be investigated. This does usually tend to happen in drug reactions. A patient has something unexplained and the drug is considered (having said that my grandmother died during a drug trial from a sudden burst spleen and afaik no proper post mortem was carried out).

For some reason with vaccinations it seems to be different - the onus is on proving it was the vaccination which is assumed innocent until proven otherwise.

Part of the problem I think with vaccinations is the clash between public and individual health. Yes it might be best for the nation if we all get every vaccination going, but for every individual the cost/benefit is going to be different.

All you can do as a parent is try and assess individual risk from vaccinations. If it goes wrong (and of course it does sometimes) you will be left to pick up the pieces alone and in the meantime you will be mocked. So of course it has to be an individual decision.

do you think that there are no risks such as brain damage, encephalitis, Guillen Barre syndrome, paralysis etc. from vaccines?

"do you think that there are no risks such as brain damage, encephalitis, Guillen Barre syndrome, paralysis etc. from vaccines?"

The most dangerous part about vaccination is travelling to and from the surgery, followed by risks that would be the same were you to receive 5ml of saline. For practical purposes, the risks of the conditions you list are immeasurably close to zero.

The risk of "brain damage, encephalitis, Guillen Barre syndrome, paralysis" is vastly vastly lower than the risk of getting not being vaccinated in the first place. Its like refusing to drive to hospital for treatment because you might have an accident on the way there.

Spurious scaremongering crap by idiots who don't understand science or statistics.

We should be much more aggressive in promoting vaccination in this country - to the point where school places and child benefit should be conditional on the child having received all relevant vaccinations.

tokyo and LookToWindward, sorry I don't agree with that. There are some MNers whose children received MMR and who fell ill within hours and couldn't speak and were diagnosed as autistic.

"tokyo and LookToWindward, sorry I don't agree with that."

Disagree all you want, you're wrong.

As saintly says the risk depends on the individual. Using the road analogy, for most people the risk is the same as crossing the road on the pelican crossing; for a minority it may be like dashing across the M6.

In 1975 in the US they had to stop the swine flu vaccines because people got Guillen Barre.

So celery is a risk, but people here are saying that vaccines pose no risk. So it seems that celery is more dangerous than vaccines. hmmmm

"vastly vastly lower than the risk of getting not being vaccinated in the first plac"

The anti-vax lobby have been able to spend the past ten years claiming that everything that's vaccinated against is either harmless or rare and treatable (MMR, DPT). They were wrong, of course - a teacher of deaf-blind children of my acquaintance grimly remarks that rubella keeps her in a job, measles is more dangerous than people think and whooping cough is very nasty indeed - but in the public imagination, they're not seen as scary.

Now they're confronted with a vaccination against a genuine killer, which takes women at a particularly young age. Now it's not "everyone had it when I was a girl". No one is holding "cervical cancer parties" to "get it over with". No one (rational, at least) is saying cervical cancer is a few days in bed and then you're right as rain. So they have to crank up the threat of the vaccine, and throw in fears of sexual immorality. But because the disease is not one that can be dismissed, fewer people are listening.

"Can I summarise what I think you are all saying? Seriously, I am getting it straight.

1. That the vast majority of MNers will give consent to the vaccine
2. The vast majority of MNers will encourage their daughters to give consent
3. If you consented but your DD didn't, your DD would not have the vaccination, on the basis that at 12 she can decide for herself.
4. Vice versa, if you did not consent but your DD wanted it, she would have the vaccination, based on the same premise."

Actually, 3 isn't correct. Gillick Competence allows a minor to consent to treatment that her parents refuse (eg blood transfusions in Jehovah's witness) but not to refuse a treatment her parents have consented for. This would need a Court Order.

Everything in life is a risk in one form or another. Everything you eat represents a risk that might conceivably kill you. However statistically that risk is little more than background noise and on about the same level as the risk from the HPV or MMR vaccines.

The problem is that you don't understand and don't want to understand. We could post the ladybird guide to statistics here in verbatim and it still wouldn't make a difference.

"We should be much more aggressive in promoting vaccination in this country - to the point where school places and child benefit should be conditional on the child having received all relevant vaccinations." - LookToWindWard.

If that day ever came this unvaccinated mother of unvaccinated children would tell the governement to stuff their Child Benefit and prepare to Home Ed.

The thing is, I don't think I'd be alone by a long chalk. Do you really think that the majority of parents who have declined vaccines for their DC have done so on the basis of so little research, such flimsy opinion that they would be swayed by the threat of the withdrawal of a few pounds and a third rate state education?

Some, maybe. But I think that the majority might surprise you.

PixieOnALeaf what did you think of the article by Dr. Diane Harper? where she says about Gardasil

"At the time, which was at the height of Merck?s controversial drive to have the vaccine mandated in schools, Dr. Harper remained steadfastly opposed to the idea and said she had been trying for months to convince major television and print media about her concerns, ?but no one will print it.?

thebulletin.us/articles/2009/10/25/top_stories/doc4ae4b76d07e16766677720.txt

"In 1975 in the US they had to stop the swine flu vaccines because people got Guillen Barre."

The 1975 US formulation seems to have caused some, yes. What's forgotten is influenza also causes GBS, at far higher rates.

See the current state of play www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20797646here. The abstract is below. You'll need a university library to get the full text, which is worth reading.

"Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) is an acute, acquired, monophasic autoimmune disorder of peripheral nerves that develops in susceptible individuals after infection and, in rare cases, after immunisation. Exposure to influenza via infection or vaccination has been associated with GBS. We review the relation between GBS and these routes of exposure. Epidemiological studies have shown that, except for the 1976 US national immunisation programme against swine-origin influenza A H1N1 subtype A/NJ/76, influenza vaccine has probably not caused GBS or, if it has, rates have been extremely low (less than one case per million vaccine recipients). By contrast, influenza-like illnesses seem to be relevant triggering events for GBS. The concerns about the risk of inducing GBS in mass immunisation programmes against H1N1 2009 do not, therefore, seem justified by the available epidemiological data. However, the experiences from the 1976 swine flu vaccination programme emphasise the importance for active and passive surveillance to monitor vaccine safety.
"

I'm sure people do want to understand. Yes there is risk in everything but the risk is not the same throughout the population.

dd1 is at risk of clcts

dd2 never had a clot

Gardisil has been linked to clots in people susceptible to them.

The risk to the dds of the vaccine is not the same.

That's not hard to understand either is it?

Tokyo - the risk from vaccination is entirely individual. For the vast majority the risk from a vaccination willbe tiny/non existent. For some the risk will be very higher (ref Hannah Poling for example).

Personally I'd like to see more research into identifying those at high risk before vaccination. This seems to be heresy however rather than a sensible idea

As nomedoit said, even a third of nurses said they didn't want the swine flu vaccine, due to fears over its safety
www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-1207270/A-nurses-refuse-swine-flu-jab.html

the same with half of GPs
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1208716/Half-GPs-refuse-swine-flu-vaccine-testing-fears.html