To not give my children the swine flu vaccine?

[wintersnow]

I decided not to last year as I wanted to wait and see how safe it was but am reconsidering this year after several people have died. Did you give it to your children and what were your reasons to give/not give it?

petelly, I think Leonie, electra and bubblemummy know a lot about it, and have spent time looking into it. I am sure they know many of the ingredients that make up vaccines. Be a little more sceptical and research it further.

'It's all about conspiracy and paranoia, gut feelings and intuition.'

That's bolleaux - I've given good reasons for my concern about the schedule we currently have in the UK. And I've raised the research that was done at Columbia university - all of which seem to have been ignored.

You can call it a case series if you like, 12 cases is still a case study and has no value in determining any kind of causality.

As you say he called for further research. That has been done. It has shown no evidence of causality.

PixieOnaLeaf, I am very interested in diet and never eat soy as far as is possible. Unfortunately, it is now appearing in so much of our ready made food and bread, that it is not always possible. As I said before, I also avoid aspartame and MSG and other ingredients, even though they are readily on sale in the local supermarket, and presumably are considered safe by the experts.

We can only take action about things we have looked into and think we know about. We are not aware of all risks, but we can take action over those we know about.

Everything about Andrew Wakefield has been misrepresented. He simply said more research was required. Which is a sensible approach. The man was never anti-vaccination.

electra - Yes - that's what he said in the paper. In the press conference he went a lot further and suggested suspending the triple-vac etc. for which there was no supporting evidence.

The evidence against him seems to be that he was an egotist trying to make himself a bigger part, some of whose practices are considered unethical, who was prepared to be swept along with the moral panic once the papers got involved a lot later on.

The real problem is allowing humanities graduates to run the media.

Leonie - That would be because the moral panic wasn't about a small subset of children. The media message was that the triple jab caused autism.

Coalition - I think the majority of media reports were pro-vaccination and still are...

TCNY

"The real problem is allowing humanities graduates to run the media."

electra - they are now - it was much more mixed at the time.
Even now many are pro or anti depending on what makes a better story at the time.

I had it last year as did my DD (i'm asthamtic)
This year I had it again (I'm pregnant and asthmatic) I must say I HATED having it while pregnant but I didnt want to take any risks with my health as I would be leaving a 2 year old behind.
However no one is advising that my DD should get it so this year she hasnt

I find Valhalla, Riven and others attitude somewhat baffling and actually quite selfish -except that Rivens daughter clearly cannot risk a vaccination so that is understandable