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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To not give my children the swine flu vaccine?

652 replies

wintersnow · 17/12/2010 16:15

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?

OP posts:
claig · 18/12/2010 23:40

Why didn't medical staff and learned doctors respond to the advice of the Chief Medical Officer?

electra · 18/12/2010 23:42

Still no answers to my concerns I see......I have stated them a number of times and all I get is sneering and told I don't sound intellectual.

So how about you go away and find answers for me?

What is the clinical evidence for babies to be vaccinated at 8 weeks old?

Why did the UK continue using mercury in baby vaccines for some years after the World Health Organisation advised against it? What does this say about our government? Do you think they can still be trusted and why?

What is your opinion of the study at the University of Columbia which showed that animals with autoimmune tendencies developed autism when injected with thimerosal?

TheCoalitionNeedsYou · 18/12/2010 23:43

Claig - swine flu is flu. I didn't get swabbed, but it was the likely candidate. I'm not in a group it was recommended for. I might take it this year. I'm not in a high risk group though and I'm ill at the moment with one of the strains that is circulating.

petelly · 18/12/2010 23:44

"Why didn't medical staff and learned doctors respond to the advice of the Chief Medical Officer?"

I'm sharing this quote with my cigarette smoking and hard drinking doctor friends. They'll cry laughing.

claig · 18/12/2010 23:45

By the way most of the media and the BBC were reporting the Chief Medical Officer's advice to take the jab. What did Goldacre tell us? I don't read him, so I missed his advice.

There was one paper that told us of leaked memos, but the others gave the same message.

claig · 18/12/2010 23:47

TheCoalition, before you take it, do a little more research. As petelly says, her hard drinking doctor friends don't believe all the advice.

TheCoalitionNeedsYou · 18/12/2010 23:48

electra - I haven't said you don't sound intellectual. I said someone else's argument was that you were being intellectually inconsistent, not hypocritical - they were saying you were applying a set of ideas in one area but not another.

TheCoalitionNeedsYou · 18/12/2010 23:49

YAY - A Claig classic, take something said in disagreement with your point and pretend it supports it.

electra · 18/12/2010 23:52

I don't particularly wish to sound intellectual. I would like some answers to my concerns though.

I have another one too. Given that vaccinations do not last forever we will have a generation(s) of people who never had any means of getting immunity to diseases like measles. This means that the vaccines will wear off when these people reach adulthood - which is the most dangerous time to catch something like measles. More risky than for a child.

So.....shouldn't the government be introducing a booster for young adults?

PS - sorry to the OP that I've gone off topic for your thread.

claig · 18/12/2010 23:56

It wasn't in disagreement with my point. I know very well why the majority of medical staff didn't follow the Chief Medical Officer's advice. It was for the same reason that the majority of the public didn't either.

Swine Flu Scepticism

It looks like you were in the minority of those who did believe it.

electra has asked some excellent questions about it. Have you got any answers to those questions?

TheCoalitionNeedsYou · 19/12/2010 00:00

electra - No, I'm not going to go and do that research.

What is your explanation for 8 week vaccinations?

In regards to mercury, I did have a quick google, and the WHO advice doesn't seem to be against Thiomersal www.who.int/vaccine_safety/topics/thiomersal/questions/en/ so the Government was following WHO guidelines.

In regards to the Columbia paper, I don't have an opinion - it didn't sway the WHO 2006 opinion that came out 2 years after - what other responses have their been to it?

TheCoalitionNeedsYou · 19/12/2010 00:05

Claig - Your if you want to talk about your paranoid fantasies about Swine flu being a conspiracy (to what end? to whose gain?) then I suggest you start a different thread - vaccination is a very small part of that particular issue.

I'll just say one more time. The predictions were not wrong. We were lucky.

TheCoalitionNeedsYou · 19/12/2010 00:07

Electra - I would guess that if there is an increase in Measles in young adults, that a booster program would be called for.

electra · 19/12/2010 00:09

I read a report in 2000 which stated that the WHO had advised the discontinued use of mercury in vaccines for babies - it is after all a toxin and has no use for the vaccine but is only a cost-saving preservative.

The US took it out of their vaccines (after which, a report that autism dxs were declining in California came to light) but the UK had chosen to continue with it. Then, right after the paper I mentioned was published, the UK suddenly came up with the 5 in 1. It was all about oral polio though Hmm I personally didn't buy it.

claig · 19/12/2010 00:13

TheCoalition, you know it all, there's no point telling you anything. You get all your information from the WHO and believe everything they say.

The WHO declared swine flu a pandemic
www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/jun/11/swine-flu-pandemic-who-declares

How come so many doctors didn't take the vaccine for their families if the WHO said that? Don't they believe what the WHO says?

TheCoalitionNeedsYou · 19/12/2010 00:14

Electra - Well the WHO doesn't think that now - in there is no reference in that document to them having changed their mind.

TheCoalitionNeedsYou · 19/12/2010 00:19

claig - the WHO declared Swine flu a pandemic, because, well, it WAS a pandemic.

New cases of Swine Flu, in a given human population, and during a given period, substantially exceed what was expected based on recent experience, across the globe.

The definiton of pandemic does not include any level of lethality or severity. It just has to happen to a lot of people.

We were just lucky that it killed relativly few people.

TheCoalitionNeedsYou · 19/12/2010 00:21

Claig - Fears about the Swine Flu vaccine had little to do with mercury, but more to do with the truncated testing phase and the drug companies attempts to get unlimited immunity from any potential consequences.

So ordinary corporate CYA was read as them being forced to deliver something that wasn't ready.

electra · 19/12/2010 00:22

See here The WHO is pro-vaccination of course - but admitted they were 'working for' a discontinuation of the use of thimerosal. It's use could be avoided by using single vials, but this was of course more expensive.

When I mentioned this I was trying to highlight the concerns I have about the conflicts of interest which arise when it comes to the health of individuals. The WHO says here that mercury isn't good for anyone and that those most at risk are babies.....

elephantine · 19/12/2010 00:28

Electra - not all viruses are equal. The virus causing measles is pretty stable and doesn't shift like the flu viruses hence the long term protective effect of the vaccine. Babies start getting immunised at 8 weeks as their maternal antibodies wear off. The vaccination program is scheduled such to maximise protection as best as possible according to how quickly maternal antibodies fade. Off topic, breast milk does not confer the same type of immunity as placental transfer.
The uni of Columbia study you are so fond of quoting is one paper studying genetically modified mice. One paper does not constitute a body of evidence.

eragon · 19/12/2010 00:42

if you have decided to not to give your child any vaccines, how do you hanndle world travel ?

if for instance they did the whole gap year thing?

how do you view vaccines in that senrio?

claig · 19/12/2010 00:46

This is what Paul Flynn MP said about the WHO and their declaration of a swine flu pandemic

'He claimed that the decision by WHO, a body of the United Nations, to declare a pandemic had been influenced by pharmaceutical companies.
"We know the only people who benefited were pharmaceutical companies. They had a huge influence in defining what a pandemic is.
Mr Flynn said WHO was not being transparent in not explaining who had sat on the emergency committee that had declared H1N1 a pandemic.'

and he also said

'Mr Flynn said that while WHO had done incredible work, including eliminating smallpox, it had "cried wolf four times".
He said: "With Sars, CJD, avian flu and swine flu, none of them justified the billing as mass killers.
"WHO can't go on crying wolf and expect to have its views respected."'

Billions wasted over swine flu

'

and he also said

Laneigejaune · 19/12/2010 07:58

Claig, not sure what the significance is of this MPs point of view. Aside from having been a chemist in the steel industry until 30 years ago he doesn't seem qualified to make any judgements on this topic. On the other hand, he appears to have had a habit of making pronouncements about various topics, sometimes not always accurately. Eg he had to pay one company £36,000 damages following a High Court libel action. Sorry can't do link as still figuring out how to copy paste on iPad.

Need to do much better than that to convince me.

ArthurPewty · 19/12/2010 08:01

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

claig · 19/12/2010 08:09

I agree that one MP saying something doesn't mean it is true. It seems that Tony Blair said some things that weren't true.

But he did prepare a report on it, which was discussed by the Council of Europe. It is just an example of how people in authority do also ask questions of the WHO over their swine flu policy.

I don't want to convince anyone. I just think it is good to do research and not believe something just because people in authority, like Tony Blair, say it.