What on earth is wrong with vaccinating children ffs?

[poshsinglemum]

I'm sure this has been done before a million times.

A friend of mine who has gone all woo recently isn't vaccinating her dd because some quack gave a lecture on the evils of vaccinating. My ex boyfriends mum was a complete quack/chrystal healer and begged me not to vaccinate against typhoid, encaphalitus, rabies etc when I went to the third world. She gave me a homeopathic kit. Needless to say I got the jabs anyway.

I think that the ''evidence'' not to vaccinate is coming from the woo crew and is fuelled by paranoid conspiracy theories concerning the pharmeceutical industry. I am not completely convinced by the industry myself but I'd rather take a chance on them than my dd getting polio etc.

I just read the MIL thread but I have been meaning to discuss this for ages.

You are absolutely right Looktowindward.

I guess this is a pointless argument and people will believe what they want to believe. I guess it is a case of who you trust to give you the right information.

Leonie if it is true that you have had personal contact with Murch then I think it's extraordinary that you portray him as saying the same things as Wakefield about the mmr.

Oh, so that's why Wakefield was hauled before the GMC and struck off. Not because he performed procedures on children that weren't clinically indicated and he didn't have ethical approval to conduct. These procedures included lunbar punctures. Pretty unpleasant.

But it's all a big conspiracy, isn't it? Are they all in the pay of big pharma?

statlover, do you know (personally) someone who is just anti'vax? anti all vaccinations, whatever they are for, without looking at: personal circumstance, reading the available info on each and every on, and without explorig other options?

someone who just refuses all jabs, because they can, and because all jabs must be evil as they are vaccinations?

because I've never come across anyone who holds that view. the anti-vaxxers (as you would term them) I ahve seen (as in know personally, and have come across on MN and similar) all hold their views backe dup by personal research. you may not agree with their conclusions drawn form the available info, but to say it is like arguing for/agains tthe existence of god is somewhat of an exaggeration.

I think that people who refuse to immunise, and who can't provide good enough reasons NOT to, should be prosecuted for neglect.

Those who refuse to immunise and instead opt for Homeopathic/other quack "alternatives" to PROPER vaccines should have their children taken away.

please lets ot get into the clinical indication argument again.

I ask (again): what do you think a doctor should do when faced with a patient, referred ot them in the usual way because htey are an expert in gastro problems, who is experiencing severe abdominal issues - blood and undigested food in stools, extreme pain, etc? treat them, or turn them away?

the treatment those patients (and others) were given was exactly in line with clinical practice (and indeed, the same protocol exists today)

the team at the Royal Free did NOT experiment on children, they did not carry out unethical research, they did treat patients in the way they should be treated (and the very fact that bowel disease was found - something which no one part form Brian Deer denies) shows that there was clinical indication for the treatments carried out.

silverfrog

if someone said to me, there is evidence to suggest that my child may be at increased risk from vaccinations (eg an immuno-suppressed child) and I therefore have chosen not to vaccinate but I sure am glad to be living in a society where most are vaccinated so I am much less likely to be exposed to [insert appropriate disease] - that to me is an intellectually coherent argument. I'm not a clinician. I don't know the ins and outs of individual cases.

However, that's not the argument I'm seeing here. People here are insisting the getting the disease is less risky than the vaccine, that vaccinations are not a good thing.

By that reckoning, we'd never have eliminated smallpox.

And we were SO close to eliminating polio throughout the world until the Nigerian version of the anti-vax campaign ruined that one.

OK, you obviously know better than GMC committee.

Because it's all a conspiracy????

Well I think it would be more honest (if you have really spoken to him) to make it clear that he believes the mmr to be a life saving and essential vaccination. He told me that he was very upset by the fact that the research led to the reduction in parents vaccinating their children that it did. He talked about how terrible it was that children were being admitted to the royal free with measles, a disease that had been virtually wiped out. He and walker smith both recommended that my son who had severen gut problems and compromised immunity had the mmr.

If they believe that the mmr is the best option for most children and they were involved in the original controversial research then i find it hard to believe that that is because they are some how conspiring against us.

'I've a good friend with a severe allergy to penicillin.

Obviously that means antibiotics are a terrible thing and will kill us all.'

This post makes a good point but one that could equally apply to vaccination. Penicillin isn't suitable for everyone. Equally vaccination isn't suitable for everyone.

There is nothing wrong with vaccinating children. There is something wrong in insisting that vaccination is suitable for all children andthat all parents should go ahead and blindly do it. Parents should be able to decide for their own children without being judged.

Aah, OK. So he caused an unnecessary lumbar puncture rather than actually doing it himself. That's OK then

But it's all a conspiracy? Right? It's either a conspiracy or he was guilty of miscondcut. Which is it?

statalover - I have been in and out all weekend, so may have missed the posts you are referring to, but I believe that people who have argued along the "disease is less risky than vax" lines are the same as the people who have weighed up an individual circumstance.

I have certainly posted before that for my dds, it is less risky, overall, for them to take their chances with a) catching the disease, and b) possibly developing complications (obviously not a given) than it is for them to have the jab.

I don't think there are poters saying they ahve no reason to not vaccinate, but that they think the disease risk is low, are there? again, apologies if I have mssed them)

saggarmakersbottomknocker

The point is that the risk of vaccination is blown out of all proportion. If there is a sub-group at higher risk then it's either a tiny group or the risk is only slightly higher.

statalover: the same protocol exists today (I believe) for treating patients who arrive with the same symptoms that the lancet 12 had.

investigate, in the way the team at the Royal Free did.

so, given that, (and setting aside the gmc for a moment) - should the team at the Royal Free have treated those children the way they did? ie investigated symptoms according to standard protocol?

silverfrog

In many cases, risk blown out of proportion and not based on evidence.

ANd the reason the risk is low is because you like in a highly immunised society so you should be out there encouraging all others to immunise so that your child is protected.

silverfrog

I trust the GMC who are far more qualified than me. I don't believe there is a conspiracy against Wakefield. He IS a disgraced charlatan (although I believe the media bear more responsibility for the ensuing aftermath).

If you believe your child is in that sub-group then you should be able to make a decision not to vaccinate without being judged irresponsible.

So it's a conspiracy? Of course it is. Fits in with typical denialist behaviour

"Equally vaccination isn't suitable for everyone."

Exactly - anything involving human physiologically never will be.

However the decision around those at risk and who are perhaps not suitable for vaccination should be made based on the evidence and documentation and in agreement with the health professionals involved - not because one idiot mother has read somewhere on the internet that vaccinations are horribly dangerous things.

Not vaccinating your child (half of the time for no more reason that its "fashionable") puts everyone at risk and you're damn right I'm going to judge that.

statalover is right

saggarmakersbottomknocker

As long as that decision is based on scientific evidence and not denialism. I don't think that's the case in most parents who don't immunise.