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.

Swine flu is a good example of how we don't really understand 'risk'. Last year the loudest voices were mostly concerned as to whether the swine flu vaccine was safe - because the disease itself didn't appear to be that serious. This year, because some small children are dying, the loudest voices are campaigning for mass immunisation of under 5's. Not a dickie-bird about the safety of the vaccine..

Hattie- good point
Choc puff. If you want to risk Yr Childs health fair enough but the point is you are risking others health in the process? Can you hand on heart say that is fair?
How would you feel if someone came to your Childs Birthday party incubating/ first stage measles/rubella for example and your child got a complication from catching it. Would you feel that person was selfish and irresponsible? Would you be angry for what they put you through?

By not vaccinating this is what you are potentaily doing to hundreds of families. Lots of infectious diseases are contagious before you are aware of symptoms so you can never be sure of who has got whAt around you.

I can understand why some people don't.

A vaccination programme depends on everyone taking part and so there is a lot of pressure to vaccinate. But sometimes there appear to be adverse reactions in a few children and as a result they are affected for life.

If I seriously thought one of my children had been affected or might be affected by an immunisation, I wouldn't want to risk putting another of my children through that.

I would find it much harder to live with the thought that I had actively seriously harmed my child than the thought that I had passively allowed my child to get an illness.

It does seem that people who choose not to vaccinate don't object to vaccinations per se, precisely because they rely utterly on herd immunity to keep their children safe. So they are not really ideological objections, becuase surely if they were, then they'd campaign agains all vaccinations for all children?

I have never met anyone who hasn't vaccinated for woo reasons but I will take everyones word for it that they exist.

I had ds1 vaccinated according to schedule. I would love to be a mum who could just roll up, red book in hand and have it done without a thougt.

Unfortunately a group of us have serious reason to believe that vaccination may be a problem our kids and, in spite of anxiety and concern and much hand wringing, our best choice is not to have them.

To then be attacked constantly as some kind of selfish weirdo and listen to people joyfully spouting about all the bad things that should / could happen to you or your child is pretty fucking vile.

I am going to hide the thread and envy all of those who can enjoy knowing that they are right and my dcs immunity problem, health problems and illness were all in my mind. I am,of course, well known for being hysterical, irrational and deeply stupid.

I read the points about responsibility, suing etc with interest.

The vast majority of unvaxed in UK are arrivals from overseas. They are often hard to reach, especially if there are language barriers. I suppose it'll mean all arrivals will have to be detained until immunisation status is confirmed. I'm not sure what you could do about tourism.

Ds is 14 moaths and due to illness and now a decision that at the moment his flu jab is more urgent at the moment wont be able to have mmr for about 6 weeks yet, I would be annoyed if he caught measles because someone else made an 'informed' decision not to vaccinated

well, my son was vaccinated but a few weeks ago he caught German Measles (God knows where from). It wasnt the full blown illness because he'd had his jabs. So he was poorly (better than a normal cold) and had a nasty rash down his back for one day. So was underweather for around a week instead of 2 or 3 without jabs.

Im glad we vaccinated as we nearly lost him at a year old as he developed a virus induced wease (when he picked up a virus his air ways would swell up and he needs a inhalier to revers the swelling). So, if he hadnt had the jab, he could have been serously ill.

oni you could everyone (or everyone from a certain country) entering the country to be required to be vaccinated against certain diseases.
for example the US requires that germans carry a vaccination documents that proves that they are vaccinated against measles, also when you work with certain age groups in the us your vaccination status has to be up to date.

My DD hasn't had her MMR booster yet as she is being investigated for neurological/metabolic issues and I don't know if it would affect her until we know what is wrong. Hth.

I have declined some vaccs for my younger 2 as Ds was affected. I am not irresponsible and would get them the vaccs if I was offered an alternative but you are told to go with 'one size fits all' or nothing.
Of course there is going to be some kids affected by vaccs, nothing is 100% safe for everybody

The health officials know this but 100 years down the line when many childhood diseases are irradicated who is going to remember the generations of vaccination injured children??

It's very different when the decision is made for a medical reason not to give, or to delay, vaccines.

If anything cases like that make it more important others do vaccinate to help protect those already vulnerable.

There seems to be one thing in common for all the vaccinators and the non-vaccinators. They are all thinking of what is best for their own children. On that point, there is no difference between sirzy and pag.

98% safe will be good enough for health officials but not for the parents of that tiny percentage.

The OP does seem to lack even a modicum of sensitivity.

Hattie - excellent post.

I would completely agree with people's "right" not to vaccinate, even if their reasoning is woo.

But yes, they should be prepared to accept responsibility for their actions, both to their own children and others that they are putting at risk.

It's not that long ago that families were affected by these diseases. My granny is still alive - her younger sister died of polio in the early 50s, she was aged 30, with 2 young children who my grandparents then took in. My grandad spent a year in a TB hospital at about the same time - thankfully he recovered.

" you could everyone (or everyone from a certain country) entering the country to be required to be vaccinated against certain diseases"

Asylum seekers often don't even have passports.

I went along to all of DS' jabs without a second thought because I think there are certain things every child does need some protection against I.E MMR, Menengitis, Tetnus BUT I did not take him for the Swine Flu jab because I don't think it has been tested enough and although I have had a few people sniping at me for ot getting it I know of atleast 3 children who ended up poorly because of the jab, 2 of whom have had swine flu since!

Everyone has the right to choose and whilst I do agree some should be compulsory I dont think that all of the jabs given are as important as they seem I.E chicken pox and flu (unless medically adised)

I actually think this thread is quite a sad example of the blame culture we live in today! Had it been 60 years ago if a child caught Measles then it would have been seen as a bad illness and tragic whereas now people automatically blame those who have not had their child protected against it. Surely this is a sign of the jabs failures rather than parents who hae made a (hopefully) informed decision?!

Long winded rant over

You probably won't see this Pagwatch but I think most people who object to other people not vaccinating their dcs aren't talking about your specific circs (and others like you), but to those who read an ill-informed article in the DM or similar and then decide not to get their little darlings vaccinated because they fail to understand that the risk of complications or death from serious illnesses far, far outweighs the very very small risk of side-effects or reactions to the vaccine.

We're so pro-vaccines in our house that all three of mine are on trial studies ? which will hopefully have a positive effect on future children's health, as well as possibly reducing the number of vaccinations in the current schedule.

hatti's post is ridiculous. I can't believe some of you are agreeing with it. Why not stone all non-vaccinators while we are at it.

Yes, I thought I'd stumbled on to the Daily mail comments page for a minute there.

chinacup, I'm waiting for the parents of an unvaccinated child, whose child goes on to have some devestating side effect from measles, to sue Andrew Wakefield for compensation.

onimolap its herd immunity that should be protecting these vunerable groups, until they can acces our free healthcare and vaccination programmes.

But what would non vaccinators do if as a result of this (like me) in later life an immunity issue cause by german measles caused a serious illness like kidney failure Would you refuse dialysis and a transplant?

The modern day answer to most things - let's sue. The post-modern way will be 'let's stone'.

Interesting to note that Dr Wakefield, who started the MMR vaccination scare, has now been struck off since it was revealed he had secretly set up businesses that planned to cash in on the outcome of his shit stirring.

I have read nothing that leads to any evidence that MMR is actually linked to autism. All the articles I have read from well respected medical journals state that no casual link has been proven whatsoever. I will therefore be immunising my child when he/she is offered it (not due til June)