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.

Waiting.

Can you link cat? Can't download on phone but will look later.

"none developed autism"

None of the thirty one, not none of the three million

It wasn't 3 million. It was 1.8 million individuals, 3 million doses.

How many did develop autism?

"You must believe that every single doctor who agrees with them is lying, every single co.nultant and immunologist. Be very clear. You must believe silver and leonie are lying, you must for the sake of your position."

Silver and Leonie (and you) may or may not believe the tripe they (and you) are spouting, and if they do, it wouldn't make them liars. They are probably simply not very bright, which is the overwhelming trait seen in people who are irrationally opposed to vaccination. It's a classic case of a little knowledge being a dangerous thing. People who are STILL supporting Andrew Wakefield's made-up nonsense in spite of the published proof of its fraudulent nature are beyond the reach of reason. The people on this thread who have a grasp of scientific method and peer-reviewed publication of good quality research are whistling in the wind trying to explain it to you because no matter what, you will continue to think a few cruddy websites that someone put together in the hours before they took their antipsychotics in some way trumps the evidence from large-scale trials conducted by people with real qualifications. Andrew Wakefield could hold another press conference tomorrow and confess to the camera that he made the whole thing up to sell the single vaccines and molecular tests that he HAD patented before his original MMR/autism press conference, and you'd all still think he was a lovely man who spoke nicely to patients and was being inexplicably persecuted by every other doctor in the UK because ALL OF THEM are being paid by DRUG COMPANIES. Apparently.

My original comments about not vaccinating your children having the potential side-effect of improving Society by removing your stupid genes from the pool still stand.

Sorry, it was a synopsis and a paywall's in place. I suspect that 31 in 3,000,000 is just normally occurring co-incidental illnesses. A 10 year monitoring process is pretty thorough, and no link was established.

Funnily enough there's a commercial site for private doctors in Manchester (so I won't link). They're flogging single vaccines, but have a handy list of pro and anti vacc medical studies. The studies which found no link between MMR and bowel disease are on the whole large scale studies across many countries - and are numerous. Of the 4 which suggest a link, 3 are small scale Wakefield ones, and the 4th doesn't distinguish between 'wild' measles and MMR jabs when examining bowel disease.

Research refuting link between MMR and Autism/Inflammatory Bowel disease.

1. Taylor et al, 1999. Lancet; 353: 2026-29. This was a UK epidemiological study which looked at 498 autistic children. It found that there was no difference in diagnosis of autism whether the child was vaccinated before or after 18 months of age or never vaccinated at all. It was also noted that there was no observable increase in autism after the introduction of MMR vaccination in 1988

1. Kaye et al, 2001. BMJ; 322:82-85. This study examined 305 British children diagnosed with autism between 1988 (when MMR vaccination was introduced) and 1999. It showed that the numbers of children vaccinated with the MMR vaccine was constant but that the numbers of children under 12yrs old diagnosed with autism rose 7-fold during this period. It concluded that if the MMR vaccine was responsible for this increase in rates of autism, the increase in autism should have flattened off within a few years of the vaccine being introduced. As this was not the case, there was no evidence for the MMR causing the increase in autism.

1. Dales et al, 2001. JAMA (Journal of the American Medical Association); 285. This study analysed rates of autism and MMR uptake in California but found no correlation between the two.

1. Peltola et al. 1998. Lancet; 351: 1327-28. This Finnish research followed up children who developed bowel symptoms lasting over 24hrs after having the MMR jab. It found that of the 31 children it followed up, none developed autism in the 9 years following the administration of the MMR vaccine.

1. Paediatric Infectious Disease Journal, 2000; 19: 1127-34. This Finnish study looked at 1.8 million children who received the MMR jab. It found that the risk of serious adverse events attributable to the vaccine was only 3.2 per million vaccine doses. It also noted that there was no increase in the rates of autism or bowel disease amongst those vaccinated.

1. Taylor et al. 2002. BMJ 324; 393-6. This research looked at medical records and concluded that the proportion of children with autism or bowel disorders has not changed since the MMR vaccination programme was introduced.

1. De Wilde et al. 2001. BJGP; 51:226-227. This research compared the consultation rates at GP surgeries of autistic children before and after MMR administration and found that there was no difference in the number of visits to the GP by these autistic children at 2 or 6 months after MMR administration.

8.Miller et al. 2003. Archives of Disease in Childhood. This research looked at hospital data relating to 436 children admitted to hospital with serious bacterial infections between April 1991 and March 1995. The researches looked to see if children were more likely or not to have developed the infections within 3 months of having the MMR jab. They concluded that there was no increased risk of acquiring a serious bacterial infection in the 3 months after administration of the MMR jab. The researchers suggested that this finding disproved the theory that giving the MMR vaccine overloads the body's immune system.

1. A Japanese study published in March 2005 looked at rates of autism after the withdrawal of MMR vaccination in Japan. The study found that rates of autism continued to rise.

Evidence suggesting possible link between MMR Vaccine and autism.

1. Wakefield et al, Lancet 1998; 351:637-641. This research described 12 children referred to the Gastroenterology department at the Royal Free Hospital. All twelve children had intestinal and behavioural disorders when they were seen. All twelve had apparently been developing normally prior to parents noticing the symptoms. In 8 cases, the parents believed the symptoms appeared shortly after having the MMR vaccination. The researchers didn't claim to have proven a link between the disorders and the administration of the MMR jab. The sample size was too small to allow for accurate or reliable conclusions to be made. One of the 13 authors of this research suggested that children be given single jabs.

1. Wakefield et al, Lancet 1999; 354: 949-950. This study showed an apparent rise in autism in the UK and California coinciding with the introduction of the MMR jab.

Evidence suggesting MMR vaccination is a cause of Inflammatory Bowel Disease.

1. Kawashima, Wakefield et al, 2000. This research looked at bowel tissue of patients with Inflammatory Bowel Disease and found that measles virus particles were present in the bowel tissue in 1 of 8 Crohns sufferers (wild measles virus particles), 1 of 3 Ulcerative Colitis sufferers (vaccine strain measles virus particles) and 3 of 9 autistic enterocolitis sufferers.

1. O'Leary et al, 2002. This research found that genetic material of measles virus was present in bowel tissue samples from children with Inflammatory Bowel Disease/Autism syndrome. No distinction was made between wild measles strains or vaccine measles strains.

Now I know the one you mean, your second study cat. It was also funded by Merck (MMR manufacturer).

It didn't look for autism, Peltola said it wasn't designed to. It only included information reported by health providers to the study?s central office. It was a "passive surveillance", which the PHLS as it then was, said wasn't a successful method and "active surveillance" ws nec'y for MMR/DPT events.

Cases of autism symptoms which didn't immediately present weren't followed up. And another example of what was wrong with it: about 450 patients were reported with a vaccine event, about 170 were hospitalised, but the authors say they were excluded from analysis as they didn't fit the criteria of the study. which wasn't looking for autism. It also excluded a condition which is listed as the third complication under adverse reactions to MMR by american paediatricians. I could go on. But you get the picture.

"They are probably simply not very bright, which is the overwhelming trait seen in people who are irrationally opposed to vaccination."

Including the doctors and immunologists? My, aren't we presumptuous.

So Shergar, they are all stupid or liars?

Say it loud, say it proud.. Parents of children who say they saw them regress after vaccination are stupid or liars. Including those on this thread. I very dare you.

Cat, 4, 5,6 and 9 I've dealt with. Hold on.

1. Too small (400 over four years? Really?) only looks at bacterial infections. Only looks at hospitalisations. No assessment of viral overload/auto-immunity. Conclusion ludicrous given size, nature and critera of study.

Mito, there are two studies. Get with the program.

1. taylor 1999 Too small. Designed by the now UK head of immunisation. Found steep increase in autism without explaining it. Looked at children around six months post-mmr, found parental reports of concern, dismissed them complaining of "difficulty of defining precisely the onset of symptoms". didn't include children who received mmr late or in catch up campaigns or boosters. Didn't include single vaccers who had mmr later. Authors repeatedly challenged by other researchers to release raw data but refused.

I'm tired. And you've all got nothing to say because there is nothing to say. Bang to rights. If anyone can be bothered to respond I'll do the rest tomorrow. Otherwise..

Here's a short Oxford Uni analysis of the Finland trials www.medicine.ox.ac.uk/bandolier/band84/MMR.html

I haven't got a huge problem with who funds research - as long as the academics have complete freedom to publish results, good or bad. If you're working in academia, then a lot of research is obviously industry funded, and an academic's credibility would be shot to pieces if they were ever seen as 'bought'. A good example of this is the Jill Dando Crime Institute which is part of UCL in London. They 'fixed' statistical research to follow the Home Office's policy line about 3 years ago on DNA retention. They were torn to shreds through peer review, and have not really recovered credibility since then. In academia, he who pays the piper does not call the tune.

Oh god and I was just going to do the ironing. Sorry, if nobody can be bothered to assess what I've written and respond, I'm not going to look at anyone else's stuff. Waste of time.

I accept the evidence. Anecdote is not evidence.

Show me some evidence.

Apple, can you not have a debate without sounding so self-righteous!?

I'd read your contributions if they were delivered as more of a fact giving presentation & less of an attack at any one who refutes your claims!

It certainly is evidence, it's just not proof. Say it Windward -- say you think those thousands of parents are liars.

They were fact-giving presentations, what are you on about? I responded speedily and factually. What on earth are you on about?

See, there you go again...'what on earth are you on about' attacking, on the defensive. It's in all your posts.

And I haven't even started on the exaggerated claims made about the deadliness of childhood illness

The recent death of a baby here - from whopping cough - wasn't exaggerated.

These illness still have the potential to be life threatening. Just because the figures for those who die because of said illnesses aren't as bad as they were pre vaccination, doesn't mean they are any less harmful. Just that the vaccinations work.

Cripes, considering the accusations of murder, paranoia, madness, idiocy et al from the pro-vax brigade, you nit-pick like that?

I've given you the lowdown pretty speedily on a bunch of complex epi studies and you ar using an excuse not to look at it?

If you were genuinely interested in another point of view, you would.

Different, if you want me to accept your anecdotal evidence, you have to accept other peoples. Re: being on the defensive : see the accusations above. Care to take issue with those at all? Any reason why I shouldn't defend myself?

Deaths are not the only problem, but also long term effects of disease. From my last link on the Finland study

"As a reminder to those of us who forget that infectious diseases are merely inconvenient, when rubella infection occurs during pregnancy, especially during the first trimester, foetal infection is likely and often causes congenital rubella syndrome (CRS), resulting in abortions, miscarriages, stillbirths, and severe birth defects. Up to 20% of the infants born to mothers infected during the first half of pregnancy have CRS. The most common congenital defects are cataracts, heart disease, sensorineural deafness, and mental retardation"

How about asthma. Kills around 1400 people in the UK every year. Natural measles is known to have a protective effect. Last year before vaccination was introduced (and the numbers were still dropping and would have continued to anyway) around 100 deaths from measles. Interesting?

Do you even know what evidence means in the context of the discussion?

Catkin for example has posted some references that are an excellent example if what I'm after.