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.

Stumbled across this thread, only one point to make - I've been diagnosed with rubella by 3 doctors on 3 different occasions. My mum, a nurse questioned it each time but they were definite. Maybe there there is testing now but seems to me either you can catch it more than once contrary to postings or general rashes/ feeling unwell are misdiagnosed.

Bit of both Penguin

teh one case per person incident is a usual thing rather than an absolute (well I assume, that's the case with chickenpox certainly)

And absolutely there's misdiagnosis

penguin, there are a few people who just don't get immunity to things. Either through vaccination or through catching it naturally but rubella could be very easily misdiagnosed because it is basically fever and a rash which a lot of illnesses have!

A1980.

Two quick things...
Yes 10,000,000 is a great deal of money. But huge sums had already been spent and, far more importantly, there was a massive public interest angle which would have future cost implications.

The cost to the state of each of the severely disabled children would be in the millions over their life times. Equally the suggested cost to the nhs of the doubts about mmr were substantial - a hearing if the evidence in public may well have done a great deal to persuade many members of thevpublic that the jab was safe.

Even at the time this case was not a simple negligence case and, when public health or public interest is involved it should feature in the decision to fund.

Certainly cases I handledvwent to court for Kessler money but considerable less good reason.

The acid test surely is that it was quite obviously a fucking stupid decision.

The other thing I wanted to say was that I was tired cast night and my posts read to me as being rude/sharp. It wasn't my intention and I am sorry if I seemed so to you.

Kessler money? ...
Less money.

appletrees: I know

my mini-rant re: 1998 paper was to pre-empt the people who will undoubtedly come along and say "but all you've got is a discredited unethical piece of research which was flawed, and the sample size was too small to be meaningful" (did I get all the slurs in? we could play bingo! )

I'm with pagwatch re: the legal aid funding, btw.

there was a massive public interest angle, along wiht implications for the vaccination uptake etc.

and who knows, if that case had been allowed ot proceed, maybe the millions spent on the gmc farce woudl never have had to be spent?

pulling the funding at the last minute was nothing more than an attempt to bury the case, and the actions of the pharma companies afterwards were just another attempt to try to ensure it never sees the light of day.

similar htings were done wrt tobacco cases, iirc

Tbh the legal aid thing scares me a little I mean.. how much power and control has to lie in whose hands to secure such a decision?

Appletrees - I don't accept that the studies showing no link are all "flawed". You said they were flawed. You'll say that about any study showing no link, because it goes against what you believe. That's why it's pointless showing you any more studies.

Silverfrog - you said

the studies that HAVE started form that premise, are, unsurprisingly, corroborating what was found in the 1998 paper

Can you link to some? I'm interested. I'm not so invested in my position that I wouldn't change my mind if someone showed me some believable evidence.

I'm not so much pro-vaccination as pro-science. And no, I don't believe that things are necessarily correct just because they are published in a journal (after all, Wakefield's original paper was in the Lancet )

And - if the 1998 paper wasn't discredited, why did the Lancet retract it?

(let me guess - a conspiracy?)

No I wouldn't. I actually pointed out the flaws. What's wrong with you? You didn't even respond when I did point out the flaws, except to say how is 436 to small when 12 is not, and this was explained to you - ie they are completely different types of studies, and mine doesn't claim to prove anything - but you just fluster and bluster. What about all the other flaws I pointed out? No comment on those? Why? Why I am to accept flawed studies? If you don't think they're flawed, undermine my comments on them.

You can't. You're just setting up a straw man .."You'll say that about any study showing no link, because it goes against what you believe."

Er, no I won't. For the last time. But if there is a flaw, I will find it. Do you want me to blindfold myself, just like you?

I'm not actually sitting here hovering.. I just had two minutes and there was your post..couldn't resist

mitochondria - will try to dig out some links later (recent coputer change = no bookmmarks)

the Lancet could do nothing lse other than retract the paper, following the gmc verdict, could they?

however, Horton (editor of the Lancet, who "formally" withdrew th epaper) described the paper as "an exemplary case sseries. good science, which still stands" and also said he wished that the paper couldbe considered on it's own scientific merits, without all th media fuss at the gmc trial

doesn't really sound like someone who had issue with the science or the conclusion, doe sit?

you have been shown believable evidence

you chose to ignore

your choice

oh, hang on - I think one of my posts earlier in the thread might have listed some of them.

have ot do bedtime.

will return, but could be some time

Appletrees - you pointed out the flaws as you see them.

I don't agree with your verdict of "too small" on a paper looking at over 400, for example.

You are dismissing several studies just because they are "epidemiological" - like that's a bad thing?

You dismissed this one:
pediatrics.aappublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/110/5/957

as "only dealing with hospital admissions"

• would vaccine damaged children not be referred to hospital? I don't understand why that's a bad thing, either.

You dismissed this one:
jama.ama-assn.org/content/285/9/1183.abstract

on the grounds that it was carried out by the vaccination department of the Health Services. Not surprising, really. Would you dismiss equally anything carried out by the NHS?

Lifeinlimbo also pointed out that this study links to 60 others.

You dismiss the Japan study because some of the participants were given individual jabs. Not relevant to whether there is a link between MMR and autism.

You dismissed the Denmark study, which ran for 10 years, because 3 years worth of children weren't followed through to an old enough age, in your opinion. Still leaves seven years that were.

You dismissed the Finland study because it was funded by a medical company that manufactures vaccines.

I ask again - what sort of a study would you accept? How should the data be gathered? Who should fund it?

And....be honest....is the "flaw pointing out" all your own work? By that, I mean, are you considering the studies on their own merits, or are you googling rebuttals from t'internet?

I'm still waiting for a couple of link-proving studies to have a go at.....they'd best look at more than 400 individuals and not be "epidemiological", by the way....

Silverfrog - this Guardian article suggests that Horton may have had a couple of issues with the science:

www.guardian.co.uk/society/2010/feb/02/lancet-retracts-mmr-paper

Got stuff to do now, by the way.

Back tomorrow.

Sorry this is a bit off topic but Appletrees I saw this and thought of you.

mito you haven't a bloody clue, not a clue

eg denmark: a cohort of three years worth of vaccinated undiagnosed children was counted in the cohort of vaccinated non-autistic

and you can't see the problem with this?

eg a study of 400 children over four years claims which ONLY looks at hospital admissions which ONLY looks at bacterial infections claims proof that immune overload odoesn't exist when you are talking about vaccinations against VIRAL events and chronic long term auto-immune conditions which don't require hospitalisation?

eg finland claims to follow 3 million children actually follows 31? or finland 2 not even looking for asd, dismisses presentations because they don't fit the criteria, which wasn't looking for asd?

you can't see the problem with this?

eg japan -- you can't see that giving measles mumps rubella within days of each other or same day can mimic effecs of mmr?

I thought you claimed to understand this sort of thing? it's becoming very clear why you hold the belief system you do

which of those studies looks at mmr and the gut? which "disproves" Andrew Wakefield's case study? are you aware that American courts do not accept epidemiological studies as showing whether or not a particular individual suffered a particular event? do you know the difference between passive and active surveillance? do you know that the department that deals with epidemiology and immunisation (what used to be the phls) in the UK recommended that active surveillance was necessary to examine mmr/dpt (as it then was) events while most of those studies are "passive"?

Well at least you tried. I asked you why you didn't accept my assessments of those studies and at least you took the trouble to write it down. I suppose that's something.

Bubbly I read your link. Those poor families.

That is horrifying and very sinister.

Mito I suppose it was rude to say you haven't a clue. Mild, compared to what we've put up with. But at least you are responding properly.

Just to say I've had enough mn in the last five days to last a month so I'm having a break tomorrow and for a bit, but thanks all for a very interesting conversation.

Mito, my temper got the better of me but thank you for your responses which are some of the more rational, probably the most rational, to what's been posted.

Thank you for the links. Best wishes to Leonie, silver, bubbly and Peach for patience in the face of scorn and abuse. See you next time at the coalface.

And sakura :D

"eg japan -- you can't see that giving measles mumps rubella within days of each other or same day can mimic effecs of mmr?"

This is interesting. I thought that there must be something different about the composition of the MMR vaccine - e.g. it's not just measles, mumps and rubella in the same needle, which is why there are lots of people clamouring for the single vaccines to be made available again.

So it's a timing thing? How long should be left between the single doses, then, and why?

As for disproving Wakefield - Wakefield himself said his studies didn't prove a causal link between MMR and bowel disorders / autism, didn't he?

Appletrees - thankyou for your comments - I do realise that it's relatively pointless carrying on the discussion - you are not going to change your mind and I'm not going to change mine!