AIBU to think non vaccination is child abuse

[alittlevoice]

There was this discussion in another thread and i thought i would make a new thread so it doesn't over taken someone elses

To me not vaccinating your child is akin to child abuse because you are putting them at undue risk of disease which is preventable due to scare mongering or from quack doctors that have long been struck off the medical register and shunned from the medical community

I hate the assumption that because there has been no reported cases it means you shouldn't vaccinate your children it's because children have been vaccinated regularly that there has not been a epidemic

leading doctors (not the quacks) have been worried for some time about the rise of mumps because of the scare mongering and children not getting vaccinated and get seriously Ill and have to be saved by modern medicine (which quack parents are always keen to take up on with there anti vaccination stance)

rubella has a incubation period as many other diseases so if your child has it and you dont know and child is near a pregnant woman and she loses her child due to non immunisation I don't understand how as a parent you'd do that to another person

So the long and short of it is why are some parents touched in the head and think they have the right for there child to possibly kill unborn children and infect younger babies too young to have the choice (and for those saying this is far fetched its as plausible of something going wrong from immunisations)

Mumps can actually kill you know. Rarely, but it can. Not the point though.

"Rubella is dangerous to pregnant women; it does not kill swathes of children who catch it"

We yes it does they just haven't been born yet. Rubella is not a highly contagious disease so a lot of people don't catch it when they are children. In the last big US outbreak in the 60s there were 30,000 miscarriages and 20 000 born with deafness, blindness or some sort of congental deformaty.
I caught rubella from my mother as did my sisters. I was 13 at the time and due to have my rubella vaccine at school. My mother was 38, also a friend the same age as my mother got rubella about the same time. We didn't know her at the time.

There's room for improvement Leonie. But if you read the whole thing, you'd see that the MMR is safe in comparison to the diseases it protects against.

Mumps can have nasty complications but low fatality.

Dangerous is all relative anyway and it depends to whom. Rubella is very dangerous if you're a foetus.

flippin you're right. Most children get through measles OK. But far more children will die/be left with permanent disability from measles than from the vaccine. You made the right decision, you shouldn't have any guilt. You were just unlucky :(

actually, I can't be arsed, I'm reaching for the hide thread button.
I couldn't care less about who vaccinates and who doesn't. None of my business at all. Like Stata, its the illogical anti-science woo-mongering that riles me.
But, really, I can't be arsed.

stata, then you would agree with my choice not to have my other children vaccinated?

Buzz, you are comparing the UK to developing countries with poor sanitation, inadequate healthcare and poor nutrition. When we had those problems here (at the start of the last century) measles was much more dangerous. With improvements in those areas, incidence and fatality rates for measles dropped dramatically BEFORE the vaccine was introduced.

No Leonie. There's no evidence to support what you're saying. Of course quoting journal after journal won't help - because you reject science as the basis for your decision making.

Flipped. I wouldn't comment. I can understand why you wouldn't.

bubnly. You're quite right. measles is less dangerous in developed countries. but even so vaccination is safer. and i also wouldn't be surprised if these diseases became more dangerous if antiobiotic resistance becomes more widespread for dealing with the secondary infections which are often the killers. That's why vax are more effective in saving children's lives in the developing world.

I hid it as well, buzz, but then discovered how to unhide!!! It's not good...

leonie, I agree with you 100%.
At least if you chose not to vaccinate you know what you might be in for. BUT when you vaccinate you child you do not know what you are in for, you are lead to believe that it is safe. It is not safe.
Better the devil you know imo.
And for ignorant people like the op: you come to my house and look at my child who has never been 'normal' since he was vaccinated. You sit and help him at age 12 look for words he cannot find, even simple ones, you help him remember even simple sequences The list goes on. YOU tell me I am abusive for refusing to vaccinate my other children.
All my other children are as bright as buttons, my eldest should have been too and although he has learned to develop other talents, he is not normal, he cannot relate to his peers in the way he knows he needs to to actually have any friends.
It breaks my heart to see him.
You are about as ignorant and ill informed as they come OP.

StataLover How do you un-hide a thread? (Sorry to go off-subject but you could probably do with a breather anyway).

Stata, I'm going to have to pay £30 for that Lancet article on vaccinations triggering auto-immune diseases. Is there another way? Would I be able to go to a library in London and read it? I know I'm on the other side of the fence from you, but would appreciate your help!

Probably best not to know (I almost wish I didn't) but you go to 'customise' then scroll down to 'Ignore topics' and click on the link marked 'here'. You can then unhide.

mylittledonkey

PM me with your email address and I'll see if I can send you the PDF.

I'm always happy for informed debate so more than happy to send it to you if I can.

We had a vaccine issue with ds, seizures a few hours after a shot, we called ambulance, ds went to hospital, waited hours to be seen, turned out okay, thank God. This incident is completely dismissed by all medical people we speak with. They say, oh, if it happened a few hours later then it couldn't be related to the vaccine he had that day. It's the dismissal of our very real and terrifying experience that concerns us. It's profoundly illogical, and calls into question all the other "it's perfectly safe" advice. We're now very tentative about additional vaccines, with very little support from health practitioners.

Thank you Statalover

I remember a few years ago when the government made seat belts compulsory and a lot of people were concerned about children / adults being strangled etc. And some people probably are injured / killed by them. But would you drive around without one?

And thank you from me, too, Statalover. I promise to read it with an open mind.

altinkum, what gets me is the bloody ignorance of posters like the op. How 'lucky' they are not to have a child affected by the mmr.

In an ideal world, no children would be damaged either by vaccines or disease. The world isn't ideal and we have to choose between one or the other. Neither choice is risk-free but exposure to the disease is riskier than the vaccine, especially today with improved vaccines.

Children can be damaged by measles, mumps, pertussis, diptheria, polio, rotavirus, pneumonia, etc etc. They can be damaged by vaccines. Vaccines are safer for children than the disease, that's why we give vaccines to them. It's that simple.

It might be very hard to accept if you have a vaccine damaged child that you were unlucky. I can understand that. It doesn't make the original choice to vaccinate wrong as you can't predict what's not known. All you know is that there are two options - one is riskier than the ohter. The rational choice is the least risky option.

The risk of the vaccine for each individual child is unknown though. It could be riskier for some than the risk of actually catching the disease (think polio/diptheria) and the risk of then having a complication. Unfortunately there's no way of knowing which child will react badly so I don't think it's as black and White as saying 'the vaccine is the safer option'.