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)

Of course vaccines can't be 100% safe. No intervention is. The question is not whether vaccine damage is possible. The question is whether it is more risky than the disease. Vaccines are safer than the disease. So,I may go and look at one MMR vaccine damaged child while you go and comfort 100 families who have lost a child to measles.

Emotive languge like 'injecting children with all those ingredients' is not necessary. The question is does injecting children provide children with protection - yes it does.

It's clear that you reject science as the basis for decision making, relying on emotion and excitement. What you don't seem to understand is that while vaccinating maybe equivalent to playing russian roulette where you have 5 empty chambers and 1 with a bullet, being exposed to the disease is like having 4 loaded and 2 empty. Measles is far more risy than the MMR.

Leonie - there is no medicine or natural remedy that is 100% safe. But not being vaccinated is not 100% safe either - far from it. Vaccination is the less risky option which is why most people have their kids vaccinated. Of course it is awful when kids are damaged but I'm sure a lot of parents with children dead/disabled from Measles could paint an equally bleak picture.

Stata, not gorcall children though. Can you not consider that for some children the risk of the vaccine is greater? Unfortunately there's nonway of knowing if your child is one of the 'unlucky' ones before you vaccinate them. Also, you are comparing directly the vaccine versus the disease when actually you should be comparing the vaccine vs (the risk of contracting the disease AND the risk of the disease) If you take polio for example, the risk of catching it in the UK is so small that it may not actually be outweighed at all by the risk of the vaccine.

Silly iPhone! Gorcall = for all

That's true bubbly. It's why I hesitated before Hep B but went ahead since it's such a safe vax. You'd probably be absolutely fine not vaxing against polio - it's practically been eliminated from the developed world and many other countries.

There are certain groups of children who should not have certain vax. However, despite very large studies, no one group of children has been identified who should not be immunised. Either that group is very small or the elevated risk is small since they weren't picked up in studies of over half a million children. This means that for a parent whose child does not belong in one of the already identified groups, the most rational choice is to vax for most diseases (altho accept your point about dz with low prevalence)

altinkum Sun 27-Feb-11 17:26:14

"I laugh at people however who think not vaccinating is child abuse, on the basis of risk, even more so in a low level risk country, I think people who go on to sprout child abuse on the basis of a risk like this, it not worth my time or effort"

That is very reassuring coming from you

I have also read quite a few serious case reviews though and not vaccinating is up there as an indicator of neglect along with parental substance abuse. Why is that?

I ask because my DS became desperately ill (so dehydrated that he would have needed to be on a hospital drip for weeks if he had not still been breastfed) following MMR.

He is autistic and probably always has been but like the children with ASD in Wakefield's study he developed terrible bowel and gut problems after the triple jab.

Some of his pre-school boosters have been administered and we are going for measles and rubella single jabs with immunity testing if possible.

If a safeguarding issue warranted investigation would the fact that I have not followed the government-approved vax programme be seen as negligent / abusive?

There's no evidence to substantiate that the MMR is any more dangerous for children with autism or auto-immune disorders.

The reason we don't have hundreds of children dying from measles is because we immunise! Children don't get measles!! It's not rocket science...

Then how do you explain Leonie that when levels of vaccination drop - levels of measles rise? And that has been shown in studies in developed countries with clean water, sanitation and decent healthcare.

DS had something quite a few months after MMR which was described by the GP as, "an illness which is very very very like Measles. Very like Measles, yes. Keep him at home for a fortnight and no I don't know what it is but it is very like Measles, that's all you have to know"

So if not Measles WTF was it?

Yet I'm going to pay for a "booster" for the measles vaccine which isn't even a booster, but just another full jab which is designed to catch the few children who didn't get immunity from the initial triple jab even though he has probably had the actual illness.

Rubella immunity, no it won't affect DS much but I can't in all conscience not get it tested and sorted because it is so devastating for others. Non-vaxers are not all selfish morons.

Of course it is possible that some kids are more likely to be harmed by vaccination than others but parents don't know what that likelihood is. They also don't know whether their child will get measles or whether they will be more prone to complications from measles than other kids.

Even with clean water, healthcare, nutrition, the case fatality rate of measles is AT LEAST one in 10,000. That's about 80 children dying each year in the UK. In developing country the equivalent figure would be up to 800. Plus all the children who survive with permanent disability such as blindness, deafness and brain damage.

LeonieDelt thank you. I recognise the Korma-Yellow and watery / bubbly nappies, awful.

I didn't plan on BF beyond six weeks months but it has saved DS from the hospital and a drip (and sedation knowing him) several times.

Poor DD2. I would have done the same thing as you.

Of course breastfeeding hasn't saved your kids. Here we go with pseudoscience again. Formula fed children don't have higher mortality than breast fed children.

Qualified by saying there's not higher mortality in developed countries.

Oh dear. I think there are some breastmilk cures everything - all medicine is bad types on this thread.

The GP? No.

DS was in a hospital in East London crawling all over the place at the height of the swine-flu thing on the hottest day of the year when I had to be there with his sister and at times just couldn't stop him.

There were babies in isolation rooms everywhere on and off the ward but I had no childcare and had to bring him.

He was quite unwell afterwards and I was tempted. Even went so far as to get Tamiflu then decided that I wasn't going to give him a drug prescribed by a call-centre worker rather than have him seen by a doctor (not allowed if you remember - WTF?) when he was getting better anyway.

Very grateful for the fact that he didn't want to give up BF for the first few years.

Oh dear. I think there are some Straw-men on this thread.