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)

ednurse - are you in the UK? There hasn't been a single mumps death here in years and same for measles.

Maybe all you anti woo types could bring me unto speed on the latest findings between autism and the immune system?

That's research I have followed with a great deal of interest over the years.

And autism and mitochondrial cytopathies? Another area of interest to me.

Have had a long discussion about that wrt ds1 with a neurologist and paediatrician.

Also met very recently with a geneticist and we talked about predisposition and environmental triggers.

I have only ever been patronised by a very junior doctor. I have had many conversations with other doctors - the more they know, the more specialised, the more I've found that they have said when they didn't know, and that certain things could be a possibility but that currently they do not have a way of telling. They were also aware of research being ahead of clinical possibilities and all have agreed to revisit ds1 as and when more becomes possible. For now we have to guess/model what happened to him - and that gets revised and revisited as more is found out.

No one has claimed that vaccines are 100% effective. That's why it's all the more important that everyone who can is immunised in order to make sure that transmission cannot occur.

And I'm very sorry about your cousin :( I just hope that no-one here with unvaccainated children has to go through such a terrible trauma but they should be aware what they are potentially exposing their children to.

www.hpa.org.uk/web/HPAweb&HPAwebStandard/HPAweb_C/1195733835814

there have been deaths to those with other health problems. we also had frequent ITU, HDU and long stay IV-antibiotic admissions from M&M.

at the end of the day you chose which route to take your child down. both carry risks whether you vaccinate or not.

could i just ask what is your reason for chosing NOT to vaccinate? like i say i have not read all 28 pages and don't really wish to.

Statalover the risk/benefit from measles vaccination actually changes.

In childhood the risk from measles is lower than in teenage years/adulthood, so vaccinating just pre puberty increases the potential benefit.

Also the risk is not uniform - it will vary from child to child. Some will have a very low risk, others will have a much higher risk. If you have a mikd mitochondrial cytopathy (nearly always undiagnosed) then your risk of vaccinating in thte 2 year will be greater than if you leave it later. Most of this info has come from conference takes so I cannot link but if you hunt around John Hopkins uni /kennedy krieger you might find something on that.

Ideally the chikdren who are higher risk would be identified before a vacciation was given. It's not actually that difficult to get some idea now, but there seems little interest in that aporoach unfortunately.

Stata, that's the point though, the child was vaccinated and still ended up in a coma - it's hardly an advertisement for vaccination effectiveness is it?

I'm also going to repeat myself again and say that even though a large percentage of the population has been vaccinated there will still be outbreaks because the vaccines don't provide lifelong immunity. Adults who were vaccinated as children could catch and pass on the disease just as easily.

The greatest risk from measles is to the under fives. The younger you are, the more dangerous.

It's all about probabilities, nothing is 100%. They are far more likely not to develop measles if they are immunised. It can happen, it's not 100%. But if eveyrone DID immunise, it's even less likely.

I think those of us who haven't vaccinated are generally aware of the risks. My mother was very ill with measles and it has left her deaf in one ear. She also saw ds1 obviously and remains one of his main carers - will do for as long as she is fit enough to cope with him physically - and she fully supports our decision not to vaccinate the other two.

ednurse Just want to say that my DC ARE vaccinated, but I came onto this thread because I thought it was extremely offensive of the OP to suggest that people who Don't vaccinate are child-abusers.

I think it's a personal choice and very clear from this thread, that people agonise over this choice (I know I did) and it is absolutely not neglect or child-abuse if people decide NOT to vaccinate.

No stat a you are wrong. The greatest risk is to infants - traditionally infants have been protected by maternal antibodies - this is less likely in a heavily vaccinated community with limited circulating disease. It then becomes particularly nasty again post puberty. it is 'safest' in childhood as opposed to infancy or adulthood.

Of course it has the potential to be nasty at any age. my mother was a 'good' age to catch measles. But still the reality is her life has been a lot less affected by measles than whatever happened to ds1 has done to his life. 24 hours care for your whole life? It's not something you rush to repeat and believe ne you question everything.

"there have been deaths to those with other health problems. we also had frequent ITU, HDU and long stay IV-antibiotic admissions from M&M."

Are you saying that their cause of death wasn't attributed to measles then? I have seen the HPA figures - there have been 2 deaths in the last 18 years attributed to measles - both in immunocompromised patients( I believe one of them was from the travelling community). The other deaths recorded have been from cases in the 1980s so don't try to tell me that they were from unvaccinated members of the travelling community that have come into your hospital!

What complications were the mumps patients suffering from out of curiosity? Adults or children?

SJJ

Sorry to hear of your DS. Apologies if you've already told your story but what happened? Has he received compensation?

saintly

I am not pro- or anti- vax. All I support is evidence informed decision making and scientific enquiry to generate that evidence. I do know that the evidence does not support a link between MMR and autism.

If the evidence showed that there are adverse effects from vax that outweight the dz, I'd be the first to support discontinuing the vax (eg the first rotavirus vaccine).

If you have made an scientific evidence based decision then that's great.

What I haven't got time for is conspiracy theory, anecdote and statements of 'fact' whcih have no scientific suppprt.

infants are under five last time I looked.

infant is birth to 1 year stata

as in under 5...

oh good grief stata - just admit you made a mistake!

When we talk about under five mortality, that includes infants. Infants are included as under fives. Really, are your arguments so weak taht you have to split hairs?

Sorry but under fives includes infants. You can look it up. This is what I do for my job (without wanting to out myself)!