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)

Saying that vaccine damage is rare is not offensive, it's a fact. Just because your child may have suffered from it doesn't make it more common.

Saying it is unlucky is offensive to no-one. My daughter was very sick after birth. She was unlucky. What's so difficult to understand about that?

Personally, I think telling people to 'fuck off' (about as offensive as it comes) just demonstrates the level of argument here. I'm trying to engage in rational debate, sorry if you find that upsetting.

Smallwhitecat,I don't insist all parents vaccinate. I'm just interested in evidence based decision making rather than all the mumbo jumbo and pseudo science that SOME posters are using.

By the way, I should add that I can be just as foul mouthed as the rest of you. I choose not to bring the debate down to that level. It doesn't say much for your arguments, does it?

Amen to that, smallwhitecat.

Jimjams, so glad things are looking up (ish).

You're quite wrong, smallwhitecat. I think saintly has explained herself very well and has made a considered decision which acknowledges that there are things we don't know as well as the possibility that dzs could be as much of a trigger as vaccines.

Other posters spout so much mumbo-jumbo and unsubstantiated statements that it's hard to have much respect for their reasoning.

I don't care if someone vaxes or not. What's important to me is evidence based decision making and not psuedoscience or medical denialism that is being presented here by SOME posters.

Either the group is very small or the elevated risk is very small.

I'd never argue that more research is a bad thing and it seems that there is quite a lot of it. I don't think it's neglected at all given the size of the group.

Oh I quite agree we have had to theorise. There are some tests we could do that would give us further information for ds2 and ds3 but the NHS won't do them (or let you pay to do them through the NHS) and I don't really trust the commercial labs. So we have been left to theorise.

There are other tests that would give us more information about ds1 directly, but they're invasive, the results would not help him and it would be very very difficult for him (this is a child who cannot have dental work without a GA) so we have chosen to live without that information for now. We agreed that blood tests and urine tests could be taken - any other testing, nope.

So we're back to looking at our wider family, reading the literature and trying to work out what is relevant. It's not easy. We do know that ds3 is physiologically very similar to ds1. He is however not autistic which we see as good news.

I agree the group is small. That doesn't minimise the impact on the families left to deal with it.

saintly - I think you know what I meant when i said best of both worlds. If you're looking to get offended, then you will. What I meant was benefiting from not being vaccinated or having the dz. You could the same for an immunocompromised child on chemotherapy. It doesn't mean I think you're having a fantastic time of it and isn't that wonderful.

smallwhitecat, well, if people are going to be offended at every comment, how could you possibly engage in debate. I never said it was insignificant for the affected families. But equally it wouldn't be insignificant for the greater number of families affected by dz. Children who are vaccine damaged are unlucky in the same way that children who are dz damaged are unlucky. It's not a question of sacrificing themselves on the altar of public health.

With all due respect, if you're emotionally invested in this debate then maybe you shouldn't engage if you're going to be offended at every small comment (excepting the child abuse comment which was clearly intended to offend!)

No-one said small groups don't matter.

It is equally unethical to commit an error of omission as well as one of comission, don't you think? Surely we should be following a path which maximises health outcomes?

Ah but stata you seem intent on following a path that maximises public health outcomes. I am interested in following a path that maximises health outcomes for my children. Whatever anyone says that is actually everyone's aim. No-one would give a vaccination for great good (barf) if they thought it was likely to damage rather than protect their child.

I'm not offended, I just think you haven't got the remotest idea what it's like to live with a severe disability and to have to make decisions for your children knowing that the wrong decision could lead to another one of your children having the same problems.

In what way is my approach offensive?

The only correctness I am sure about is the scientific evidence based decision making is preferable.

No, I really don't see any difference between a child damaged by a vaccine and one damaged by a dz. The only difference is that by not vaccinating you will get more damaged by dz. As i said, no difference in my eyes between an error of omission and an error of commission. Maybe you can explain the ethics of that one?

It does depend what the damage is though doesn't it? Personally I would take deaf in one ear over severe autism (damage from dz, v potential damage from jab in our family). But that may just be me.

All I've said throughout is that I support evidence based decision making. If the evidence suggests you shouldn't vax, then that's the right decision.

It certainly does saintly. Some dzs are more dangerous than others and some dzs more prevalent. Some vaxs are safer than others.

Well then starlight you can only assume average risk if you don't know. You also dont know if your child is the one who will die of measles if he or she contracts it.