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)

Going against conventional medical advice in ANY other circumstance would be a child protection issue - why not vaccines?

No it wouldn't at all, Dr's have had to stand by and let Jehovah Witness children die because of their beliefs.

Stata - there are quite a few non vaxxers (note, not anti-vaxxers) on MN who have a scientific background.

all of them (afaik) without fail advocate researching and coming to a conclusion which suits your family.

that is all anyone should do.

My DDs aren't vaccinated, but I'm not necessarily vehemently anti-vac. I had seizures after my pre-school vaccinations that landed me in hospital for several weeks and caused 75% hearing loss. There are plenty of people who have good reasons not to vaccinate their children.

I probably would selectively vacc if if wasn't contraindicated, as based on the research I've done it feels like the right way for us.

What do people think of the people who won't vacc for religious reasons? I'm thinking of a catholic family I know who don't vacc because once upon a time there was aborted fetal tissue involved.

Well, showofhands, I've yet to see anything that will convince me. The overwhelming body of evidence is that vaccines are safe and effective. Of course there will be occasional paper that might suggest otherwise but these generally haven't been replicated. But if you cherrypick your evidence, then that's what you find.

Oh, and the whole Wakefield insanity for example. I've seen MNers state that they still believe him because he doesn't look like he's lying . Well, OK then, the man's been struck off the GMC for unethical behaviour, the flipping Lancet paper has been withdrawn but, no, he's right, everyone else is wrong.

I think classing it as abuse is totally unjustified. Describing it as neglect in a few particular circumstances may be justifiable. Many parents have a reasoned case for not vaccinating and in many cases that is supported by the HCPs they come in to contact with. That is not the case for all of them however. I know of at least one unvaccinated child whose mother refused vaccines because she has decided she does not 'agree with it'. There is no physical reason at all why that child should not have been vaccinated and I think that is a very dubious decision indeed. Equally parents who can't be bothered to take children for vaccinations (or any other medical treatment) do exist, albeit in small numbers, and that is clearly neglect imo.

Plus, there are for some children valid medical reasons - such as history of autism in the family - that leads many non-vax parents to their decision. It is not because they are being obtuse

Sorry MMelindt but a history of autism is NOT a reason to not vaccinate.

alittlevoice, note that you've spoken to social workers who agree with you. The one I know of on this thread however has called you a pleb.

Statalover
I am only going by what I have read on MN. My Dc are vaxed to the hilt. Everything except flu vax.

Jeez, Stata, you have said some ridiculous things on this thread, but that just takes the biscuit.

you have repeatedly shown you do not understand the non-vax (particularly wrt to history of autism) on other threads.

yes, a history of autism is good reason to look closely at which jabs ot gve oyur children.

They can go to court and have it overturned though mamatomany and I'm pretty sure that in emergency cases they can override the parents decision if the child is considered a minor. I think it should be the same for vaccines.
How would you feel about a parent who witheld a childs preventative asthma medication because they were concerned about the chemicals and, after all, hardly anyone dies from asthma etc?

YABU.

I agree mostly with Baroque.

My view is that the vast majority of parents do vaccinate, and the statistics prove this, as do the low incidence of disease.

I have noticed a rise of such threads on Mumsnet, almost like a campaign against non-vaccinators, which makes me suspicious on the motives on these threads.

I am not 'frightened' of non-vaccinated children, for many reasons, including that that my own children have been vaccinated. I am on the whole pro vaccination (I work with children part-time) so I appreciate the benefits of vaccination.

I also know that belittling and bullying non-vaccinators is not the way to persuading them to vaccinate, and certainly not by calling them child abusers. That just makes parents go on the defensive and allienates them. I know, because I managed to persuade a mother to vaccinate her child. Her child was a year old and had not to that point been vaccinated.

It's all based on helping parents make an informed decision.

BTW, conventional medical advice is to breastfeed isn't it? It's certainly advocated in expensive NHS campaigns.

Surely then not breastfeeding is child abuse, going on that logic?

No it hasn't silverfrog show me anywhere that Wakefield's research has been replicated. It's been publicly withdrawn - the man didn't follow ethical or research protocol. You can't trust it.

No, a history of autism isn't a good reason not to vax your children. The body of evidence shows no relationship.

StataLover, vaccines are effective and safe for the majority. I think you'll find that most of the non vaxxers (good point that they're not anti vax generally) agree. Most of them recommend reading up and doing what's best for your child, which in most cases is vaccinating I'd hazard a guess.

But for a very, very small minority vaccination, full vaccination, multiple vaccination, some combination of the above is not right at all.

I like Richard Halvorsen's pov. He is a GP (NHS and private) and has a very balanced opinion. He looks at children on a case by case basis and recommends what he thinks is best for them. Often this is full vaccination. Occasionally, it isn't.

Stata - that just proves your ignorance, i'm afraid.

it has been replicated - go and search for it.

and yes, there are strong links between vaccine damage and autism.

i'm going to step away from this thread, but, statalover, re wakefield, there are plenty of doctors who do and did support him. James Le Fanu in Daily Telegraph: "it is not necessary to be a conspiracy theorist to recognise that the GMC's recent ruling to strike professors Wakefield and Walker-Smith off the register had the fingerprints of the medical establishment all over it [....] it is perhaps not unreasonable to detect the hidden hand of those powerful forces for whom the crushing of a professional reputation is a price worth paying for the continuation of the ever expanding child immunisation programme"

My kids aren't vaccinated.

Better go and turn myself in to social services now.

buttonmooncup, your asthma argument is not relevant. My younger child will have asthma medication as she suffers from asthma and when she is ill from it the medication eases the symptoms.

I do not give the same medication to her when she is not suffering from the condition, nor do I give it to DD2 in case she might one day, as my father did, become asthmatic in later years.

Sorry, that last sentence of mine should have read DD1 of course, not DD2.

People forget how horrible these illnesses are. My parents & grandparents talk about how class mates went deaf, missed lots of schooling, etc. Lying in a darkened room with swollen testicles is no fun. Our doctors these days also don't regularly treat and therefore identify things that were commonplace one generation ago.

Our aim is to give our children, a happy carefree time whilst learning the skills they need for adulthood. So that means taking the risks letting them climb trees, cross roads, learn to swim...

I would do anything to prevent my children being hurt. I don't enjoy seeing them ill, I am an intelligent woman who takes advantage of the best things that society has to offer my children particularly preventing them getting ill. I'm happy to be part of the herd protecting those who really can't have injections.

A hippie friend was caught up in the Welsh measles outbreak two years ago, was it really fair that at 18 one child could n't go near the family and had to be packed off to relatives.

Teach your children to wash their hands after going to the toilet and get those injections, thats intelligent parental responsibility.

There are very very few children for whom vaccines are more risky than not being vaccinated. I happen to be interested in the subject as I work in the a related field but I don't think other parents DO need to read up on the subject. Most 'reading up on the subject' involves scaremongering as very few have access to the literature and the critical appraisal skills to appraise the evidence. We rely on professionals to do that for us. NICE or the Cochrane reviews would be a good place to look - not google. And if a parent relies on NHS or CDC or AAP recommendations, all well and good IMO.

I'm sorry silverforg but the science does not stand! Wakefield cherry picked his participants - of which there were very few. He also had a direct financial interest in single vaccines. That makes his research biased and totally unscientific.

Black- So I'm an irresponsible parent for not injecting my child with different strains of viruses? Right ok.