Measles Outbreak?

[MoaningLisa]

I am sure you have all heard on the news that there has been an outbreak of measles.

Papers, Schools, Hv, Drs are saying if you or your child haven't had the vaccine(s) now would be a good time to get it done.

I cant help but think though that the parents who haven't and wont get their child vaccinated are putting their children at risk.

Aibu to think that its just bloody selfish and very daring to play with their own childs life?

the mumps vaccine has been aroudn for ages, but it has never been a particulalry effective jab.

and it still isn't, tbh. the mmr components are continually being revised, and in particular the mumps dose doubled, as it is not as effective as it shoudl be.

it is only ever the media who has said mmr=autism. Wakefield certainly never did. and the science has not been discredited, and has in fact been replicated and validated around the world.

DS was born in 2000, so the controversy was pretty big news.

Some of the fights at toddler group would have made AIBU look positively tame. People properly fell out with each other over it - I'm sure some people still wouldn't talk to each other if they passed in Waitrose

Damn -got sucked back in. Reikizen -people are uneducated and/or misinformed because they are not disagreeing with me. They are disagreeing with a global medical community who have the evidence and statisitics(complied over many years) to conclude that when people do not get immunized diseases like measles, mumps and rubella increase and children die, go blind etc etc.
The impact of mass immunisation on the elimination of the diseases has been demonstrated worldwide on many occassions.
If you do not 'believe' in immunisation (some of my NCT parents believe the whole thing is a conspiracy -a conspiracy of what I am not so sure) then why do you believe in other medical practices which are commonly undertaken based on the same processes of trials and evidence gathering. Or do you shun all modern medical techniques? I would assume not.

I was going to say that it was actually some daft hack that put the mmr/autism thing forward. The reason my kids had the mmr is because I saw, and still see, no reason to have single vaccinations. Why put my severely disabled child through 3 injections when one does the same job?

re the saudi outbreak: the fact that there were no hospitalizations or deaths is attributed to high vaccination coverage.

Chippy, you forgot to mention Meningitis in that list.

"it is only ever the media who has said mmr=autism. Wakefield certainly never did."
You can say this over and over again but it doesn't make it true.

Wakefield did say that mmer= autism in his news conference to publiscize his dodgy study, conveniently having taken out a patent for a single measles vaccine.

manicbmc, and also leave them exposed to the diseases for much longer - Babyjabs recommend 6 mths -1 year between each single jab.

I presume LilQueenie is referring to the 1% of children who don't get immunity in spite of being twice vaccinated. Since the majority of kids have been vacced, 1% of them is a lot of kids, and of course they can spread the epidemic (In spite of parent's best efforts to prevent).

Today I sat at Toddlers next to a little boy who has never been vacced for anything. His mother (my friend) died last year from cancer, devasting the lad's father. One of my pet nightmares is that lad getting damaged by a vaccine-preventable disease, what state will his father be left in? :(.

It's one thing to respect your friends' decisions, but it's hard to watch sometimes, too.

I thought part of the controversy about the single vaccines vs MMR was that monovalent mumps had never been licensed in the UK? It first became a routine vaccination when it made IRS way into the MMR. I just checked my yellow immunisation record and it says I only had the MR as a child.

I think there are a number of misconceptions about parents who choose not to vaccinate their children. One is that it is to do with the MMR/Dr Wakefield research, this is not true in my case it is simply that I think the immune system is extremely effective and can do a better job than any vaccine. I also think that we have no idea of the long term effects of mass immunisation on the immune systems of our children. I also think that there are many doctors I work with that I wouldn't let advise me on what to have for tea so don't trust their opinions on the safety or otherwise of vaccines thanks.
Having said all that, the second big misconception is that parents who do not vaccinate their children walk around in a cloud of sandalwood and patchouli, sacrificing their children's health for some hippy ideal. This is absolutely not true, it is a decision I worry about regularly, like many decisions parents take. We just do what we believe to be the best thing at that time. No guarantees can be given, you just live with what you decide at the end of the day to be be on balance the lesser risk. It is not about being mistaken or stubborn, just human, and imperfect, and doing the best we can.

Wakefield published in the Lancet -picked up on by the media (most studies never make it beyond the communities they are written for).

oh, bruffin. not again.

no, he didn't.

he advised caution, pending further investigation. he said there may be a link, amongst some pre-disposed, susceptible childrne. he never said that mmr caused autism.

and the patent stuff is just nonsense, as you well know. at the very least, the patent was in the name of the Royal Free, so Wakefiled would not have profited.

MoaningLisa, YANBU to think as you do. YANBU to post it on MN. But, you would be bloody unreasonable to chastise me in person, were we to meet, for my decisions and to do so might just result in you becoming rather offended at my response.

Just so we're clear on that, okay?

I didn't get my eldest with autistic tendancies the MMR as had awful reaction to DTaP.
Could be the fact she was half the weight as babies her age and given the same dose.
I have given all mine the DTaP as have seen babies with whooping cough and polio is far worse than measles.
We have a lot of allergies in our families (both sides ) and my children have far less compared to cousins who have had the MMR.
I would give the measles vaccine if a single Jab and will give MMR when adolescent.
Having said that I suspect they have mild measles now.
I also believe we are asking for trouble immunising for everything.
The population's immune systems will get weaker and viruses mutate.
Those who have had infections will fair better.
I do not plan to immunise against treatable illness or ones which are generally mild in healthy children.
My first duty is to my children not other peoples.

Personally I believe in vaccinations, especially the mmr......there is so much hype about them....people forget what it was like before the vaccines....people dying of small pox and measles etc......infact my Gran's little brother died of measles which he caught from her, so very sad and I really think she felt she was somehow responsible (obviously she wasn't..) he was only 2 the poor little thing....better safe than sorry.
If my children were not vaccinated and there was an outbreak near us I would be absolutely terrified......

Hmm

Some chidlren cannot have the MMR for very serious life threatening medically advised reasons.

So on OP alone YABU to be so blanket

And if another person yells at me in RL for not giving the MMR when ds4 has in fact had the single jab I will argh in their face.
There's more than one way to skin a cat and all that.

But yes; it IS often the vaccinated children who pass it on, it's not 100%.

Shame but how it is. MMR / singles will not prevent measles as it is, only minimise it.

if dd school gets case of measles she will need to stay of school till incubation period is over anyone know how long it is between one case and the next ?

Dd is one of the dc taht can not be vacinated as she can not make antibodies so basicallyhas no protection to any jabs and she is in Spain on holiday and must admit I held my breath about letting her go .But can not and will not wrap in cotton wool

Reikizen -there have been long term studies. Smallpox vaccine was discovered in 1796 and immunisation programmes have been in place since the late 19th century - most modern countries have totally erradicated the disease with no noticeable side effects to those treated. And you are not trusting the doctors you work with -they did not invent the vaccines -they are merely a conduit to getting it and they would refer to the medical evidence when forming an opinion. The statistics prove that the immune system is not extremely effective when dealing with diseases like measles -mainly because more unvaccinated children die of measles than those who have been vaccinated.

reikizen, the immune system is brilliant and that's what immunisations use to help the body protect itself from very damaging diseases such as measles. The vaccine doesn't protect, the immune system does. The body just doesn't need to get the disease in order to do so.

I had measles as a child, I was very poorly, but I was lucky, others were not so lucky. Polio and smallpox vaccines have been around for decades and the effect on the children who received them and on society as a whole has been beneficial.

I love living today. I love modern medicine. Doctors and antibiotics have saved my DS at least once and for that I am extremely grateful. The immune system is great, but it sometimes needs help. I am [shocked] that you would not take that help when it is available.

As far as I understand, the MMR vaccine is live, but wekened, as they find a strain that is 'happiest' growing at above or below body temp (not sure which), so I think chances of passing it on after being vaccinated are very small, although if your immune system is weak, potentially you could end up with a mild form.

Really petitepeach? "Terrified" if there was an outbreak of measles near you and your DC weren't immunised?

This isn't a wind up nor is it meant to be rude, but isn't that reaction a bit extreme? Concerned, sure, but terrified?

Yes, measles can kill. For the majority in developed countries that is not the case (as I'm living proof) - and remember that things like hygeine and antivirals etc have all improved since Gran's time, reducing the likelihood of serious reaction further still.

I think that when we get to the stage of people being "terrified" then there is something very wrong and that has far more to do with hype, media influence, government doom-mongering and hearsay than it is based in reality.

Of course, I'm biased. Neither I, my teenagers, my father, my mother or her 4 siblings, or my late Grandparents had/have had a single vaccination in our lives. I still think that this is all leading to panic and overreaction though.

YANBU! My children are vaccinated. 1. So they won't become ill. 2. So they cannot pass on the illness to children too young or too ill to be vaccinated who are depending upon "herd immunity."

New borns and children with, say leukemia, who cannot be vaccinated are depending upon the rest of us to be vaccinated so that the disease does not spring up. We cannot ALL be free riders.

It's true mumps isn't available here, and if we don;t give the MMR as a teen to ds4 we will look at what is available privately elsewhere in Europe.

I am not anti MMR- ds1, 2 and 3 had it. however equally we have significantly unusual genes (ds1 AS; ds2 being assessed for ADD, ds3 autism, ds4 being assessed for ASD) and we prefer singles as a midway if only for our own sanity.

Sorry, my previous post didn't really fit in the thread very well there!

As an aside, we talked about this in our Biology lessons, and I hated it, because I hadn't been vaccinated at the time. I had an egg allergy when I was small, so they didn't want to give me the jab (I think it's the measles part is grown in egg white), but I grew out of it and had the jab when I was 14/15.

I never understood why people who made the decision solely on the autism link didn't choose to vaccinate their child when they were older. Or did they, and we've never seen the figures?