To wonder why on earth you would not vaccinate your DCs?

[olimpia]

I hear from another thread that some people choose not to vaccinate their DCs at all and I'm genuinely interested to hear why because I can't think of a single reason not to. I can perhaps understand opting out of the MMR if someone believes the bad press (not that I do) but all the other vaccinations? Why, oh why?
(not a troll! Just relatively new to MN)

YANBU. A close friend of mine, now in his late 30s, contracted polio as a baby from another baby who'd recently been immunised. (It used to be possible to contract it from a recently vaccinated person - faecal-oral route - but it isn't any more because in the UK they no longer use the live vaccine, as far as I understand it.) He is the staunchest advocate of vaccination that I know because he knows at first hand what damage these diseases can do. He lives with permanent paralysis and increasing disability but feels he's lucky because the polio virus didn't do more damage (ie left him partially paralysed but still able to breathe). He made sure that his dc were immunised.

I think the seatbelt argument is a good one. There are some children injured by seatbelts - and these are horrific and tragic for the families involved - but seatbelts prevent more injuries than they cause. Same for vaccines. For me the risks associated with the diseases was not worth taking and outweighed any possible risk of vaccine damage.

Rookery, but it was the vaccine that resulted in him catching polio in the first place. (still the case in many developing countries where the live OPV is in use)

In some cases the risk of vaccine damage outweighs the risk of the disease

I'm not aware of any children who are predisposed to being damaged by seatbelts

Yep rookery your friend is one very good example as to why vaccines can be dangerous.

Note, I woud imagine he was immunized too but it means that vaccines didn't actually protect him?

Yes bumbley but I fear you have missed my point. Sorry if I wasn't very clear (and I'm not being sarcastic - this is far too important). His view, as someone who was damaged by the vaccine, is that the disease is so horrific that it is better that we immunise EVEN THOUGH there is the tiny risk of vaccine damage.

No, Ladyindisguise, he wasn't immunised. He was not quite 3 months old. Had he been immunised he wouldn't have caught polio.

See your point but I am sure you also see why that vaccine was the one 'source' of people contacting polio in western countries for a long time.
And it has been stopped not that long ago as dc1, who is 8yo, still had the live vaccine.

If the other child hadn't have been immunised he wouldn't have caught it either
I'm not being pedantic but do you see the point

99% of polio cases are completely asymptomatic or present with only mild flu symptoms. It can be horrific but so can a lot of things that we don't think about vaccinating against.

I chose to vaccinate DS.
I'm extremely vaccinated having travelled a bit in developing countries, but even so, when I moved to the USA in 2005 I came up against a NY State law that said I needed to have a TB vaccine if I couldn't provide evidence that I'd had one. I waved my BGC scar at them and said " I got this when I was 13 ... everyone has this!" and they said "Sorry, immigrant foreigner, go to the clinic and get the immunisation."

And you know what? I did. Because I ride the subway, handle money, and go to public places. And no amount of yoga, sunshine, healthy organic eating or chanting can stop infectious diseases from spreading in a closely packed city of around 9 million people.

And that's okay with me. I think it is people's duty to vaccinate, and their duty to be educated about how they schedule the vaccines and the likely side-effects, and I think that vaccines, while unpleasant, are not as bad as the diseases they prevent. I remember thinking when I was pregnant, I'd sooner DS was autistic than dead. I cannot understand the opposing point of view, I just can't. And I'm glad that children who aren't vaccinated aren't allowed into DS's daycare, just like I'm glad that people must have a TB vaccine when they move into NYC. I remember going to Uni as a big meningitis outbreak was happening and students across the UK were dying of it, and queueing up for the job in Fresher's week. We live in a social world and no amount of 'pure living' can save you if an infectious disease takes hold. Infectious diseases do not care about your moral sense of purity. They kill, maim and disable regardless of how you restrict your DCs' access to sugar. It's madness to ignore the science.

I think i read in the daily mail that five babies have died this year from whooping cough.

oh and measles is defo coming back in inner citys esp.

quite scary really.

If polio, measles etc are so harmless why do we bother vaccinating? Why is there a vaccination programme at all? Genuine question.

My uncle is in his sixties now. He can still remember being able to walk and run. He can still remember the iron lung. He can still remember no polio vaccine.

One of the biggest problems with the vaccination question is the media and their policy of "balance".

Clearly if you have someone from the Labour Party arguing that we should have a financial growth policy, then it is right to balance the argument with someone from the Conservative Party arguing that we should have cuts. This is because either answer could be correct and it isn't clear cut.

Unfortunately, the media have got this idea of "balance" applied completely incorrectly when it comes to science. With the MMR vaccine, the absolute vast majority of medical scientists agreed that the vaccine was "safe", and this conclusion was supported by data (note, that "safe" does not mean that there are no risks, just that they are below a threshold deemed acceptable - there is still a chance that it could cause harm to a child in an extreme case, but this is very very low). However, a very small group of scientists contradicted this argument (this is completely fine and one of the great things about the scientific method - challenging each other makes sure it is science, not a belief system) and this was represented in the media (in a big way).

Where the media get it wrong is by giving equal weighting to both sides of the argument and making it seem like it is a 50/50 split in scientific opinion. This leads the unwashed masses to think that the challenge is strongly valid (which is wasn't). If the media gave a time slot (or number of words on the page) proportional to the quantity of scientists who support each side of the argument, then there would have been a 1 hour segment on how MMR is "safe" and about 1 second on how it causes autism.

Basically - the media are stupid and so are we all for listening to them. Don't forget, they are trying to SELL US NEWSPAPERS, and don't care for the welfare of our children, so ignore their opinion.

The problem is, that it is very difficult to put scary things into perspective. I know someone who refuses to travel on the underground because of the risk of a bomb attack. He also hates flying because of the fear of crashing. But if you take the number of people who use these two forms of transport every day, and the number of people killed from these (admittedly horrific) events, then your chances of coming to harm are infinitesimally tiny such that they can be called "safe" (just like a vaccine). But this argument is of no comfort to my friend and he is still scared! Interestingly, the same person make no fuss when jumping into the car to drive to the shops, which is nowhere near as "safe".

Clearly there are people who are at higher risks from vaccines and therefore they are not "safe" for them, but the medical professionals will give guidance in this situation - not the newspapers or your mate on mumsnet who is a quack.

Mince, you are being a tiny bit pedantic. My friend is one of about five people in the last 40 years in the UK who caught it through vaccine damage. He believes that it is better that the vaccine exists DESPITE the fact that he was damaged by it.

Bumbley, I feel like I live in a parallel universe. In my world, (let's call it The World Where Polio is Slightly Worse Than Flu) the unchecked poliovirus killed so many people before the vaccine was introduced. It left thousands of people paralysed, unable to breathe without being in an iron lung, unable to walk. For those who survived, the late effects of polio (or post-polio syndrome) results in new muscle weakness 30 years after initially contracting the disease.

JollyBear, polio is not harmless. At the height of the polio epidemic in 1952 in the USA (not long before the vaccine was introduced), 57,628 cases were reported. 3,145 people died. 21,269 were left with mild to disabling paralysis.

because some people are belligerent (sp?)

black currants, the TB vaccine is ineffective. There is limited evidence that it provides any protection for over 16s and zero evidence that it provides any protection in adults. It is not recommended for over 35s. I don't really see the point in getting vaccines that are known not to work.

eragon, probably because there is so much undisguised whooping cough circulating in children and adults because the vaccine doesn't protect for long (if at all). Result: lots of oblivious adults mixing and allowing their children to mix with young babies because 'it couldn't possibly be whopping cough, I/they have been vaccinated'.

Sorry rookie I don't think it is harmless! I was merely challenging bumbley's viewpoint when she said Polio is fine 99% of the time.

I didn't frame my question very well.

I do wonder why anti-vaccination think we have an immunisation programme.

Jolly, no one is saying they are harmless - they can be harmful but I do think that risks are exaggerated to scare people into vaccinating. When a vaccine becomes available, the disease suddenly becomes more dangerous. People in the US are terrified of chickenpox because they routinely vaccinate against it. Yes, it can cause complications but most of us don't live in fear of our children catching it - have a look at some US forums to see how scared they are of it.

Eragon - that should have been undiagnosed not undisguised! Hope you know what I meant!

JollyBear I didn't mean to sound aggressive but was typing too quickly to think about how it might read! I just reread your question and realise I completely misread the tone. Sorry!

techno dad, I think many studies actually concluded that there was inadequate safety data for the MMR - I'm sure someone else could provide a link for you. It has come up a lot on the Vacvinations board.

Also, doctors don't actually give you any advice or guidance on whether or not your child may be more likely to react to a vaccine.

rookery, it's not s parallel universe. Those figures come from official sources - NHS and WHO. Also, the OPV is the leading cause of polio in the countries where polio is still endemic. Obviously poor sanitation doesn't help.