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)

Course there are side effects to seat belts. What if there's a fire and you can't get your kids out? What if car ends up underwater and you can't get out? The poster above mentioned them. Minimal, true, but not if YOU are then the one stuck in a burning car, then it's 100% risk, right?

And bumbley, you do know that neither vaccination nor natural infection guarantee immunity with pertussis, right??? In both cases, you'd do well to get (re)vaccinated after 5-10 years to avoid infection. The most effective way to control pertussis is to maintain high vaccination rates and get boosters for adolescents although complications are more likely among younger children who should be immune if vaccinated, at least for 5 years post vaccination. Additionally, people previously exposed to pertussis either through vaccine or natural infection will usually have a milder case, thus reducing complications.

You are talking about very small probabilities. If I had that in mind, I would have talked about vaccine damage, which also affects a small minority.

No, I was talking about routine costs that happen to everybody - if you are vaccinated, you won't have these diseases as a child. That means you will never be sure of your immunity and may very well have them as an adult, where these diseases will be much more serious and with grave results (mumps can cause infertility in adult men, rubella causes deformities in foetuses).

Untrue, and with with respect, a touch smug. That is all it is,a belief. It will not stop a healthy person catching a disease.

Exactly - a belief. It happened to have been a strongly held belief by older generations of my family many of whom lived to be nonegenarians and generally enjoyed good health. It may have been good genes, but they were strong in their beliefs about the importance of diet. Which left me with an open mind but, as I said up thread, I didn't fully share their beliefs because I sought out some vaccinations when I felt the need as a young adult.

Pertussis is not as dangerous in adulthood so people may not even realise that they have it. (you not tend to get the 'whoop' in older children/adults) I really don't fancy your chances of convincing everyone to get boosters every couple of years (average protection lasts 4 years, can be as little as 1 and thats if it works at all!) which means that you're never going to have high levels of immunity In the community.

Actually cote, there is no firm evidence that mumps causes sterility in men but it can cause orchitis in post pubescent males and other complications are more likely in adults. So, yes, much better to have it in childhood.

I am one of a large family and none of us was ever vaccinated. Our mother said that, when she was young, all children caught the common diseases and she never knew anyone harmed by them.
I do think our children now have an awful lot of jabs and maybe the drug companies' profits drive that. We worry about food additives yet have all these foreign substances put into babies. Getting ill occaisionally is part of life, but meningitis is so scary that I've had my children vaccinated.

"Additionally, people previously exposed to pertussis either through vaccine or natural infection will usually have a milder case, thus reducing complications."

Everyone says this, but I'm not sure it's true. Maybe it is sometimes, but it wasn't for us. I do wonder if it's just something doctors say. We had a vaccinated DD who nearly died of pertissus and a completely unvaccinated DD who (despite being statistically much more vulnerable as she was under two) threw it off relatively reasonably.

To be fair, even the doctors didn't have an answer. They tried telling us when she was first admitted to hospital that the vaccination had probably made it milder, but as it progressed and got to be one of the worst cases they'd seen, even they could see it wasn't true. I could see none of their theories held true and they had to just say in the end that they didn't know why it had worked that way.

My theory was that DD2 had an immune system completely uncompromised by vaccinations and therefore she was fitter and more able to cope, but I'm sure a doctor would never agree with me.

The thing is music posy is that you don't know how badly your dd might have had it if she hadn't been vaccinated. It seems she is particularly vulnerable, poor thing. On average, vaccinated people have milder cases than non vaccinated but this is an average with plenty of individual variation so your experience doesn't negate the association when you look at thousands of people. In fact, usually siblings get a worse case than the index child (assuming it was the older dd who passed to the younger) because the viral exposure is greater - again clearly not the case with you.

I'm not for a second questioning your individual decision btw. Sounds like you've had a horrendous time of it.

As my health visitor put it the government would not allow something so unsafe for our children. However look at how corrupt the government is. She also admitted no tests have been done on long term affects of vaccination because no one will test on babies. THEN this the other day. I am now rock solid in my belief that vaccination is not as safe as we are told. BTW this company also make the vaccinations if you check their website. www.guardian.co.uk/business/2012/jul/03/glaxosmithkline-fined-bribing-doctors-pharmaceuticals?newsfeed=true

I don't share your HV's faith in Governments. I agree with your belief that vaccines are not as safe as we are told. I also think that if good nutrition does promote a healthy immune system then it's worth trying to eat a sound diet.

The same corruption exists for all drugs, vaccines aren't special. Why would they be?

Eating a healthy diet and getting immunized are not mutually exclusive activities. Both are causally associated with improved health outcomes which is why we do both in our family.

I never said they were mutually exclusive. I would like to see more attention given to eating a healthy diet, although to be fair, there has been more emphasis on it in recent years.

And to add to this - vaccines differ from other drugs in that they are given to healthy people. Other drugs are given in the hope of curing the disease.

Ah so it's the preventive side that you dislike. Personally I'm a great fan of preventive medicine. Curative is good too of course but theres a reason for the saying 'prevention is better than cure'

I am all for preventative medicine. I'm not too sure how many actually get a good, healthy diet - nutrition seems to be an area where people haven't a clue - and even if they have they get DCs who won't eat it!

It's preventative, but it's also invasive and involves injecting someone with something without their consent. Wearing a seatbelt is not invasive - I don't think the two can be compared.

I think that the point about prevention and cure is that if you are already ill, the risk:benefit ratio differs. There is more reason to take the risks of side effects.

Ah so it's the preventive side that you dislike. Personally I'm a great fan of preventive medicine.

This iis a conclusion you have jumped to - but in fact I was making a distinction between healthy people and sick ones, and not referring to the 'preventive side.'

I am not fully convinced about historical claims of preventive medicine which leads me to question current claims for the same. I think the 'public health' side of the argument is conveniently overlooked e.g. outbreaks of cholera in the UK were stopped not because a vaccine was invented but sewage contaminated drinking water was eliminated. The pharmaceutical companies are certainly not unbiased so I don't think that their opinion can be relied upon; doctors are taught about treating disease so are not particularly aware of public health issues or especially clued up about diet (but getting more so on the latter).

I think vaccines have their place but I question the current policies.

nutrition seems to be an area where people haven't a clue - and even if they have they get DCs who won't eat it!
Ah yes, I definitely understand where you are coming from on that one, but if you try to put healthy food in front of your children and minimise the junk it helps.

Eating a healthy diet in an age before junk food didn't stop me getting measles, mumps and rubella. Just saying!

Re the preventive side: I am all for prevention but not if it means playing up with my immune system/hormones/body chemistry.

So yes, exercise, diet, general lifetsyle etc... are all a necessity. We would have far less problems if we were all much more careful about our own lifestyle. To take another example, if you look at statins, lots of people are on them for prevention of a disease. Even though, we don't quite know how they are working nor do we know whether they really protect healthy people but we do know they have a vast number of side effects.
Would I ever use statins as a prevention? NO.

But there is another issue here that no one has raised.
If you had a group of a 1000 persons and you were told that one person/child needed to be killed in order to save 10 or 20 others person/children. Would you do that? Would you be happy to take these 2 children and know they would die to protect you? Would you be happy if it was YOUR child?
There is a major ethical issue and the one that most people argue about when it comes to vaccination and 'how on earth can put other people at risk by not vaccinating?'
Even people who are pro-vax will agree that there IS a risk to vaccination, as there are with any others medicines. So what do you think?

Personally, I could not live with the idea that some children have died or are suffering major disabilities just to increase the probability of me not catching a disease. Especially as they are so many other illnesses that I can catch where there is no vax available. I prefer to accept that illness and dying is part of life.

There is no getting away from the fact that pharma companies profit massively from vaccination programmes. This means there is always a conflict of interest with people's health unfortunately.

Personally, I could not live with the idea that some children have died or are suffering major disabilities just to increase the probability of me not catching a disease. Especially as they are so many other illnesses that I can catch where there is no vax available. I prefer to accept that illness and dying is part of life.

But that is kind of what you are doing if you live in a society where the overwhelming majority of children are vaccinated but yours aren't. You are getting all the benefit with none of the risk.

LilQueenie - re "As my health visitor put it the government would not allow something so unsafe for our children"

Bless

"Government" weighs cost (a few vaccine damaged children) against benefit (much less sick children > less cost for NHS > far less economic cost from parents staying home to look after sick children) and guess which side wins.

Parents' cost/benefit analysis for their child is very different to this.

" if you live in a society where the overwhelming majority of children are vaccinated but yours aren't. You are getting all the benefit with none of the risk."

You don't get it, do you?

I want DD to get rubella so that she will be immune for life. But she doesn't, because of this moronic policy of vaccinating babies for a disease that is only dangerous for them when pregnant

Cecily, you are missing the point.
by saying that you think that all children should be vaccinated, regardless of circumstances, you know some will suffer terrible consequences from it.

Are you willing to live your life knowing you have caused their terrible suffering (on someone you will never know, I grant you that) because you want to reduce the risk of your dcs or yourself catching mumps for example, or rubella?

It's not about whether someone who is not vaccinated 'benefit' from the fact others are vaccinated. I would be happy for no one to be vaccinated if they wish or for others to be vaccinated if they wish to protect themselves.
I don't agree with the idea that people should be vaccinated to protect other people, regardless of the cost of lives.