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)

I hate to tell you gnu, but whether you like it or not, you can catch pertissis from someone who has previously been vaccinated. That is a fact.

You're just a lot less likely to. That is also a fact.

Yes, but I am LESS LIKELY to catch it from someone who has been vaccinated than someone who has not. There IS a difference.

Crash doll, but it's ok for people to post anecdotes about how dangerous they are?

No, you didn't say much but most of it was wrong as I pointed out. You didn't express all of it as an opinion.

Gnu, if you are no longer immune (ie. able to catch it and pass it on) then what difference does it make if you were previously vaccinated? You still passed it on!

Point out what else I said when clearly, the small pox was sarcasm. You're just nitpicking now!

Anecdotes, no. I said they're irritating as hell lots of times. But denying the danger is wrong. Pro-vaxers have admitted that there are risks with vaxers. Anti-vaxers keep telling me they had x, y or z and were fine.

Let's use your friend as an example. Do you think she would care if her baby contracted whooping cough from an unvaccinated person or someone who was previously vaccinated but no longer immune? Do you really think it would matter to her who it came from? If it was you who had passed it on to a baby would you feel any better about it because you had been vaccinated as a child? Would that mean that you wouldn't feel guilty about it?

It makes a huge difference. The greater the viral load, the more likely you are to transmit and the more the viral exposure, the greater the likelihood of a more serious infection.

This is why babies who are infected by unvaccinated siblings often have the worst complications.

Crash doll, I think you're just choosing to ignore the other information showing that certain diseases (eg rubella, mumps) are not as risky as many people think.

Elaine, links please.

I'm sure other diseases are less risky but there are some equally risky ones. Btw, your non risky diseases could kill me but don't worry about that.

I've been looking and I can't find anything that says that you will not spread the disease as much if you were previously vaccinated.

I was reading a bit more about pertussis since I realized I'd like to kno wmore about this clearly rather tricky disease with waning immunity for both vaccine and naturally acquired infections.

Anyway, I came across this paper cid.oxfordjournals.org/content/39/12/1802.full.pdf

You'll see Bumbley that it cites a study on page 1804 (ref #44) that shows that vaccinated patients who do develop pertussis are less contagious. Very glad my lecturer wasn't making stuff up :)

Volcan, I mean not aware of the link between Vitamin A deficiency and risk of measles complications - not aware that I mentioned it iykwim!

I should have said 'some posters shot me down in flames'.

Yes, I remember it was mentioned. In the old days (up to 1980s?) didn't the baby clinics also give out free vitamins to all? A, C & D, was it - Haliborange? or some such. (To replace the absolutely disgusting cod liver oil that children used to be dosed with! )

It's an interesting article about the pertussis bacteria mutating - it shouldn't really surprise anyone given what has happened with anit-biotics.

Thanks Elaine, I'll have a read.

And here's another one (interestingly also from Senegal) demonstrating the increased risk of complications of secondary cases due to increased viral exposure
jid.oxfordjournals.org/content/161/6/1088.short

Ok Elaine, so that reference is a paper by Préziosi et al. I'm struggling to get a full version that I don't have to pay for but I'll keep looking.

I knew about the idea of secondary cases having an increased risk of complications.

I have bedtimes to do here but I'll try to come back later :)

You'll probably find the mechanism described in virology/epidemiology textbooks (I'm not even sure if bacteria and viruses are spread in the same way so just guessed it'd be the same for pertussis). We learnt it as a general rule, not specifically for any one disease. You'll find a lot about viral load and how it influences HIV transmission. Obviously the mode of transmission is different for the diseases under discussion but the basic idea is the same.

crashdoll are you just ignoring half the posts on here? I have said (more than one) that my mother was left deaf in one ear from measles. That's hardly denying that it can have lifetime consequences.

LeBFG - the fact the whooping cough vaccine doesn't seem to protect against some circulating strains and doesn't last all that long tips the risk benefit ratio. So for example, ds3 has had a seizure and ended up in hospital post seizure. I'm not that convinced about giving him whooping cough vaccine given that a history of seizures was a contraindication for whole cell pertussis. And I'm certainly not going to risk it if there's still a reasonable chance he's going to get pertussis anyway (as his brother did - apparently with the new strain). Never mind all the other reason we have for being cautious.

Everything's a risk benefit ratio.

This 'argue with a bereaved mother' is ridiculous. Equivalent to me saying 'come and argue with the mother of a vaccine damaged child'. What's the point? I would hope no-one on here would be that crass.(Although I wouldn't be surprised, people have discussed termination for learning disabilities with me in front of ds1 which seems crass in the extreme).

I don't choose not to vaccinate to kill other children, and I take every precaution as detailed above (more it seems than some who vaccinate, as I seem to have spread a lot less disease around my little circle of friends than those who have vaccinated). I choose not to vaccinate because I would like my younger two to grow up and live independent lives, unlike ds1. Oh and I like hearing their voices - something I don't have with ds1.

I think we see evidence very differently. If my child had a history of seizures then I'd want to be even more sure he would be less likely to get pertussis as surely the chance of complications is even higher? In the unlikely event that he does get pertussis after being vaccinated, he'd still be more likely to have a milder case.

I'm not questioning your intentions. Mine are the exactly the same. The social good is a plus but not my main motivation for vaccinating my children. I also want to see my children grow up healthy and happy - and the chances of them doing so are greater when vaccinated. Your case may be different and you may be part of the small minority who shouldn't be vaccinated. In which case, you should be pleased the rest of us are even if we are doing it for our own selfish reasons.

crashdoll
Your child is more likely to (g-d forbid!) get hit by a car but I'm sure you cross the road. Why is the road analogy relevant? Because we take risks every damn day of our lives.
This is totally true.
You are more likely to be hit by a car than have complication from vaccines.
And you are also more likely to be hit by a car than have mumps or measles or the whooping cough and have complication from the illness.

Sooo... I am getting lost at what you are trying to prove there.

I though it was quite clear that most posters here are talking about weighing the risks for their own dcs depending on what is going on in their families etc...
Or that they have had some careful examination on the risks from both position and decided not to vax for A but to do it for B.

As there is no guidelines about when it is NOT suitable to vaccinate a child (eg it is seen as suitable to vaccinate a child at 6 weeks even if the child is premature or has had a serious illness in the past 2 weeks), then it is only fair that people do try and define their own guidelines.

Sooo... I am getting lost at what you are trying to prove there.

I wasn't trying to prove anything. I was just making a statement to both sides that we all take risks and this one seems to cause a lot of angst that, at times, appears quite OTT in most cases. Anyway, like I said, we all make our own choices but a lot of people were making silly statements and it was bothering me. I'm not particularly pro-vax as I have stated but some of the anti-vaxers (and no I don't mean all of everyone!) are rabidly trying to prove their points.

I'm all for weighing up the risks and not always going by govt policy. For example, I was in the UK but got my kids vaccinated against chicken pox because I know that the main reasons for not vaccinating on the NHS is due to cost and shingles in the elderly NOT the benefit of the vaccinated child. I had to pay for it out of my own pocket and I accepted this as I was going against govt policy.

However, so much of the 'evidence' presented in favour of not vaccinating here is misinformation and scaremongering. This works against those who truly have additional risks from vaccinating as they are less protected by herd immunity and often these same children are at higher risk of complications from the diseases the vaccine prevents.