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)

"The amount of misinformation and distortion is just astounding!
And I do think there is plenty of scaremongering about the 'dangers' of vaccines"

there is a lot of really good information here and links to pubmed and peer-reviewed work, by saintly and others. Tthere's also a lot of scaremongering about the dangers of natural disease, I think it's you Elane who is scared, afraid of facts and information which endanger your view. The arguments are very strong in favour of a questioning stance towards mass programmes of inmmunisations.

"it's such a minuscule group"
"such a tiny number"
"hardly a group at all"

you should stop making these assertions as they've been challenged, under-reporting is rife and you know it

As a teenager I chose not to get some vaccinations and my children did not have some, this is based on firstly me taking whooping cough badly as a child despite being vaccinated against it, and secondly an understanding that vaccination works as a herd measure but is less valuable these you think for your individual child. Thirdly there is also plenty of evidence of vaccination damage out there.

However if they didn't put the shit up everyone to get it done then the herd cover wouldn't be there and if you think it's the best thing to get it done for your child then I agree totally with you, I picked the right thing for me and mine.

Here are the numbers from a reputable source

www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/side-effects.htm

You will excuse me, accuracy, if I continue making my assertions even though they have been 'challenged' as I prefer to use scientific evidence, not whetehr someone on mumsnet disagrees with me because it's not what they think.

Do you think people are lying? Say it outright, or acknowledge there is underreporting.

I think saintly said that polio isn't a risk. Clearly wrong.

And if you read even the abstract, lavolcan, the reason herd immunity didn't work is because it's a closely knit religious community. They were all infecting one another. The reason it didn't SPREAD is because of herd immunity.

In other words, I won't excuse you. Official statistics won't cover under-reporting, you just have to guess, or assume, and it's the reason the stats are mistrusted. So either people are lying like the people upthread who reported their own examples, quite a lot of them, or the figures aren't to be trusted, you can choose but you can't have it both ways.

You can get all emotional, accuracy, there's no need for it.

There is confirmation bias at the population level. There is strong evidence for it, not just with vaccines.

I guess I just don't base my decisions on whether something is prevalent on what I read on mumsnet. The Center for Disease Control seems to be a much more reputable source.

Far from emotional, it's very, very clear. What you base your decisions on seems to be emotional, ie trust in official statistics in the face of evidence to the contrary. That's emotional and not very clear headed. This is a clear headed question though -- are people lying, or is there under-reporting (bear in mind under-reporting has been found in studies linked to and is otherwise a relatively uncontroversial thing).

Or yyou can say yes there is under-reporting but despite the fact that we can't have faith in official statistics I have decided emotionally to trust them anyway.

Well, to be fair Elaine, it's not just what people say 'on mumsnet', that does sound very disparaging
Lots of people have link to respected sources of information
Do you not think they are reputable sources?
What would be the requirement for a reputable source?
I don't mean to be antagonistic, I am genuinely interested

Elaine - I think the chances of ds2 or ds3 catching polio in the UK are extremely small. Not zero. Obviously. But very small. If they go trekking off to India or some other developing country at some stage they will need to weigh up that their risk of contracting polio will be considerably larger and make their own decision.

By the time they're teens they won't be forced to have pertussis in with a polio jab anyway, so they may feel they want it.

Currently they don't have passports and we don't travel (we can't). So we calculate risks based on UK incidences.

What? Who said anything about lying?

As I have said, official statistics are only one part of the picture. Retrospective epidemiological studies have shown the same as have ecological studies. There is no scientific evidence that any side effects are more than very rare.

(Disclaimer: I don't class anecdotes on mumsnet as scientific evidence)

I didn't see any links to reputable sources of information which suggest that side effects are more than extremely rare.

(age of autism dones't count as reputable btw)

I seem to live my life these days surrounded by anecdotes. Lucky me.

I don't understand saintly how you can claim to calculate risks based on incidence when you couldn't care less if other people vaccinate or not?! Surely you must take into account the fact that herd immuntiy protects your unvaccinated children?

What would you do if a child of yours had a severe reaction (eg a prolonged seizure) to an immunization elaine and ended up in ITU where no investigations were carried out. Following their hospital stay they lost words and other skills which were never regained.

Would you vaccinate siblings? (Just curious - using a real life example - won't tell you the decision they made).

"I think for me lavolcan and accuracy have summed up very well the philosophy behind the anti vaccination movement. It's not about evidence, it's about feelings and conjecture."

thaT'S ironic because I think for me Elaine has summed up very well the drive behind the vaccination movement. It's not about evidence, it's about feelings and conjecture.

It's people like saintly, dinosaur and mince who've examinted the evidence more closely instead of just being attached to an idea.

Yes you imply that people are lying about the under-reporting as you believe/have faith in the official statistics and keeping quoting them at us.

In order to get scientific evidence you have to have instigated scientific research
Do you see the problem

Because Elaine as I have previously explained nearly everyone we actually physically see had a child that has been damaged in some way. I wouldn't presume to tell them what they should do. That's entirely up to them and none of my business. I'm not going to demand that other people vaccinate their children when I'm not prepared to vaccinate ds2 and ds3. That's for them to make their own mind up based on their own circumstances.

If I were in such an unfortunate and very rare situation I would probably be very anxious about future vaccinations

But I'd very glad that other children were immununized thus providing protection to my own children - as I'd be worried not just about vaccinations but also about complications from diseases.

I think your quote "I don't class anecdotes on mumsnet as evidence" is disgusting considering who you are talking to and what you are talking about. Saintly you are right this is pointless, there is just lashing out when an argument is lost by the pro-vaccination camp.

"In order to get scientific evidence you have to have instigated scientific research
Do you see the problem"

this, exactly

thanks for the links to all who have posted, there is a lot of good information here

But if they were on here you would tell them they were being emotional and ignoring evidence?

That Royal Society paper I posted above is very interesting btw.

And worth thinking about pattern 5 in relation to new research such as that reported here:

www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/5466/new-strain-blamed-whooping-cough-epidemic