For thinking i shouldn't be getting constantly pestered by the local nurse and GP team to get my daughter immunises when i've repeatedly told them my answer is no?

[Lowla]

My daughter is 4. She got all her jabs as a baby, but i stopped at the MMR one. Since we missed the appointment, i've been getting loads of letters to invite us to the clinic for the MMR jab and now her school booster jab for some other virus. (Hib or something like that).

I've phoned the GP and asked them not to send any more letters out as i've chosen not to get her immunised any further for my own personal reasons, and worries over her last reactions to the jabs. And now i've got some nurse calling me asking to do a home visit next week to 'check on me and dd'. I asked 'is this about the jabs?' and she said, rather reluctantly, 'yes'.

AIBU for feeling like they should respect my decision?

Sorry for the bad grammar. Writing this in a rush as i have to run and get dd from school.

Fryone Your decision was based on evidence. The outcome proves that the family link was the important one.

perfectstorm I too would rather Wakefield was not part of the discussion,
BUT
it was his actions that created much of the distrust of vaccines in the UK that has flowed over into other vaccines and led to so much pain for parents whose children have died Whooping Cough etc.

Would this thread even exist
would OP have even questioned
if Wakefield had not lied?
Before he started, immunisation rates had reached an all time high. It will take 20 years (of unprotected children) to recover that ground.

PLEASE, PLEASE, PLEASE
if your child has no hospital letter to say they cannot be immunised, get it done
for their sakes and your grandchildren's sakes - lets hope that our actions will save them having to deal with such horrible diseases.

Smallpox is gone. We can help get rid of some of the others. If we are intelligent enough to try.

Write to the Child Health Lead at your local PCT/CCG or speak to someone in the Child Health Surveillance team and ask to have your child's name deleted from the target register ... the reason you are getting constant recalls are the strict targets HVs and GPs have to achieve in childhood imms. You may need to sign some waiver to say that you agree to her name being deleted

Crikey I think it depends on whether "being right" or "increasing vaccination rates" is your bigger priority. Personally I think offering people evidence from an expert in the field, in a way that means they feel inclined to listen, is a better way of achieving that than getting into an argument about Wakefield. It doesn't matter where it started now, because so much evidence (so freaking much that Autism Speaks did a complete U turn on their previous opposition to the MMR, and are now asking that research money is no longer diverted to this blind alley because "you can only look so many times under the same rock expecting to find something new") is now in, indicating its safety. People feel huge loyalty to Wakefield in a very personal way, and getting sidetracked there means the emphasis on all the hard data on why the MMR is not dangerous to almost everyone, and why it is not linked to ASD, gets lost. Personally I don't give a crap if Wakefield is beatified or driven through the streets with a whip. I just want parents to have accurate and up-to-date info they feel they can trust, because if they do, vaccination rates will rise, because the evidence in favour is solid. I genuinely believe that.

I'm not sure it matters if she doesn't know what she's refusing. I expect she just thought that these things are making my baby end up in hospital with fits and I want it to stop!

My husband had polio as a child in the last London epidemic. He was 3 (and then 4). Six months in hospital, then recuperation for some time. And he was one of the very lucky ones - he didn't end up in an iron lung or crippled. People have no idea what they are risking for their own children or others. They really don't. They could find out but they choose not to.

an after thought i have just had.

i used to have a friend who was very anti well just about anything really. she refused to let any of her kids have jabs. i pretty much ingnored much of what she said at the time as i recall she was wandering round my garden waving a stick arooud looking for water yet couldnt find the fuck off huge pond at the bottom of the garden.

we fell out when she wrote me a letter after my 9yo daughter got run over and was in intensive care saying that this happened because my daughter "must have a lot of negative energy in her life and if she didnt she wouldnt have been run over by a drunk driver and her spritual being would be greatly improved by passing over"

unfortunatly her youngest child died 2 years ago because of meningitis

just so i dont leave you hanging my daughter is now a mostly ok nearly 19yo who has pretty much recovered but still needs the occasional opperation.

@outraged coincidence isn't evidence.

Feminine, it's stories like yours that I think do far more harm to the vaccination debate than Wakefield ever did.

Why on earth wouldn't the NHS offer you a blood test to see if your children even needed to risk having the booster?

They don't even tell people that is not a booster! It doesn't offer any more protection than the first injection did. It is pointless in most children, they don't need a second jab. They only give it for the tiny percentage of children who didn't receive immunity the first time. When there has been a reaction to the first MMR, I cannot understand why the NHS will insist on telling a parent that their child needs to have it again when they probably don't and they could just do a simple test to check.

I'm not sure it matters if she doesn't know what she's refusing. I expect she just thought that these things are making my baby end up in hospital with fits and I want it to stop!

I understand that would be a knee jerk reaction. We are lucky that we live in a time where information is fairly easily accessible, I feel that if you are going to make such big decisions (either to continue or not continue with vaccinations) you owe it to your child to research the options. If OP had come along and said my child has these negative effects from vaccines and these are the possible negative effects of not having the vaccine so I feel as a parent that the small risk of catching XYZ is less than the risk of my child becoming brain damaged from fits then I would have respect for that decision, OP doesn't even know what her child will be exposed to she has taken the time to post on a forum complaining about HCPs chasing her but she hasn't even bothered to do a quick google search as to what vaccines her child is due.

I'm not sure it matters if she doesn't know what she's refusing. I expect she just thought that these things are making my baby end up in hospital with fits and I want it to stop!

I understand that would be a knee jerk reaction. We are lucky that we live in a time where information is fairly easily accessible, I feel that if you are going to make such big decisions (either to continue or not continue with vaccinations) you owe it to your child to research the options. If OP had come along and said my child has these negative effects from vaccines and these are the possible negative effects of not having the vaccine so I feel as a parent that the small risk of catching XYZ is less than the risk of my child becoming brain damaged from fits then I would have respect for that decision, OP doesn't even know what her child will be exposed to she has taken the time to post on a forum complaining about HCPs chasing her but she hasn't even bothered to do a quick google search as to what vaccines her child is due.

Freddos
They only give it for the tiny percentage of children who didn't receive immunity the first time
kids like my son whose immune system needed the double prime so that the real disease did not KILL him.
You are the liar, not the NHS.
Sorry but you did say up thread that you counted intravenous antibiotics for your child as something you thought you had the right to refuse.
I hope your children can EVER, EVER forgive you for that view if they get sick.

"simple tests" cost much more than vaccinations and merely delay the time until the child is safe.

A "simple test" for a child's car seat would be not to do it up till you got on the motorway

Perfect Yes, I do take your point.....it isn't about being "right". But GPs are experts, and refusers won't listen to them. Instead, they'd prefer to get uninformed opinions off the internet, or buy into ludicrous conspiracy theories about the motivations of the GMC, like Jux has done.

I'm afraid it does matter where it started - for "there's-no-smoke-without-fire" reasons.

But having said that - I broadly agree with you. It should be about what the evidence shows, not what it doesn't. But that this all began with a fraudulent paper should be pointed out, I feel.

I'm not being very coherent, I know. Got the worst fucking toothache of my life right now, and can't think straight. And it's all Andrew Wakefield's fault.

We should all obviously just listen to 'sensible speech therapists' (I'm still at that one )

Hi - I don't think YABU for wanting your wishes to be listened to.

However, I do think YABU for compromising your child's health when you appear to be so ill informed.

I say this as someone whose 1 year old had the MMR injection yesterday (and went on to take her first steps coincidentally yesterday afternoon). DH and I did lots of reading around the subject and were both happy that any potential risks of the jab were far less likely to be harmful than the actual illnesses themselves.

We are in the US (recently moved here) and as mentioned above, DD cannot attend day care or nursery until she has all the jabs deemed necessary by the US government. (So she would need also hepatitis jabs which are routine here - the chicken pox jab is a choice as yet. We will get these done shortly.)

I've quickly come to the conclusion that (medical exceptions aside) vaccination should be mandatory in the UK as it is here. Judging by some of the comments on this thread, there are way too may people with not enough experience/knowledge to judge, playing God and endangering their children's lives based on outdated/invalid research. Here, that doesn't happen. Everyone is vaccinated and ill informed parents don't have the opportunity to compromise the health of the population as a whole.

As a slight aside, before TTC, despite having had the MMR myself as a child, I went and got a rubella check. All women are able to request this from their GP in the UK - well worth doing.

sock That's truly terrible :(

There's a website called "Where's the harm?" which gives, in very great detail, exactly where the harm is in believing absolute nonsense - astrology, religion, homeopathy etc. Lots of stories just like that one there.

V. V glad your DD came through OK :)

You call me a liar and then imply that I would refuse antibiotics for my children?

You are full of shit love, you should really try reading properly.

Did you miss the bit where I said my ds didn't become immune to rubella after one injection and was one of those, like yours, that needed it twice?

Wow.

Thanks for all the opinions and links.

And thanks to Outraged for trying to understand where my decision is coming from.

It doesn't matter what virus/jab it is - my daughter reacts badly to it. The pre-school one is obviously the same as the the one she had as a baby. And it made her end up in hosptal, pretty much unconscious for two days because her temp was so high. You're asking me to risk my child's health - and possibly life - for the sake of other's. Well, my daughter comes first i'm afraid. Her health is my priority. I don't want her having any more convulsions. I'm convinced the numerous ones she had as a baby are what has resulted in her having SEN now.

My daughter is currently healthy. I may consider the jabs when she gets older and i believe she'll be strong enough not to have to be hospitalised for days at a time again. If there was an outbreak of infection/disease in my area, then i'd consider getting her booked in for a jab earlier. But right now she is healthy. And i'm not prepared to put her in hospital by injecting bacteria into her.

The reason i'm 'not bothered' to find out more about the contents of the vaccine is because it's irrelevant to my decision. As i said, it doesn't matter what the virus is. So far my daughter has had to be hospitalised because of all of them.

I'm bowing out of this thread now as you've mostly all gone down the spiteful, name-calling route. I will not risk my daughter's life or health for the sake of another child i don't even know. Call me 'selfish' and 'negligent' all you like. These opinions won't do anything to alter my decision.

I've decided to let the nurse come next week and ask to get dd's name removed from the vaccine register (which i didn't even know about, so thank you). I'll tell her it's something I'll consider in the future instead.

Thanks again for your posts.

Incidentally, everyone here, from 6 months up, also gets a flu jab. If the vaccines are available and research shows they are safe, why wouldn't you take the opportunity to live as healthy a life as possible?

Couldnt be bothered to read all the replies, and regardless of my opinion, being vile, sneery , rude and calling the OP / non vaccine takers stupid etc without using proper arguments in a civilised manner comes across as dimwitted to me. Do you really believe you will change someones mind with petty namecalling? Grow up , for the greater good of the 'community' learn to put facts across without immaturity.

Lol @ GP's as experts, most of them are anything but, and I speak as someone who has had a fair share of dealings with them.

@lowla the thing that is risking your child's health is YOU refusing to have the vaccine during an epidemic. The fact that you are also risking the lives of others may not matter to you. But that should.

Lowla, good for you, I'm glad to hear your dd is healthy now.

You don't have to justify your parental choices to anyone on here, no matter how much they may try to tell you otherwise. Good luck with the meeting next week. They will back off eventually

Dev - Yeah - 11 years of training, and they know fuck all about anything, right?

My children have been vaccinated, but to know that there are people who wouldn't give a shit about another child catching something serious because they don't want to have their child vaccinated is shocking and selfish.

YANBU if you are worried about the effects of the vaccine and she had a bad reaction to it last time. They should not be hounding you. But I heard there were financial incentives for doctors surgeries to make sure a certain percentage of children were vaccinated.