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.

lostit is not wrong, but her response means nothing.

The efficacy and importance of vaccines has been scientifically proven in millions of people over centuries.

One anecdote does not refute this.

@sossiges MMR is v long lasting actually. And there is often a rise seen in young children before it hits young adults, so it is unvaccinated children giving it to young adults really.

ethelb how long does it last then, roughly?

My daughter is the healthiest child in the world. Although she's 20 now. She's never been sick and the only time she ever missed school was when she had chicken pox and wasn't allowed to go (even then she only had 3 spots on her back). I think she's a cyborg or something. She has been vaccinated up to the eye balls (with more vaccines than are standard in the UK).

This is always such an emotive subject.

But I have to say IMO YABU.

Have you discussed ways of preventing the febrile convulsions (e.g. one of doses of Paracetamol and Ibuprofen) and considered the fact that children generally grow out of febrile convulsions (they are most common between 6 weeks and 18 months)?

My mum didn't give us our final MMR jabs as at that time there was a question over MMR and autism (which is now discounted)

It turned out to be a real pain for me later in life when I wanted to go into a health profession and then had to have extra immunisations to make up for the ones I had missed. Same goes for if your DD wants to go travelling say on a gap year. If she's going to countries where these diseases are prevalent due to lack of vaccination then she will be at risk.

I cringe when I think about kids not being immunised (Unless this is for medical reasons obviously!). One complication of measles is secondary infection with meningitis. How would you explain to your child they got meningitis and were permanently impaired because you chose not to get them vaccinated?

Please don't think I am saying this to "Guilt" you into things. I am just presenting facts that I think are important.

Mumps is much less common now, with the majority of cases occurring in younger people (usually born between 1980 and 1990) who didn?t receive the MMR vaccine as part of their childhood vaccination schedule, or have mumps as a child.

www.nhs.uk/Conditions/Mumps/Pages/Introduction.aspx

if you have both jabs it is supposed to be life-long protection.

However, they are now offering a second "booster" to 18 year olds as uptake of the pre-school booster was so low (because of their misguided parents largely). If they had both before starting school however, they should have life long protection.

LostItYearsAgo did you really write "A friend of mine has 4 DC's. DS3 was diagnosed with autism at 2.5yrs.**Consequently she didn't get DD (youngest) vaccinated against ANYTHING. Healthiest child I've ever met. Seriously.
Each to their own and all that but my friend is convinced her DD has such a strong immune system because she had to build up her own defences against everything. "

You are a total idiot.

Vaccines like MMR are not to Give you immunity against common colds or D&V. You do not 'build up' immunity to small pox, polio etc. The child in question hasn't had mumps (or whatever) because she most likely hasn't been exposed to it! Not because she build up immunity! Most importantly, she probably hasn't been exposed because most people, thank goodness, act in a responsible way and get their DC immunised.

Honestly. Idiots. Everywhere. Idiots.

What about my child Whois? And my situation? I'd like you to answer that.

The immunity that MMR gives is probably lifelong. It is known that individuals will remain immune for at least 30 years against measles, 23 years against rubella and 19 years against mumps - in other words, for the amount of time that the vaccines have been available.
If in the future evidence shows that immunity is fading, decisions would be made about offering a further dose in, for example, the adult years.

www.nhs.uk/Conditions/MMR/Pages/FAQs.aspx#lifetime-immunity

So these outbreaks of mumps at universities are all in young people who were not vaccinated as children?

yabu. and selfish.

Life-long protection? Excuse me while I go and get the salt.

@sossiges I don't think anyone can seriously claim to know as it is so hard to collate that information. What is your point?

sossiges in the vast majority of cases, yes

@sossiges if we don't have lifelong protection do you think we should have the vaccine on more occasions throughout our lives then?

YABU
When i was pregnant with DS2 I was told that I had lost my immunity to rubella. I could not be vaccinated until after I gave birth, when they did it right away. During my pregnancy if I had come in contact with someone with rubella my DS could have been born blind and deaf. Why would you not vaccinate against rubella?

The cohort currently at uni should have had their mmr when the Wakefield autism link came out - consequently many of them didn't.

FWIW- My DD's now 15 &17 didn't have their MMR's when kids they did have DPT's. I am not anti immunisation but was worried given the research a the time about the threat to a little immature imune system of effectively giving them 3 diseases at once following shortly after the DPT. They were each asthmatic and /or excema sufferers .

I did a lot of research & the larger studies in the US showed that in the main if a child was well nourished and eating a healthy diet IF they got the disease (s) they would throw it off- over 90% of those vaccinated still got some form of measles. You don't die of measles you die of secondary infections, usually pneumonia or septicaemia which compromise the vulnerable. Occasionally fit & healthy people pick up these diseases and yes sadly some die. We cannot give everyone immunity for everything. I just wanted to know how ny children actually became ill enough to require hospitalisation following the disease,& how many fatalities, and how many of the same following vaccinaiton. No one could provide me with those figures.

I asked for the option to have MMR seperately & was prepared to pay IF that was the only option. I strongly feel that at the time of all the hoo-haa the govt should have said OK have seperate jabs if you must, you pay & the GP will administer them. That way there would not have been as much of a dip in the herd immunity and we could have seen how the research progressed. I just managed to get both my girls the Rubella jab & the had full MMR when they were older & stronger.

They have had their DPT boosters and now I am researching the HPV vaccine as that is another one I feel has been rushed out & as it only lasts 5 years effectively and neither of my DD''s is sexually acctive I feel we have a little time.

I too have had numerous letters, as yet no HV breathing down my neck but there's time. I don't resent it they are checking with the best intentions but it is galling to be made to feel like an ignoramus who is neglecting her offspring!

Sossiges
Yes. And the kids involved have been tracked back to areas of low uptake because the Idiot Wakefield got his claws into their parents.
The BIG outbreaks at university were actually of Meningitis - which is why babies and children are not inoculated against that particular one (Southampton Uni was very badly hit 13 years ago - they lined all the students up like cattle between tables and jabbed the lot)

the MMR double jab gives lifelong protection.
As does polio, TB, and most of the other childhood ones.

the ONLY inoculation that I know for sure wears off it Tetanus - that they suggest you get re done every 10 years.

mydog if you have been advised not to vaccinate your child, then you aren't being reckless or making uninformed decisions. I don't think whois is referring to people that cannot be vaccinated.
Rather the increasing problem of people making uninformed decision not to vaccinate their children.

Yes but I wanted whois to admit that it wasn't just as simple as the rant would suggest - but whois is ignoring me - and I'd like to know why.

YABU

Unfortunately the decisions you make have implications for the rest of your community.

Bossybritches22
HPV vaccine as that is another one I feel has been rushed out & as it only lasts 5 years effectively
Link to a medical publication that contains that frankly ridiculous claim please.
Do not quote the Wikipedia page till you have read what it ACTUALLY says.

My point is that it would be interesting to know exactly when the vaccines wear off so that people who wanted to could be re-vaccinated, otherwise you would have a substantial proportion of the adult population (not just children) thinking they were immune when in actual fact they weren't (particularly relevant for rubella and women who become pregnant), as in the case of MidnightHag