To expect mums to get their children vaccinated?

[againagain]

Met two mums at play group today who said they didn't/weren't. Their reasons were autism, all that stuff on the Internet, drugs companies making money and keeping their children 'clean'. WTF?? Am I right in thinking their kids are safe though because 'the herd' is immunised? I just think there's a certain mother type who thinks anything 'non-natural' or scientific is wrong. Rant over

Also I would like to add back in the 60's/70's these same experts who had degrees and many years experience also said it was safe for pregnant mums to take thalidomide for morning sickness. People believed that information was truthful. Now we know they were WRONG!

The swine flu vaccine wasn't even necessary for most healthy people though.

So who ARE they paid by?
Just an honest question since you know so much about them.

Obviously paid for by some secret government cell, set up to mislead parents into making their children zombies by immunising them.

YANBU. People who don't vaccinate their DC are being utterly irresponsible. The ones I know are full of conspiracy theories about governments and pharmaceutical companies and full of 'but we can't know for sure' statements. Well I know for sure that if my child catches measles or diphtheria or polio he could die. Vaccinating him is much less likely to do him harm than not doing so.

you not for all but for children under 5, pregnant women, the elderly, people with diabetes, asthma etc as well as all front line workers in the NHS. I was using it as an example that an expert in the field, personally and quietly was opposed against it but due to his job had to promote it.

"Obviously paid for by some secret government cell, set up to mislead parents into making their children zombies by immunising them."
you now you are being ridiculous. :-)

How can you call yourself informed on the issue if you don't even know who the NHS and the GMC are funded by?

Might as well be though, for all the sense that is coming from those who say they wouldn't vaccinate their children (not meaning those who cannot be vaccinated).

I've always been exasperated by parents who "research" vaccinations on google and opt out, HoldMeCloserTonyDanza has managed to express this much better than I ever have been able to.

Like for example we have ChelseaKnows1 doing her research and determining that vaccinations are unsafe because they still have mercury - firstly, it's almost completely false that vaccinations contain mercury and secondly, it's irrelevant because people who actually are qualified to do research have ruled out any link between thermisol & autism.

Thirdly, and most infuriating, is that this thermisol nonsense has really jeopardized the health of the poorest people in the poorest countries because thermisol as preservative allows health care providers to provide the combined immunizations - not possible without thermisol.

So parents sit blithely in the first world at their laptops, doing their "research", work themselves into a hysteria that cannot be undone by actual research, and lots of poor people die as a result. Good work, anti-vaxers!

And, I'm always curious as to where the anti-vaxers draw the line on their skepticism of medical information. Would you be suspicious of cancer treatment, should god forbid you need it? If not, why not? What's the difference? Pharmaceuticals make huge amounts of money on cancer. There must be a conspiracy.

"Obviously paid for by some secret government cell, set up to mislead parents into making their children zombies by immunising them."

I think that comment is on a par with the taliban telling afgans that the polio vaccine is a western plot to make muslims infertile.

I am a Guardian-reading mad liberal. I do not support mandatory vaccination for state-school entrance.

I do not support this, because education is very important. Regardless of my personal feeling on vaccination, many parents would feel forced to home-educate their children. The results of home-education are extremely variable, from children who blossom educationally and as people, to children who massively under-attain. And this is with parents who fully choose to home-educate, as an end in itself. The human results of reluctant home-educators will doubtless be even more variable.

In short, I do not think the rights of children are served by making their loving parents feel forced to home-educate.

Thank you for reading.

Oh, and if you are the child of the stereotypical anti-vaccinator, then you need access to school science lessons more, not less than your vaccinated peers!

hold I never said I was informed on the subject.
I'm playing devils advocate.
Just because I'm questioning you, you don't have to get on the defensive about it :-)

ReallyTired, please be assured that my comment was with my tongue firmly in my cheek. Maybe sarcasm doesn't come across so well on here?

I'm not in the least defensive. I have nothing to defend. I think the word you're looking for is "scathing".

I'm glad you've dropped the conspiracy claptrap anyway. If you want to suggest the NHS is in thrall to mysterious paymasters, I'm afraid the onus is on you to provide proof.

"Oh, and if you are the child of the stereotypical anti-vaccinator, then you need access to school science lessons more, not less than your vaccinated peers! "

I don't think you can argue with this.

Prehaps teens who aren't vacinated should be offered the MMR/ DTP when they are thirteen and allowed to have the vacine without their parent's consent. It seems nuts that parental consent or knowlege is not needed for an abortion, but teens aren't allowed vacines without parental consent.

Maybe a nastier sting would be to deny nursery vouchers or a state nursery place to non vacinated children (without proper reason). The non vaxed children could start school in reception when education starts to matter. Childhood diseases are more of a danger in the three to five group than with older children because personal hygiene improves. Also older children are more resilent to illness.

Obviously children who have good reason not to be vacinated or delay vacination should get nursery vouchers.

Because the majority of our children are immunised it does luckily help protect the "clean" (stupid term) children. Unfortunately with them not being immunised also puts out new (too little to be immunised) babies at risk /:( as well as themselves.
I can't understand that we have these drugs to protect our children from dying, and yet they refuse to protect them- because they are "informed parents" from reading information found on google and the doctor who linked the MMR to autism without any evidence

Not sure why you'd want to be scathing either, if you want to educate people then adopting a friendlier approach would be beneficial to the cause.

I wonder what Japanese immunologists in the UK think. Given that Japan banned the MMR vaccine about 20 years ago in favour of single vaccines (which btw are no longer available in UK as they have stopped manufacturing single vaccines). The Japanese government banned it due to high risk of side effects. Notably a higher risk that the mumps part of the vaccine caused high rates of non viral meningitis. They did however not find and link whatsoever to autism.
During the time of vaccinating with the MMR, the Japanese government made it compulsory with a fine for non agreeing parents.

Single vaccines you see, that was always my argument. If there was the slightest doubt why not make single vaccines available to everyone? I read somewhere it was because it was thought that parents would get fed up of keep going back for jabs, and the cost of course ......

In Japan they bowed to public pressure. The question is did it do a blind bit of difference to autism rates? Nope. Same with mercury in vaccines. Removed due to unfounded concerns, no scientific basis. Did removing it make any difference to any outcome? Nope.

Yanbu, and i totally agree op.
All my dc have had their imms.
No wonder diseases are coming back.

ReallyTired I don't think you can argue with this.

This is MN! Someone will. Unfortunately for them, they will then fall victim to a highly directed steam of vitriol (from me) as I cathartically explain exactly how awful the science-education provided by the stereotypical non-vaccinator is. I was home-educated, y'see.