To think Andrew Wakefield has blood on his hands for causing so much distrust over the MMR?

[chicaguapa]

That's it really. He's caused so much damage with his stupid little study. It was years ago, he was struck off, the study was discredited, but people still don't get the MMR because of it.

lottieandmia - that's what we had to do. DS and DD were vaccinated by different people but both times we had to have rubella first.

It is something to do with a loophole I think...... something to do with starting on the single vaccine pathway. I think Rubella might be given as a single vaccine if there is a risk of rubella (waffling now...)

When you start looking for someone who will do single vaccines they will tell you about it I have no doubt. First chap we used stopped practising and then we went through a company in Birmingham that came to Hull once every few months. Not that we are in Hull but it is closer than Birmingham!

I'd never blame anyone for not vaccinating if they honestly believed it had adversely affected an older child lottieandmia.

Totally different situation. Don't blame you at all.

What I said was that we didn't assume each dc would be unaffected - we worked on the basis that AW's research had been utterly discredited, & that measles especially is a horrible & underestimated disease.

And an additional factor was that if herd immunity isn't maintained the consequences are liable to be potentially pretty bloody grim for anyone who cannot be vaccinated or is unusually vulnerable.

So an element of collective responsibility was mixed in with not having any reason not to see it as the best thing for our dc. The other option would have been to rely on the herd immunity conferred by some notional 'everyone else' having their kids jabbed - & I think we're seeing where that leads, unfortunately.

MMR is not risk free - nothing is. When you feed your child strawberries, you risk them getting anaphylactic shock - even if they've eaten them happily before. If you give them Calpol or antibiotics, you risk an allergic reaction. NOTHING is without risk - it's about weighing up the risks.

MMR is very, very, very safe. The risk of a child developing a serious reaction requiring hospital admission is about 1 in 100,000 - that's 10 in a million. None of those children, however, have ever died - there's not one recorded death anywhere in the world caused by MMR.

There's plenty from measles.

No study anywhere has ever found a link between MMR and autism. Not a single one. In countries where 3 jabs were offered instead of combined, the rates of autism have not gone down.

Some children do develop autism - and since so many children are vaccinated early in life, most of those will have had the MMR, some quite recently. This does not mean there's a link between the two. There isn't.

Refusing to listen to your doctor, ignoring the advice of every medical scientist IN THE WORLD to get your child vaccinated is arrogant and selfish. And please don't dress it up as "concern" to guilt trip the rest of us - where is your concern for the children who genuinely can't have the vaccine and who could be infected by yours?

If the medical advice for your particular child is "don't" absolutely fair enough. We would hope that your child would be protected by herd immunity. This won't happen if people refuse simply because they think they know better than the doctors. Disgraceful.

If you have looked into it, made a judgement call for your DC based on your own research fair enough. We can't hold the MMR hysteria responsible for that.

What 'research' could bring you to the conclusion that MMR is not safe?

The same kind of research that prompts parents to rely on homeopathy to treat their children. The kind that is based on a poor grasp of evidence.

Ellie:

"No study anywhere has ever found a link between MMR and autism. Not a single one. In countries where 3 jabs were offered instead of combined, the rates of autism have not gone down."

So if this can be demonstrated (plese could you provide a link)
Why is there not an option for those of us who would absolutely get our children innoculated if this were an option, to do so.?

(I have one of the few children who were damaged by the Urabe strain, a whole other story that i've told on here before)

Autism rates vs vaccination tell you bugger all about about whether MMR has ever triggered something called 'autism' in a small number of cases. How many people on here even realise that autism is a collection of conditions ( and a specific collection that is about to change again)

I have attended conferences, spoken personally to researchers & doctors, and well let's just say there are plenty of professionals out there working day in day out in the autism field who don't see the situation as being quite so clear cut as those working in public health. They're sane people, open to sharing their views ime.

If you have an 'average' child it makes some sense to listen to public health officials. If you don't it makes more sense to pay attention to those specialising in your child's condition. They might not be able to answer your questions but they can certainly tell you what is and isn't (very important) known.

Cote- what if your DD becomes pregnant before she is 18? You know rubella could cause serious problems to a pregnant woman?

Incidentally ds1 caught rubella from a vaccinated child as his mother hadn't realised he could get rubella after vaccination. She actually spread it to others as well before finding out that vaccinations do not guarantee immunity. We stayed in during the infectious period - it head dxed in the child shortly after out contact - & didn't spread it anywhere.

More than one way to be 'responsible'. For starters gets yourself educated about the rubella rash & the fact you can still get & spread it after MMR.

If you do chose to vaccinate your young girl against rubella it would be wise to suggest to them they get immunity checked prior to ttc. You don't really want to be finding out the immunity has worn off in early pregnancy.

lottieandmia the decision to vaccinate is not an individual one in the sense you suggest, it is a variation on the prisoner's dilemma, i.e. a decision based on uncertainty whose outcomes are influenced by the actions of others.

Here is how it goes in detail:

1. vaccines carry a risk of side effects lets call it X which will affect a small number of individuals which are difficult to identify in advance (if the individual can be identified with greater certainty of course that increases the impact of X, but we are talking about otherwise well and healthy individuals with no reason to think they will be specifically susceptible to X)

1. non-vaccinating leaves one exposed to the relevant diseases which carry a risk of X times 1000 (made up numbers but you get the idea) this time for a more precisely identifiable individual, i.e. the unvaccinated person who comes across the disease

1. given herd immunity the best option for me would be for everyone else to be vaccinated (so I can avoid the risk of X times 1000) and for me not to be vaccinated (so I can avoid the risk of X).

1. but the decisions of other people are not under my control and if I don't vaccinate and others do not vaccinate I run the risk of X times 1000.

1. in light of this the suboptimal option of vaccinating (risk of X) becomes the rational choice.

All this assumes that we have no interest or obligation in protecting other people through our actions, merely speaking about individual, self-centred decision making. In reality most people also take the welfare of others into account (and rightly so).

The urabe fiasco was a disgrace Ruby. I was told on here before that it was an example of the system working well. God knows what an example of the system not working would be then. I really hope your child made a full recovery.

EllieArroway says what I was thinking, only far more articulately.

Basically, these are the facts and issues:

1. Doctors and politicians are part of a massive conspiracy to do something or other so you can't believe them;
2. Angry people on the Internet know more than doctors and they didn't even have to go to medical school, so what does that tell you about how stupid doctors are?
3. There's always a conspiracy and only mavericks who don't play by the rules get the job done while the rest of the sheeple follow the self interested so-called doctors conveniently make it far safer for the heroes of alternative thinking to do their own thing.
4. I literally couldn't give you any idea why people are living longer, healthier lives than at any other point in human history. It's definitely not global warming though, which us made up by a conspiracy of politicians and scientists.
5. Why are politicians always conspiring with people who do stuff I don't fully grasp?

Booboo - people do not take other children into consideration. No-one vaccinates thinking it will harm their child but protect another. That's bonkers - that would be acting on behalf of another child. Harming your own child to protect another wouldn't even ethical.

Anyone who gives a vaccination to protect another child does so on the assumption that it will not damage their child one little bit. If you were told 'this vaccination will cause your child to lose all speech they have, lose most speech sounds they have, never regain that speech, & it will mean they will never live an independent life but will require 24 hour 1:1 care for the rest if their life BUT it will prevent the slight risk that they might infect a woman in early pregnancy with rubella' would anyone give that child a vaccination? Because that's the situation we're trying to avoid.

I would advise anyone thinking of ttc to get rubella immunity status checked though - I did & better than having to assume you're immune because you had a vaccination thirty years ago.

Dd is 12 and never had mmr due to all the stuff in the media. I did a lot of research and made the best decision at the time. JABS website was very anti mmr and full of cases of people who'd been paid compensation by the government following permanent illness caused by the Mmr.

Dd did have single vaccinations, though not mumps as it wasn't available. We really ought to get the mmr done now.

my best friend died from the complications of measles aged 10 in 1974 - encephalitis resulting in a 2 year coma and ultimately death - mine are 10 and 12 and were vaccinated without any thought to the media frenzy at the time - because of personal experience....

the risks of complications from the jab were low as were risks of dying of measles

everyone makes their own decision - I knew it was highly unlikely that my girls would die from measles if they caught it, but because of personal experience I would move heaven and earth to prevent it...

If you google for mmr vaccine damage there are umpteen reports from around the world of cases where children have suffered permanent brain damage, deafness, etc due to the vaccine and been paid compensation.

I'm sure the risks are small but I wasn't prepared to tke it. I couldn't guarantee that dd might be that individual who is severely brain damaged for the rest of her life.

If the vaccines are so safe and there are no problems associated with them why is this claim form produced by the government?
Quite simply, it is called "vaccine damage claim form" google it.

I don't know whether you think this is the last minute, case closed piece of evidence here. Nobody has said that vaccines are completely safe for everyone, that medical errors never happen and that medical negligence is impossible. But the balance of safety is clearly, absolutely and completely in favour of vaccination.

Saintly, Mostly thank God.
He had a very bad reaction to the first part of the innoculation and I decided, as per the leaflet at the time (which was very clear about not proceeding with the second part in those circumstances) not to have the second.

Our GP appeared at my door at tea -time one day and practically forced the injection on my son. I was unprepared and being made to feel I was the worst parent in the world for not accepting it.

DS1 had a second very bad reaction and had subsequently been diagnosed with Aspergers. He had no symptoms at all before the MMR. The Urabe strain was then identified as the cause of his reaction and regression.

I blame myself entirely for not being strong enough to say no to that bastard GP.

And I now have less than optimal trust in mass vaccination programmes. Strangely.

Ruby have you made a complaint against your g.p.? He should be struck off for forcing anyone to have a vaccination.

I don't understand why people who think the MMR is unsafe go for the single jabs which are simply M M and R - injecting exactly the same stuff into your child.
Wakefield was the one who suggested single jabs wasn't he? Not the most reliable unbiased source of info.