to think it's not terribly helpful to keep referring to parents who haven't MMR'd as "whack jobs"...

[MsGillis]

..or morons, or unfit parents, or up there with people who drink and drive?

I appreciate that people have very strong feelings around the subject, but I think that we need to understand that there are a significant number of parents who didn't/haven't vaccinated, not because they are crystal waving nutjobs, but because they are actually scared shitless and paralysed into indecision?

Surely there are ways and means to communicate information, and arrogantly shouting about how one person is right and anyone who disagrees is all kinds of nobhead is not going to be conducive in opening up reasonable dialogue?

Chunderella - why are you nit picking about freedom of speech?

Obviously I was talking about MN - that is where this thread is, is it not? In RL people are never as rude as on here anyway...

lottie

It's not a rock and a hard place. It's a rock (measles) and the small speck of dust that is so small it may not actually exist (the chance of mmr causing autism).

Why are you obsessed with the (most likely imaginary) speck of dust. I'm going to repeat it again in the hope it will sink in

there is no evidence that mmr causes autism (even in a tiny tiny subgroup)

Measles however is really bloody dangerous.

You realise that saying that vaccine immunity wanes isn't anti-vaccine? The research is carried out to prevent outbreaks. So last year in Taiwan they found that only 50% of vaccinated 21-25 year olds had immunity to measles compared to 95% of 2 year olds and 95% of the pre-vaccine population.

What would someone sane do with that knowledge (a) ignore it and say it isn't proof of anything or (b) consider whether further boosters are needed before an outbreak occurs?

Here's an interesting theoretical paper (yes people get paid to model). It's pretty generous with waning immunity time (40-80 years - so much longer lasting immunity than being found in many cases of 2 x dose measles vaccination in Taiwan) and still predicts outbreaks due to waning immunity

For infectious diseases where immunization can offer lifelong protection, a variety of simple models can be used to explain the utility of vaccination as a control method. However, for many diseases, immunity wanes over time and is subsequently enhanced (boosted) by asymptomatic encounters with the infection. The study of this type of epidemiological process requires a model formulation that can capture both the within-host dynamics of the pathogen and immune system as well as the associated population-level transmission dynamics. Here, we parametrize such a model for measles and show how vaccination can have a range of unexpected consequences as it reduces the natural boosting of immunity as well as reducing the number of naive susceptibles. In particular, we show that moderate waning times (40-80 years) and high levels of vaccination (greater than 70%) can induce large-scale oscillations with substantial numbers of symptomatic cases being generated at the peak. In addition, we predict that, after a long disease-free period, the introduction of infection will lead to far larger epidemics than that predicted by standard models. These results have clear implications for the long-term success of any vaccination campaign and highlight the need for a sound understanding of the immunological mechanisms of immunity and vaccination.

And it is important to understand this stuff. For example in the case of mumps it is nearly always a mild childhood illness (asymptomatic in a third of cases) but is more likely to be nasty in an adult - so you have to understand waning immunity if you want your vaccination programme to be a success & not make it more likely that adults are affected due to waning immunity. It's not anti-vaccination to state that.

Here's the sort of paper I like to see from this year as it considers selection pressures as well as waning immunity.

These are not being written by people who are anti-vaccine - it's about understanding why outbreaks might occur in highly vaccinated populations and how to go about reducing the likelihood of those (although in the case of pertussis the JCVI minutes seemed to be saying that they are concentrating more on ensuring babies don't get it - sensible - rather than attempting to prevent outbreaks).

Yes ok WhenShe

You know nothing about my children's individual risks so why do you think it's helpful to pluck silly analogies out of thin air about what their risks actually are?? The risks are tiny for some but much more significant for others.

Oh and please tell me where I have actually said that I haven't vaccinated against mealses?

I am sick of this thread now and the last thing I'm going to say on this topic is that having a disabled child to look after can seem like something that happens to other people until it actually happens to you.

(hides thread)

Whenshewas - what type of research do you accept? You don't like research showing waning immunity. You think that research into autism and immune dysfunction shouldn't be used by those of us with autistic children to inform any decisions. Please explain why.

1. you don't like research showing waning immunity. No I just don't see the point discussing it any further. Vaccination works as you yourself have pretty much just admitted it. You realise that saying that vaccine immunity wanes isn't anti-vaccine?

2. I never said you shouldn't follow immunologists advice (I posted this yesterday)

^posterWhenSheWasBadSheWasHopeful Sun 28-Apr-13 12:54:32
I'm not saying you shouldn't follow their advice.^

I get the feeling that people are interpreting my pro vaccination stance as 100% all children should get vaccinated, I don't give a shit if they had a massive hypersensitivity reaction last time just bloody do it. That is not my position. This is what I wrote on Saturday

^posterWhenSheWasBadSheWasHopeful Sat 27-Apr-13 22:33:38
Throughout the thread my stance on vaccination has been that all children that are able to should get vaccinated. So there will of course be a small group of children who have a family history of adverse reactions to vaccines who should not get vaccinated.
If a child had a bad reaction to one vaccination yes it would be best not to vaccinate them further. If they have an underlying medical condition that makes vaccination dangerous then no don't vaccinate.^

Now in your position saintly (I'm a bit uncomfortable talking about your situation as I am not sure how keen you are to discuss it). You have had a child who previously had a bad reaction to a jab (it was a serious one yes?). Just that alone would make it more than understandable that you are reluctant to see a similar serious possibly life threatening reaction in your other children.

3. regarding hypothesis and evidence. Immunologist hypothesis are really interesting and should of course be researched. However when it comes to immunisation policy you need to look at actual clinical evidence not hypothesis. (Reminder of what scientific evidence is can be found below).

scientific evidence is evidence which serves to either support or counter a scientific theory or hypothesis.

Evidence is expected to be empirical evidence and in accordance with scientific method.

The scientific evidence needs to be analysed statistically in order to ascertain its strength.

You don't see the point in discussing waning immunity? Why? It doesn't worry you have 50% of people in their 20's may not have measles immunity? Will it worry you when your children are in their 20's.

So immunisation policies can only be made for populations and if there's good evidence that a subgroup are more likely to have immune dysfunction we just ignore it because the 'right' sort of statistics haven't been done yet? Obviously they've used statistics to ascertain the differences between autistic and control groups (& siblings who share features with the autistic group).

It does sound rather as if you don't see any need to alter the schedule because YOU have an average child with no concerns so why should anyone else be?

There's research showing a link between maternal flu and schizophrenia and to a lesser extent autism in the offspring - in those with a genetic susceptibility (which cannot yet be tested for) . In the States it is usual to give flu jabs to pregnant women. Because of the above research some researchers working in the field are suggesting that people should think about getting a flu jab before pregnancy. That way they don't have to (a) run the risk from the disease or (b) run the risk from the vaccination - which will be a presumably smaller but similar risk. It seems a sensible suggestion to me - rather than waiting 25 years to see who develops schizophrenia before offering any advice Lucky you, that you have the time to hang around and see what happens research wise. Some of us don't have that luxury.

Jimjams,
Waning immunity is something which is clearly going to be monitored, there have been studies done (and there will be more studies done) on this very topic. If you have a vaccine which has only been in general use for

Well why not ask them? I would assume those who have made a conscious decision have decided on the route they felt the safest? The vast majority of people I know (am I allowed to mention them) who have refused vaccination or who have given singles have done so because of sibling reaction or sibling regression. So nearly all have vaccinated elder children. If you want more general reasons the paper I linked to before showing 94% measles vaccine coverage gives some reasons.

Presumably you signed your child up for a vaccine trial not just because you felt it was the 'right thing to do' but because you felt the chances of him/her being damaged by the trial were low and that she would in some way benefit from it. If you thought she or he was likely to be damaged by it but you did it anyway then that would be a very strange decision to make.

I made different decisions before severe autism became a risk factor that needed to be considered.

Jimjams,
I don't really have the time to seek them out and ask them, luckily for me it's the sort of thing that studies have been done on. Like this one:
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2082853/
Of those refusing consent to vaccinate 16% cited the MMR/autism/bowel disease controversy.
Only 3% cited valid contraindications.
Obviously this study relied on people returning questionnaires and the return rate wasn't brilliant, but about 1 in six cited the MMR/autism/bowel disease link as a reason for not vaccinating.
In this context can you see why I find contributions to discussion threads like this one referring to children they know who suffered regression after the MMR less than helpful. As, as has been shown many times, there is no scientific evidence of any such link.
Regarding the vaccine trial, actually I did it because I felt it was the right thing to do. For society.
As it turned out it was a remarkably positive experience, even if having blood taken from your small child isn't much fun.
Cheers.

That study shows that 84% had other reasons, including the same percentage, 16%, who are concerned about previous reactions.
15% would prefer the single vaccine.

And then 53% didn't bother to return the forms so we have no idea what they think.

saintly re

so immunisation policies can only be made for populations and if there's good evidence that a subgroup are more likely to have immune dysfunction we just ignore it because the 'right' sort of statistics haven't been done yet?

There's not good evidence that a subgroup will be affected by the mmr and will develop autism as a result of the jab.

Just to clarify your views on how you think vaccine policy should be developed.

Inspite of you accepting that
^(1) MMR is safe for the majority of children
(2) MMR has not caused the rise in autism rates
(3) any possible (I emphasise possible there is no proof) link with mmr and autism would be in a tiny tiny subset of the population.^

You think vaccine policy should not be complied based on the best option for 99.99% of the population. The entire policy should be drawn up revolving around the idea that a small subgroup might be at increased risk.

I'm really sorry but vaccine policy is ofcourse going to designed for the majority of the population. Now if vaccination were then compulsory for everybody then I could see why you would have a problem with this. I've already said there are groups of people who can't be vaccinated (eg people with hypersensitivity reactions to vaccines).
The national policy applies to most people but obviously if you can't have a vaccine you shouldn't be treated in the same way as the masses.

It does sound rather as if you don't see any need to alter the schedule because YOU have an average child with no concerns so why should anyone else be?

I do have one "average" child who I am very thankful for. I am however pregnant and have no idea how that child will turn out. Oh by the way the nhs vaccinates (advises pregnant woman are vaccinated) for flu as well.

Volcan,
Well, yes I did read all the categories. 4% were otherwise misinformed, 6% were "altmed or didn't believe in vaccines", 15% wanted single vaccines (why, one wonders) and 16% had concerns about side effects or previous reaction not included in valid medical contraindications...
That's an awful lot of people making what is essentially a medical decision based on no actually recognised medical contraindication.
I also mentioned the fact the response rate wasn't brilliant.
The 16% who didn't want to vaccinate because of the erroneous link between MMR and autism/GI problems is still joint second after preferring to have vaccination done by their GP. It's not the picture that jimjams paints of the majority being concerned by a sibling's previous reaction or regression (which jimjams clearly suggests the parents clearly link in some causal way to the MMR, despite the scientific evidence which has yet to show any such causal link).

Cheers.

Seems to me the very definition of irrationality is to:

• Deny that dangerous diseases are In fact dangerous
• Choose to endanger yourself by not inoculating, based on a disproved belief of 15 years ago and in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary.
• Deliberately seek out known frauds who agree with this disproved position, and present that as "proof"
• Increase the risk to you and yours by arguing against herd immunity, which keeps you safe
• increase the risk to others by demanding access to places where you can infect them.

I'd say Whack Job doesn't even begin to cover this attitude tbh, IMO it comes as close to premeditated homicide as deliberately infecting people with AIDS.

I've reported your post, lazy.

Spink, why report it? Its not a personal attack and its a honestly held view point that is held by lots of people its not any 'ist'

That's an interesting post, Lazyjaney. To whom are you referring?

magdalen

The BBC states:
However, vaccination rates plummeted after, now discredited, claims of a link between the MMR vaccine and autism by Andrew Wakefield. It started in 1998, but the debate intensified and MMR uptake reached its lowest levels in 2003-04. The implication being that he is primarily responsible.

Assuming that the stats you quote are typical, and I have no reason to suppose not, it suggests that the reasons for not vaccinating are more complex. There are as many people citing their own observations of their children's health as a reason for not vaccinating with MMR, and almost as many saying that they would prefer single vaccines.

So no, It's not the picture that jimjams paints of the majority being concerned by a sibling's previous reaction or regression, it seems the same number are actually concerned about the vaccinated child's health.

Whether they are mistaken or it's just a co-incidence is not for me to judge.

I think the AIDS reference is totally unnecessary.the rest of the post is fine. I mean, I disagree with much of it but it's fine.

Fair point I agree with that meaning you not the post I just can't see how it breaks talk guidelines

increase the risk to others by demanding access to places where you can infect them.

Do you infect others when you don't have the disease? You can be a carrier of TB and not show symptoms so the answer is yes in that case. Does it apply for viral diseases?

Volcan,
I think it would be very interesting to see a comparison between pre-Wakefield vaccine refusal stats and post-Wakefield refusal stats. I might indeed go and see if I can chase some up. It might be interesting to see whether the number concerned about possible side effects and the number wanting single jabs (which is after all what Wakefield was promoting in his infamous press conference) and the number lacking "belief" in vaccines were at all affected by the whole Lancet thing? Because I do understand the MMR health scare had knock on effect on other vaccine take up.
I have to go out this evening, but I expect I will look into this further.
Cheers.

"I made different decisions before severe autism became a risk factor that needed to be considered."

Yep, that sums it up for me, saintly. I also made different decisions before dd1 turned out to be a severely allergic child. Then spacing vaccinations and being generally more cautious with immune stimulation became an issue. I do think that some people fail to realise that it is a luxury not to have to question the official line. Maybe we questioners are wrong but the issues are absolutely not as black or white as they seem from a distance - and, I will say again, nobody knows for sure!