To suggest immunisations should be a legal requirement?

[rednailsredheart]

Look at it like this:

Wearing seatbelts it purely a safety issue. It's also a legal requirement in the UK to protect car passengers.

So why is immunisation not a legal requirement?

Likewise, drinking and driving is a criminal offence, due to the danger to the passengers and other drivers/people around you.

But deliberately choosing to let your child become a carrier of a totally preventable disease, infecting people around them (including those too young for immunisations), is totally fine? If someone doesn't vaccinate their child, then the child subsequently becomes gravely ill, why aren't the parents charged with neglect?

Makes me think of this article

ONION

"Most vaccines last 10 years or less therefore by the age of 30 most adults can catch and pass on most of the diseases that routine vaccines are given for."

Where did you get that information? I was still immune to rubella nearly 30 years after I was vaccinated against it.

wobbly - What price freedom? Hate to tell you, but they're still at risk. They don't live in a bubble. They also make up the pool of the unvaccinated that everyone hates so much.

leery, you may have actually contracted rubella naturally. It's very mild. Mine had it before they were a year old.

yes they are still at risk, but the level of risk is reduced significantly. No one is suggesting it is gone completely.

"I like living in a country where babies and people with compromised immune systems don't risk catching preventable diseases"

i was immune to Rubella too after 30 years since having the Jab. I imagine most of us are or we'd be re-jabbed when pregnant, seeing as how it's a tested.

That's the joy of the English language. You don't have to take everything so literally. Sometimes the message is a bit more subtle.

YABU

whatmess - good to see some intelligence on here. It's a bit dispiriting isn't it?

What do I know, perhaps that is what she meant. I'm not sure it is the point I'd focus on.

bumbley you are confusing two categories of people: those who cannot be vaccinated due to pre-existing circumstances (immuno suppressed, severe allergies to vaccine components ,etc) and those who will react badly to the vaccine.

The first category are generally identifiable in advance because of their pre-existing conditions.

The second category cannot be identified in advance but it does not matter. Only two things matter: firstly that the numbers make sense, that is that the risks of the disease are significantly higher than the risks of adverse reactions from the vaccine and secondly that those who do experience adverse reactions are compensated promptly, easily and adequately (nothing truly compensates for bad health but money can make living with ill health a lot easier).

I have not been vaccinated for either flu, why is this relevant?

Yabu. Whatever your beliefs....I am pro vac but I respect people's freedom of choice. The people I know who do not vac are very bright....one a vet...one a doctor and I trust they have, researched it well and have adequate reasons not to go forward. I do not think people just choose to not vax on a whim....they.but I personally would.hate my kids to infect someone vulnerable...We choose to vax.

what mess - why make it subtle when you could just (more accurately) say 'are at less risk' if that's what you actually mean.

I'm immune to rubella too. It may be because I had the vaccine when I was at school or because I had rubella itself sometime in the 13/14 years before that.

Booboo - I'm not confusing them at all, thanks. They're all still unvaccinated. Whether they have a valid reason for it or not they still add to the pool of unvaccinated people who are apparently putting everyone else at risk.

The people who will react badly don't matter? Collateral damage in your opinion? For the greater good? You don't know what the individual risk for each person is for a vaccine - no one does, yet. As for compensation - why don't you try speaking to people with vaccine damaged children and ask how easy their lives are after compensation.

Re the flu vaccine - I was wondering why you would argue for mandatory vaccination when you chose not to have the flu vaccines. How you would feel if your choice was taken away from you. If a new vaccine was released and you HAD to get it no matter what your concerns were about testing/potential side effects etc.

My DS is vaccinated against most things not swine fly because even the HV said she couldn't give me any research as she hadn't been on the course. I do know a friend of mine whose son now has a lifelong condition as a result of this injection.

I reserve the right to make decisions about my own childs health.

I'm pro-vaccine (and very anti-the ignorance about science and the apparent pride in it in some quarters)

but some points...

nothing is risk free. Life is a terminal illness. There are NO Guarantees and anyone who expects ANYTHING to be 'absolutely safe' is a fool. Your kids are going to die. As are you.

some people cannot be vaccinated due to other health issues.
some will be vaccinated and still get the disease. Many more who are not vaccinated will get the disease if exposed.
a few will be vaccine damaged. Sadly. The diseases concerned also cause damage or death.
how do we think smallpox was eliminated? And how do we think polio could be if it weren't for ignorance?

So no, I don't think it should be compulsory. However understanding of risk and probability should be compulsory.

ps remember if your kids aren't vaccinated, the more exotic parts of the world are really unsafe for them and the locals. Make sure they know their immune status. Not going on a gappie holiday never killed anyone.

I don't vaccinate, won't vaccinate. Do not have to explain my reasons and am totally against compulsory medial intervention. Where would it start and end?

I doubt if refusing a place at school, I think they start much too young here anyway, or stopping my child benefit (which they have done anyway) would have made a difference to my non vaccinating decisions.

Vaccination never hurt anyone.......so back in the 1700s and 1800s, prior to any knowledge of sepsis and infection, when Jenner and subsequently a bunch of others were seeking fame and fortune by inoculating mixtures made of suppurating pus into cuts made into arms, what do you think happened in 10s of thousands of cases? Sepsis, amputations, death........? Nice idea (base on a false premise, cowpox offers no immunity to smallpox, it's a different virus family), putting it into practice SAFELY is significantly harder than the theory. I've always wondered why those milkmaids clearly appeared so healthy to Mr Jenner, maybe because they had more access to fresh dairy products and hence better nutrition and more vitamins than the average town dweller paddling about in sewage. Or maybe he saw what he wanted to see.

Back in the 1950s - the vaccination campaign for polio caused more cases of polio than it cured, especially in the USA. Vaccines in the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s.......all developed and manufactured before there was much (any) knowledge of cancer causing viruses and the effect in the human body of random bits of DNA and RNA from other species that the vaccines were grown on........... Doctors and scientists are limited by the state of knowledge at the time, to think you know it all is always highly risky. That is why it is right to question EVERYTHING, because you never know what discovery is just around the corner.

As for the seatbelts, unlike many areas of medicine, Newton's laws of motion can be easily shown to provide an accurate model of forces, acceleration and velocity, and the effect of a 20g plus deceleration when you hit the deck having flown through the windscreen can be easily demonstrated.

Live long, and prosper.

I'm Australian and resent the post that says "a quick Google" says that a child must have a vaccination record before entering school. True, but completely misses the point that a philosophical refusal can be entered in the record.

To any parent who smugly suggests that their own vaccines are up to date: MMR is now suggested to be only good for 2-5 years. So if you're going to be really safe, better have your latest jab no later than late January 2013.

To the posters who have had their 'immunity' checked:

1. You know that the immune system is more than antibodies?
2. I'm happy for you that someone checked your titres. It's more than any baby gets before the jab is administered. Individual health profile before medical intervention? Pfff, no time or money for that! That would be real medicine!

To anyone who really thinks that overriding informed consent is ok - and not just for an individual life-saving procedure but for a PREVENTATIVE measure on a healthy child, let's talk about other ethically dubious medical procedures:

1. Someone is pretty sure that keeping a foreskin increases transmission of some STDs. You or your husband or your son is jailed until someone signs the papers for circumcision
2. A test shows you have a genetic marker for breast cancer. To protect the interests of your children you are jailed until you sign the papers for a double mastectomy.

Can you see some of the holes in this OP?

Was discussing the issue of advisability of vaccination with a colleague today, completely coincidentally, and he pointed out that there have been recent polio outbreaks in Pakistan and parts of Africa. Wonder how people in the developed world would feel if the polio epidemics of the 40s/50s came roaring back? My FIL still walks with a limp as the result of one of them.

MMR only good for 2 - 5 years? What a load of rubbish. Can you link to anything reliable that backs this up?

The stats clearly show it was other health improvements such as clean water, sanitation, improved housing, awareness of hygiene etc that lead to a reduction in deaths due to many Victorian diseases rather than vaccination programmes.

Polio, however is an exception to this as unlike most of the others it wasn't a disease of poverty.

Yeah...the smallpox vaccine and polio vaccine, what a disaster, eh?

To think if it had worked, we may have gotten rid of both of these awful and appalling diseases.

If only!

special subject - the elimination of smallpox wasn't entirely due to vaccination.

One of the issues with polio vaccination is the fact that the oral vaccine, which is live, sheds but it is more effective that the inactivated vaccine so it is still in use in countries where polio is endemic. (Sanitation is also an issue in those countries).

yes, I'm afraid that statement about statistics is the kind of ignorance that we are battling.

btw the smallpox vaccine had a really high risk of complications :

"In the 1960s, serious adverse events associated with smallpox vaccination in the United States included death (1/million vaccinations), progressive vaccinia (1.5/million vaccinations), eczema vaccinatum (39/million vaccinations), postvaccinial encephalitis (12/million vaccinations), and generalized vaccinia (241/million vaccinations).20 Adverse events were approximately ten times more common among those vaccinated for the first time compared to revaccinees.20 Fatality rates were also four times higher for primary vaccinees compared to revaccinees.21"