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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To suggest immunisations should be a legal requirement?

595 replies

rednailsredheart · 29/01/2015 10:44

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

OP posts:
DecaffCoffeeAndRollupsPlease · 30/01/2015 21:34

YABU

I am pro vac but also pro choice, which trumps all else.

Dutch1e · 31/01/2015 08:51

WD41 You're quite right. It's the meningococcal vaccine (not MRR) that needs boosters every 5 years. Apologies.

Hakluyt · 31/01/2015 09:38

"I have not given my DD the HPV jab. There are at least 5 cases in Spain and 11 in France where the manufacturers are being sued for vaccine damages from the HPV vaccine."

Do you have a link to the details from any reputable source?

Hakluyt · 31/01/2015 09:39

And any figures about the number of women who will not now die of cervical cancer because of the vaccine?

CalicoBlue · 31/01/2015 10:41

Hakluyt I am not here to defend my non vaccinating views. I have been in discussions like this before where my source has been asked for then shouted down. If you want the source just google.

I do not tell other parents that they should not vaccinate.

The aim of this AIBU is asking if vaccinations should be compulsory. Even pro vaccine do agree that there should be choice.

If they were made compulsory the government would be liable for even more vaccine damage cases, how would they manage that? At the moment the govt pay out up to £120k for severe disability from vaccine damage, in 7 years they paid out over £3 million, and that is only for SEVERE DISABILITY proven to come from vaccines.

Hakluyt · 31/01/2015 15:32

This is very interesting on vaccine damage compensation.

calicoBlue- I have googled. I can't find any reputable sources. If you are also reluctant to give me one, I can only assume there aren't any.

Dutch1e · 31/01/2015 15:56

Hakluyt there's no need to be goady. Medical intervention of any kind is a choice to be made by the individual or (if unable to give informed consent) his or her guardian.

The thing that bothers me about any discussion on vaccines is that those who choose to decline are usually asked to defend their choices and come armed with handfuls of peer-reviewed studies that some Internet random may or may not deem acceptable.

Why isn't it the other way around? To administer any kind of medical treatment on a child (who cannot give informed consent) is already a very grey area ethically speaking. But to go one step further and administer a prophylactic treatment rather than a life-saving one? To my mind, that requires some serious hard evidence. Yet to my dismay I have had more meaningful conversations with my doctors about the ingredients and possible side-effects of paracetamol than about vaccines.

Conversely, it was this distinctly eye-rolling attitude and complete dismissal of our questions that tipped me off the fence into the "no thanks" camp. Well done medical establishment, well done.

DropYourSword · 31/01/2015 15:59

Hakluyt if you're after 'credible sources' you would surely be aware that google isn't the place to look for them!

Hakluyt · 31/01/2015 16:03

Really? No credible sources on the Internet? Hmm

If you think I'm being goady why not report me and let MNHQ decide. Can't see it myself.

Hakluyt · 31/01/2015 16:05

"
The thing that bothers me about any discussion on vaccines is that those who choose to decline are usually asked to defend their choices and come armed with handfuls of peer-reviewed studies"

Not in my experience they don't!

Dutch1e · 31/01/2015 16:22

To clarify, that sentence reads better as: "Are usually asked to defend their choices and ARE ALSO ASKED to come armed with handfuls of peer-reviewed studies."

Something I don't demand of anyone who chooses to opt into the vaccination schedule, as it's their choice for themselves and their family.

Dutch1e · 31/01/2015 16:27

And yes, I think by saying this... "If you are also reluctant to give me one, I can only assume there aren't any" you're picking a fight. Especially when you ask CalicoBlue to find numbers for the projected number of women who may be 'saved' by the HPV vaccine. Shouldn't you have those numbers at hand?

It's unnecessary to pick a fight. There are so many interesting opinions on this thread it would be a real shame to have it degenerate into just another pro- vs anti- thing.

fascicle · 31/01/2015 18:34

Hakluyt
There is absolutely no link between MMR and the HPV vaccine. So not ludicrous at all.

Another nonsensical comment (what does 'absolutely no link' between the MMR and HPV vaccine mean?).

You are in no position to judge a decision you know nothing about. It is quite extraordinary that you dismiss as irrelevant critical details (to which you are not privy) surrounding an individual's adverse reaction. Those details will form part of a medical record, and may well have relevance beyond vaccinations.

Hakluyt · 31/01/2015 19:28

The only similarity between thee HPV vaccine and the MMR vaccine is the mode of administration. It's like saying "I'm allergic to penicillin so I'm not going to take paracetamol"

NaiveMaverick · 31/01/2015 20:13

But the mode of administration is significant.

If you have a digestive problem all vaccines pose the same risk.

Hakluyt · 31/01/2015 20:26

"If you have a digestive problem all vaccines pose the same risk."

Why?

NaiveMaverick · 31/01/2015 20:32

Because the vaccine goes into your body and the gunk it is contained in doesn't get adequately flushed out.

Hakluyt · 31/01/2015 21:18

"Because the vaccine goes into your body and the gunk it is contained in doesn't get adequately flushed out."

Nope. That does'nt make sense.

PunkrockerGirl · 31/01/2015 21:49

It doesn't sense, Hakluyt and I despair that people believe this shit.

Refuse vaccinations -fine. Then you should pay for any treatment if you or your children get the illness.

PunkrockerGirl · 31/01/2015 22:37

make sense

MistressMia · 31/01/2015 22:58

"If you have a digestive problem all vaccines pose the same risk."

"Because the vaccine goes into your body and the gunk it is contained in doesn't get adequately flushed out."

..... so your digestive system would normally be 'flushing out' the 'gunk' that's been injected into your bloodstream ..........????????!!!!!! Hmm

saintlyjimjams · 31/01/2015 22:58

How about manufacturers pay for any vaccine damage? That might be a start.

RandomNPC · 31/01/2015 23:06

Because the vaccine goes into your body and the gunk it is contained in doesn't get adequately flushed out.

Eh? What bollocks. It's like that awful Gillian McKeith arguing that eating foods with chlorophyll in oxygenates the blood.

MistressMia · 31/01/2015 23:11

what does 'absolutely no link' between the MMR and HPV vaccine mean?

It means they are two totally different things e.g. like strawberries and shellfish. An adverse reaction to one food type doesn't mean that you'll have an adverse reaction to other food types, even if those other foods are known to cause allergies in others.

Some people have an allergy to penicillin. Surely that doesn't mean you'd refuse penicillin or all other antibiotics ?

toobreathless · 31/01/2015 23:16

I would have vaccination as a legal requirement to attend baby and toddler groups, start school etc.

I am fiercely pro vaccination.

If an adult makes an unwise decision regarding their health that is up to them. If it's regarding their child's health that makes me a little more uncomfortable but I can't get excited about it.

But when that decision puts others at significant risk. I find that very difficult. If an unvaccinated child dies of measles that's sad but down to that parents decision. But if they pass it onto a baby too young to be vaccinated? And the baby dies?

Difficult.