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

I disagree dreamingbohemian. I'm not saying that a social conscience doesn't come into it at all. I'm arguing that would be peculiar for a parent to vaccinate their child for that reason alone. IME, talking to parents, it appears to be that benefit to others is a side-benefit of vaccination, not the primary purpose, and wouldn't be the choice of the parent if it was the sole boon.

90-95% of children are vaccinatd because their parent(s) believe that vaccination is a good thing for them ( the children) NOT because their parents believe that vaccination is a good thing for an unarmed individual down the road, but could well be dangerous for their children but must go ahead because of said unarmed individual...

As I (and others) said earlier - social responsibility is a load of tripe. If you end up with a child damaged by vaccination then you are left high and dry. No one comes near you, let alone helps out. You can't even get basic (for the UK) rights such as access to healthcare and education without an almighty legal fight, let alone anything which might alleviate the stress, such as respite or access to properly funded and staffed childcare.

"90-95% of children are vaccinatd because their parent(s) believe that vaccination is a good thing for them ( the children) NOT because their parents believe that vaccination is a good thing for an unarmed individual down the road, but could well be dangerous for their children but must go ahead because of said unarmed individual."

Thanks PandasRock. Yes, that's what I was getting at.

I can understand how the OP feels. It is irresponsible not to vacinnate your children unless there are exceptional circumstances.

I feel that non vaxers (whose children do not have exceptional circumstances) should be made to attend a councelling/ education programme rather than forced to vacinnate their children. Refusal to attend an education programme by both parents should result in denial of free nursery education and complete loss of child benefit. If the parents attend the education programme and still do not want to vacinnate then they should continue to recieve child benefit and free nursery education for their children.

When the children of non vaxers reach the age of 14 they should be offered all the missed vacinnations via the school nurse. If the child chooses to have the vaccination then parental consent is not necessary as the child is deemed to be "Gillick competant".

Yes, debatediscuss, I wonder how many posters on this thread know their immunity status are completely up to date with all boosters for all scheduled vaccinations if required?

Not many, I would say.

"an you not think of reasons other than "batshit nonsense" why a parent would choose not to vaccinate their child"

I can think of lots of valid medical reasons, of course, but a lot of the rationale I've heard from people who haven't vaccinated has been batshit nonsense. Belief that getting measles "brings on a child's development wonderfully" (I kid you not). Belief that "germs do not cause disease". "My sister's unvaccinated child is really healthy!". "I prefer to use homeopathy!". "My child is breastfed and so has a great immune system, only weak sickly children get complications from those diseases!". Or just hand-wavey "I don't like the idea of injecting all that stuff into my baby".

OP, it wish it was a legal requirement, but unfortunately that's never going to happen.
At the very least though, people who refuse to have their children vaccinated should be prevented from accessing state education!

Really tired, I would agree, as long as the education programme is balanced, not just one-sided propaganda.

And same for the children. I will have no problem at all with my children choosing to have vaccinations once they are Gillick competent, as long as the full arguments, for both sides have been explained. And as long as Gillick competence is not assumed (for two of mine, they will be a long way past 14 before they can truly reason it out)

Fortunately, I know very few people who haven't had their children vaccinated. The ones I do know are full of bullshit and conspiracy theories that make David Ocke look reasonable

David Icke even..

I really don't think there would be as many non vaxers if ante natal classes gave decent information about vaccinations. Not in a "here's a list of the vaccinations your child will have" way, but in a truly informative way.

Here's a list of reputable places to find information....
Here's why you don't know anyone who has lost a child to measles....
Here's why we need so many people to be vaccinated....
Here are the reasons people don't vaccinate and why they are wrong.....
Here are the people we need to protect.....

At the moment we rely on people to find their own information and it's like everything else child related - they get it from their parents, their siblings etc and if they have people around them who believe in the scare stories they are not getting anyone to counteract that in a way that doesn't seem forced.

You would have no idea about many peoples vaccination status (nor that of their children), surely?

I could probably count on one hand the number of people in RL who know I have unvaccinated children. After all, we hardly go around ringing a bell crying 'unclean' (despite many people clearly thinking we should).

Do you really quiz everyone you know on whether they have vaccinated their children?

How odd.

As a baby my ds reacted badly to his immunisations and stopped breathing twice.

He's now due to have his teenage boosters at school. I agreed to him having them and filled in the consent form - only to have them refuse to give them to him because they wouldn't have the facilities to deal with another reaction.

Under some of the ideas being mooted here, he would presumably have to drop out of school and through no fault of his own.

I know someone who did not vacinnate their child because she was weak from chemo. I feel that her fears are medically valid. I can understand someone who chooses not to vacinnate when their child has experienced and adverse reaction to a previous jab.

There is a fine line between insuring a good uptake of a vacinnation and bullying.

Also I think we should be honest with people. The fact that no-one tells you about the possible ill effects makes people suspicious. We know it happens, so give people the facts. Let them judge on proper information.

Whilst I sympathise with your view OP, I couldn't agree that vaccs be legally enforced.

Maybe tax those parents who refuse them for their kids on non medical grounds, and ring fence the money for the NHS who will have the cost of treating those who get those diseases badly...

"how many posters on this thread know their immunity status"

Reasonably sure on rubella and varicella as I was checked when pregnant, and I've had measles. According to my mother I had all my baby injections on schedule and remember getting boosters in early primary school (including the polio sugar lump) and rubella vaccination at 11 - none of the childhood vaccines require later boosters, AFAIK. The only common thing I don't know about is mumps.

It would be interesting actually if someone decided to sue another parent due to their baby catching measles off of their unvaccinated child.

How the fucking fuck would that work when it's not illegal to not vaccinate?

"Under some of the ideas being mooted here, he would presumably have to drop out of school and through no fault of his own."

Presumably under any "vaccinations required for school" scheme, though, somebody who medically can't be vaccinated/would be difficult to vaccinate like your son would have an exemption?

I'd get whooping cough checked, Leedy, if I were you. Seriously. Waning immunity to WC is a serious issue, and it's a nasty illness to have.

"Waning immunity to WC is a serious issue, and it's a nasty illness to have."

Might ask for that next time I'm at the GP, thanks - I'm asthmatic so do not want anything seriously coughy. Though I presumably got the ye olde whole cell 1970s one as I am VERY OLD, is that one wearing off faster than expected as well?

From my experience of non vaxers on social media and forums many of them have researched their decision. My problem with many of them is that they 1. knowingly exploit herd immunity as a factor of their decision 2. Often cite totally unreputable sources for the information ironic for me to say that given my own love of Wikipedia but I also look for many additional reputable sources for topics that truely interest me

Crap. I have had a child damaged by the pertussis immunisation. It has taken years of treatment to rectify. He has only now just had his MMR at the age of 16- GPs suggestion to wait until then in case that damaged him too.

My uncle (lived and worked abroad for several decades, has every known vaccination and booster going and is on top of them all she to regular travel and periodic (work-related) health medicals) had whooping cough last year. He is 64, so also very old () so yes, I guess it's just as much of a problem (part of the issue is that the whooping cough virus has mutated, so the vaccination you had will not protect against the new strain)

Though again, bigbluestars presumably if a GP had advised that he shouldn't get the MMR due to risk of a bad reaction he would be medically exempt from any "you need vaccinations to go to school", similar to immune compromized people, etc.

Not in full agreement with the OP, but I don't think anyone is arguing that vaccination should be mandatory even for people who have been medically advised not to vaccinate.

(though hmmm, presumably then there would be a thriving trade in Dr Bob Sears type docs handing out "medical exemptions"....)