To ask you to help me argue with an anti-vaxxer on fb

[GoesDownLikeACupOfColdSick]

I know, I know. But it's Saturday night, DP is out and I am just home whilst our (fully vaccinated!) DD is asleep.

What do I say to someone who is convinced that we should all do our own research, that vaccines are only about big pharma making big bucks, and that the govt hushes up vaccine damage??

As I said earlier, very few doctors and nurses would claim to be experts on vaccines.

Why do you think it takes a medical degree to read and understand a paper showing that the WC outbreaks are due to waning immunity?

Devilish, I don't understand the point you are making about the issue of care for your son. I fully accept that the state of social care in this country is appalling (but have you tried taking legal advice on your son's behalf to enforce his rights?). However, the issue would be the same for children who are left severely disabled by measles or indeed anything else. It isn't something that is peculiar to vaccinated children.

Vaccines aren't the only cause of disability though, are they? My friend has a severely disabled child and nobody knows why; another friend has a severely disabled child who has a chromosome abnormality. So I know they have to fight hard for everything although I would never pretend for a second to be able to understand what they go through. But if they recommended doing research, it would be via an expert geneticist - as indeed one of them did recommend to another friend who'd had a disabled brother who died in childhood.

I mentioned the whooping cough story because i remembered it from the time and the parents' plea for people to be vaccinated and have their boosters. The people I sought advice from recommended the vaccine You disagree with them, that's your view; I went with what i was advised.

Ok mimi - why did you bother using a solicitor? Why not save the money and do your own conveyancing?

And yes, most professions have an obligation to do CPD (continuing professional development) once in practice

Bumbley, as my post was not about whooping cough, your question is irrelevant. I could equally point to the fact that I don't need a medical degree to read the statistics on measles deaths and morbidity which show a massive fall over the years since vaccination came in.

But it's not just a matter of reading one paper or one page of statistics, is it? It's a matter of knowing where to find comparative evidence, being able to assess the reliability of the evidence on which the paper is based, knowing how reliable and unbiased the authors are, assessing how their findings might specifically apply to children with specific medical and genetic condition, relating it to previous research in the field, etc etc.

Bumbley, if you're not a researcher or dr, how do you know you've got access to the most recent info? You're reading a screenshot of one report.

I showed this thread to a friend who has a PhD and is working on a hopeful cure for T1 diabetes; she fell about laughing at the idea that anyone can read papers on google and understand it all.

Mega - I haven't claimed to be an expert in paediatrics or pharmacology. In fact I have been trying to find someone who can answer my pharmacology questions for the past 2 years (and yes I have tried my son's consultants and the manufacturers). Unfortunately I do seem to know more about the issues regarding my son than his doctors. I actually wish that were not the case because to be frank I have no idea what we should do regarding his current meds. Neither do his consultants & nor will they consider them as a whole (only individually).

My point is that it's quite possible for people to do the reading & check the family history & make a decision about their children. I have said repeatedly I don't see other people's decisions as any of my business.

Um I should add i haven't been told what to do by a doctor since 2002 - they've given me their understanding of the various situations and accepted my decision. Sometimes they may have made the same decision, sometimes presumably not.

Devilish - I have a friend with a son with a rare and aggressive form of cystic fibrosis and there is no doubt at all that she knows more about it than his doctors. She's v bright, has a degree in biology, and has worked out a combination of meds and diets and supplements that mean his condition constantly amazes his drs.

BUT she couldn't have done any of that before he was diagnosed. It took years and trial and error. And that's my point - when you say to someone who is anti vax or wavering to "do their research", they won't have the knowledge or the skills that YOU have acquired.

The problem here is that vaccination has become such a holy cow that many doctors won't question it.

I mentioned ipthread about my child's paed who tried to bully me into agreeing to vaccinate. This was with dd2. So, I already had severely autistic, vaccine damaged dd1, and dd2 was unvaccinated. She was under the care of a paed because she was failing to thrive.

He took one look at dd1 (then age 4), assumed that I had jumped on the Wakefield bandwagon and was blaming it on mmr (I wasn't) and lectured me at length on the subject.

He then withheld test results in an attempt to get me to agree to vaccinate dd2. Test results which actually proved that not vaccinating her was the best route. She was about 18 months old at the time, and there is every chance that if I had vaccinated her, she could have ended up like dd1. A risk I was unwilling to take, even without those test results.

Yet a doctor, supposedly specialised, was happy to try to get me to agree to something which was (at best) medically unwise for my dd, because that something was vaccination.

He tried lots of similar arguments to you, Sick. He told me I would 'only google' the words if he told me what the test results were, and then I would cherry pick the worst case scenario and worry.

He told me I 'wouldn't understand' what I read, as it was 'complicated'.

He told me it wasn't in my interests to know what those test results were, because he didn't understand how she could have those results and be as healthy as she obviously was (this was the second repeat of those tests, because he kept insisting the results were wrong).

The facts were that I already suspected what was onthat paper. I had already googled, already read the 'complicated' stuff, already knew that if that was what the results said, then it was not a clear cut thing.

Again, as I outlined above, in several examples, this was not the only ethically dubious practise I have had wrt vaccination and my children. And yet you still vainly cling to 'doctors know best (oh, well maybe not in you actual living child's example, but generally) and you should do as they say'

That's my (and others with children who do not/have not/may not react typically) my point.

If I had listened to the doctor, I could very easily (as in, the chance is statistically very much higher than the 1 in a million bandied about) now be caring for 2 severely disabled children. On my own, with no help (again, outlined above, butnyy choose to ignore uncomfortable truths).

I am barely holding it together this week -half term - and by 7am today had already had 3 full scale meltdowns, 4 injuries (2 me, 1 sibling, and 1 dd1 herself) and a lot of screaming and trying to get out of the house (apparently not immediately going to a National trust property when requested, because it isn't open yet, is a Bad Thing). And we're only halfway through the week.

Mega - I was asking sick about how people receive care for their severely disabled children. And yes I said disabled for whatever reason.

My point is that if your child is left severely disabled you get no help without a battle. My son actually can no longer live at home (needs are too high) & has 24 hour 2:1 care - but the only reason we have that is because it got to the stage where his SW was worried he was going to die. She said she would wake in the night panicking about us. And once it got to that stage it took 9 months to put together a suitable care package. That was 9 months of the whole family being on hold (other kids locked in their rooms, dh leaving work at 2pm every day as only him & I could care for ds1). And ds1 was lucky - we had what must have been the best SW in the country. There were of course years & years of things being challenging prior to the crisis. My younger kids are going on their first proper holiday this year for example (they're at secondary school). And now he's turning 18 he risks losing the whole lot.

So my point is - if something happens - whether disease or vaccine injury or something else - the family picks up the pieces. The State gives you nothing without a battle. So therefore the family surely gets to decide. If proper support was put in place for vaccine injury then maybe dictating what people should do would be more reasonable. But they don't.

The behaviour of that doctor was shocking pandas. I'm lucky - have only ever met the 'I don't know' scenario where they've been happy to leave the decision to me.

If you're dealing with a lot of physical distressed behaviours and are anywhere near Bristol or south west Wales drop me a PM and I can give you details re some fab courses. xxxx

I'm sadly on the other side of the country, devilish. I've seen the courses on fb, and would love to attend - we're only at the start of all this (dd1 is 12), and from the looks of it the next few years are not shaping up to be good! - but it's the usual logistics of getting time off/care sorted. Not going to happen anytime soon.

The doctor was a long time ago, and having taken your view (that I get to decide what happens to my family, given that I am the one dealing with it) then I happily ignored him and sat it out until he finally gave me the test results I was entitled to. Having ds1 merrily wrecking his room while I waited it out probably shortened the encounter somewhat

Grr, that'll be dd1 wrecking the room!

Panda, I am very very sorry for your situation. And your DDs are lucky to have you. Did you report the dr?

But it still doesn't mean that every parent is capable of doing that level of research - would you have been, if you hadn't already been through so much with your DD1?

And it doesn't mean that every doctor is ethically dubious. But the risk of mistakes is why I crosschecked the advice with 3 different doctors. As it wasn't a difficult question in my case, they all said the same thing. If it had been a more difficult question, if I had felt the need to ask more, I would have done.

it can help at times

If things get worse/dangerous do message me. Even from a distance I may be able to help. Also if things change suddenly start asking questions about epilepsy - it seems to be picked up as a factor in so many cases.

Autism & catatonia should also be required reading for all with teens on the spectrum as that seems to be gaining recognition and possibly an increasing problem (??)(unfortunately there only seems to be one specialist in the U.K. that knows anything about it - so the parents I know struggling with it have had to educate their doctors)

You have an average child though sick. As I said earlier it's when your child doesn't fit the norm that you find there are no answers.

GoesDownLikeACupOfColdSick Wed 15-Feb-17 08:38:46
Ok mimi - why did you bother using a solicitor? Why not save the money and do your own conveyancing?

...because mortgage lenders insist upon you employing a qualified solicitor! They work on the mortgage lender's behalf...as well as yours.

Thanks devilish

I have epilepsy at the back of my mind, and all sorts of other stuff.

I'm hoping it's 'just' hormonal strops, but only time will tell.

Mega, the WC comment was to the OP.

Why do you assume that people get their information from one paper/source?

Goes, 'reading a screenshot of one report'? What are you basing this idea on? If that's how you get your information then I can see why you struggle to believe that people are capable of making informed decisions based on their own reading from multiple sources.

We were told 'hormones'. School had seen a similar epilepsy case & thought epilepsy. We then began to identify what we all thought were seizures. Because we couldn't get an EEG these were not accepted as seizures until after he'd had 4 tonic clonics in 2 months. Only then was it agreed that the regular episodes we'd seen over the previous year were likely to be seizures.

I just don't believe that there's any way my younger children would have been left with untreated seizures for over a year.

I think it would really help people decide about vaccines if they were given the statistics as you suggest.

Then people can make informed decisions.

I find the govt/pharma blurb says you must have the vaccinations or else, and the online things tell you how awful the vaccines are, and really I would just like to see some stats to inform my decision making.

I went through this with MMR and decided whilst there might be a risk of adverse effect, the risk of mumps measles and rubella to my baby was a greater risk so had the jabs done. I would have liked to be able to have phased these jabs out over a longer period, it does seem rather brutal to throw it all at very small babies all in one go.

Now mine are older I am looking at the HPV jab, and again all I want is access to the stats. sorry this in not what the OP was about....but access to the stats pro and con, would maybe help the OPs rather excitable friend.

because mortgage lenders insist upon you employing a qualified solicitor

and that's the only reason? hahaha. do you really think that solicitors just google clauses in a lease? really?

bumbley - if you don't have access to all the new information, and you don't have the ability to do all the cross referencing and analysing, that is essentially what you are doing, however much you wear out your google browser.

it's mind blowing how many people kid themselves that they know best. Christ, imagine going to a restaurant with someone like that, they'd be telling the chef that he had no idea how to sautee things, because she'd seen a youtube video!

The problem you have is that the stats relate to populations - not the risk to your child.

So check out family history for reactions and susceptibilities. Decide when your child is most likely to be at risk of catching the disease (that may be older so you may choose to delay & have a conversation with your dd instead - about the risks & what the jab does & doesn't protect against).

That sort of thing is the type of question to run through if you have concerns.

Do you think doctors sit there reading every paper published about vaccination sick?