not to challenge this antivaxxer mum at playgroup?

[CaptainWarbeck]

Chatting to a nice mum this morning about child health nurses, she says she's really struggled to find a 'good' one because they've made the decision not to vaccinate their youngest child.

Cue a bit of a monologue from her about how their oldest suffered a 'vaccine injury' (not sure what this was, he seems a regular kid) and it's really much better to vaccinate later, if at all, and her doctor has been very pushy and they've annoyingly had to switch practices because of it.

Argh. I diplomatically made sympathetic noises and did say we were big vaccination fans but each to their own and you've got to do what you think is right for your child yada yada.

Now I'm feeling like I maybe should have challenged her a bit more, rather than just being supportive of what I perfectly honestly think is mad anti-vaxxer nonsense. AIBU?

[YoloSwaggins]

Sionella - plenty of cases where companies have acted unscrupulously.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abdullahi_v._Pfizer,_Inc. is an example.
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Contraceptive_trials_in_Puerto_Rico - read the "side effects" bit.

[Greyponcho]

And what you had was a known side effect, so yor point is?

(Assuming this is aimed at my comment) I'm glad that is recognised as a side effect now. It was not when I had mine, or at least, it was not communicated to me, just a "your periods might be a bit heavier from now", not "you're going to be in crippling pain every month"

[WappersReturns]

See, on a thread were no one has implied they believe that MMR causes autism we have people arriving to triumphantly declare that it doesn't cause autism. We know that. Maybe if you stop waffling on about MMR causing autism we can access advice and help for children who have actual reactions instead of parents being shut down and patronised? It hardly fosters an atmosphere of trust if we try and pretend that side effects don't happen.

[GraceGrape]

To go back to the original OP, were you chatting in a toddler group or similar where newborns might be present? If she chooses not to vaccinate her child, then I suppose that is fair enough. If she deliberately then takes them to places where there are likely to be young babies, that is irresponsible.

[hottotrotsky]

I honestly actually feel there are posters patrolling MN whose paymasters are SmithGlaxoKline.

Rational patient vaccine doubters are always drowned out by blinkered pitchfork waving pro vaxxers. Yawn.

[TinselTwins]

So I can understand why lack of reporting is an issue. anyone can report, members of the public have the same access to the yellow card reporting system as HCPs

[VaccineWife]

Wappers you can't be allergic to a virus. An allergy response is a different kind of immune response than the response to a viral pathogen. There's a lot of misinformation around vaccines already and misuse of language like 'allergic reactions' doesn't help.

You can have a site-specific reaction, so a sore injection site that's a bit itchy, like an insect bite.

Or you can be allergic to egg-cultured vaccines. But then presumably you'd know already if you had an egg allergy.

If your DC had a strong reaction to the mmr booster then that's almost certainly because they are predisposed to react strongly to one of those viruses.

[GraceGrape]

F1ip most diseases are contagious before symptoms are obvious. Measles, for example, is contagious for 4 days before the rash appears. Therefore a child could easily spread it before the parent was aware they had it.

[NotISaidTheWalrus]

Rational patient vaccine doubters are always drowned out by blinkered pitchfork waving pro vaxxers. Yawn

Are you on glue?

[viques]

putdownyourphone some interesting statements. I wonder if you would repeat them to the parents of the thousands of unvaccinated children who die or who are permanently damaged from the effects of measles every year, or the parents whose unborn children are injured through the mothers exposure to rubella, or the infertile men who unfortunately caught mumps. Not to mention those who have caught polio, diphtheria, meningitis,whooping cough,tetanus .......You only have to google pictures of the devastation these diseases cause in the third world to realise how bloody lucky we are that we can protect our children, for free.

I can imagine the puzzlement on the face of a mother in Somalia or rural India being told that in the UK parents are happy to expose their children, and other children ,to these diseases rather than vaccinate.

Smallpox was a disease that killed and maimed, but because of vaccination it no longer exists in the human population. That has happened in our lifetime, vaccination is a blessing for us all, and it makes me angry that the benefits of it are dismissed by being labelled 'big pharma' lies.

[Booboostwo]

Another can't argue with stupid from me.

On a brighter note Italy has made 12 vaccines compulsory so let's hope other countries will follow.

[hottotrotsky]

NotISaid you epitomize your original comment that you can't argue with stupid.

SmithGlaxo et al would have to be desperate to employ you as a propagandist.

[WappersReturns]

I used the Yellow Card system but only after searching for a mechanism to report it myself. No HCP suggested doing so at the time. Which is a shame, because the more we know about why some children react, the more children we can get vaccinated safely. Reporting should be encouraged.

I'd feel much more confident in taking my youngest for his booster if DD's experience had been investigated.

[NotISaidTheWalrus]

SmithGlaxo et al would have to be desperate to employ you as a propagandist

I thought I was on payroll already? Make your mind up.

[hottotrotsky]

Booboo that's bollox about Italy. I happen to live there and that foolish law decree will never be enacted. It's allarmist propaganda to scare everyone in to vaccinating so swelling the coffers of the pharmaceutical companies that corrupted the minister of health.

[NotISaidTheWalrus]

It's not bollocks.

www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/italy-vaccinations-school-children-compulsory-government-legislation-health-injections-a7736086.html

[hottotrotsky]

In my original post wasn't referring to you NotI as a paid propagandist. More the pitchfork variety that does their dirty work for them after they've dangled the bait.

[HazelBite]

I cannot scream loudly enough at what a selfish attitude people who choose NOT to vaccinate their children when there is NO medical reason not to, have.

i am in my 60's and knew children at primary school who had been affected by polio who had lost parents due to TB. My mother had a friend whose son was profoundly deaf and blind in one eye due to her catching german measles when pregnant.
The writer Roald Dahl lost a daughter due to measles, I had measles as a child I was very ill and was unable to go to school for 4 weeks. Mumps is a nasty painful disease, potentially dangerous for men.

Can somebody explain to me why you would want your precious child to suffer something so unnecessary.
It is a generation of people who have not seen the effects of polio, whooping cough, measles at first hand, perhaps if they realised fully the potential harm to their and other's children they might get some sense.

Please note I have said if there is NO medical reason why a child should not be vacinated.

I worked with a lovely lady who had grown up in Uganda and had not been vacinated against polio, she was severely disabled as a result of contracting the disease if she had grown up in the UK and been vacinated her life would have been very different.

Why cause such unnecessary harm.

[NotISaidTheWalrus]

It's not dirty work. It's unfortunately necessary to try and old back the tides of rabid anti-vaxxers trying to put all our children at risk.
Happy to do it for free.

[hottotrotsky]

It IS bollox. Have fun.

[Sionella]

Well yolo, your first link doesn't work. I can try the second one - but I am really not sure why anyone thinks Wikipedia is a good source!

[NotISaidTheWalrus]

www.repubblica.it/salute/prevenzione/2017/05/19/news/vaccinazioni_a_scuola_ecco_cosa_cambia_per_le_famiglie-165849685/

www.unita.tv/focus/perche-in-italia-le-vaccinazioni-sono-obbligatorie-ed-in-altri-paesi-europei-no/


citifmonline.com/2017/05/20/italy-makes-12-vaccinations-compulsory-for-children/

www.rt.com/news/389007-italy-law-vaccination-mandatory/

[canteatcustard]

There are a few diseases that crop up at time of immunisation, and are often mistaken for vaccine damage. For instance Dravet syndrome.
Dravet syndrome is a serious form of epilepsy which causes brain damage. Often triggered by illness or high temperature. So a healthy infant who just got a mild temp from MMR has a seizure.

Certainly autism seems to become clearer to see at the child grows older past a year old or more, simply because everyone is an individual.
The very fact that our children are not dying of polio, measles, etc are proof that vaccinations work.
I have living relatives who have been damaged from non vaccination. knowing your aunt has poor eyesight and partially deaf with a curved spine because her mother caught rubella when pregnant does remind you of the benefit of vaccination.
Also having a cousin with brain damage caused from catching whooping cough as a small baby.
My children are vaccinated, even the one with a very long list of life threatening food allergies as recommended by his consultants.
My family members with dravet syndrome are carefully watched or not vaccinated for one or two particular ones, and as they cant have them we make sure as much as possible that those around them ARE vaccinated. We want them to live as long as they possibly can!

[WappersReturns]

VaccineWife my child was treated for anaphylaxis in A&E. She also had symptoms of mumps and the reaction occurred during the period of time in which the mumps part of the vaccine was expected to be active. Her records are clear, and I'm inclined to believe the actual doctors who treated her although I'm sure you're very knowledgeable.

Whatever caused the reaction will remain a mystery because the focus is always on debunking these experiences rather than trying to understand why these things happen.