To ask if you decided not to vaccinate your children

[Mintpepper]

Do you regret it? Did they catch any of the diseases that they could have been vaccinated for and what was the outcome?

And anyone who did get their children vaccinated - did they catch any of the diseases anyway? And do you regret vaccinating for any reason?

This isn't intended to start a debate for or against vaccination generally as that's been done many times, I'm more just interested in your personal experiences if you'd be willing to share them. Thank you.

0nline I really related to your post.

Haven't RTFT but -- I vaccinated my DC, including chickenpox (partly because I got terrible shingles while pg). Both kids got chickenpox a few years later anyway, but much milder than usual. Younger DS has ASD and I had a friend who kept banging on about how it's caused by the MMR and she would never ever give it to her kids... some years later her unvaccinated DD was diagnosed with ASD. I have simply avoided ever asking whether she's changed her mind!

BertieBotts

I think there are rather a lot of us. But by and large we probably aren't a group that features much as active posters on these threads.

I found the website jabs jabs jabs very useful.

I've vaccinated all my children with the exception of rotavirus. It's a live vaccine and you have to be very hygiene conscious afterwards for a few days otherwise the household would be at risk of rotavirus. I decided especially as my middle child is fairly sickly and as my immunity is a bit pants, that we would skip it.

0nline unfortunately I couldn't relate to your post, because you seemed to be suggesting that we make these decisions based on emotions rather than evidence. I'm sorry if I read that wrong. I do agree that some healthcare professionals could be more sympathetic to those who have doubts although that would apply across all sorts of medical treatment issues. It is interesting to me how low the flu vaccination uptake is among NHS staff.

unfortunately I couldn't relate to your post, because you seemed to be suggesting that we make these decisions based on emotions rather than evidence.

I seem to have created some confusion, apologies.

To clarify "we" in terms of what I wrote is not intended as a universal "we"for all parents.

"we" is in reference to some of us who considered not vaccinating, delayed vaccinating, or are presently not vaccinating.

I was not vaccinated as a child and as a adult didn't offer any protection to my unborn child.

I immediately paid for rubella, meningitis and other vaccines.

I have not forgave my mother for being so lazy, I nearly died age 2 because of her negligence!

My child is also fully vaccinated and on the autistic spectrum.

I'd rather have her alive and with additional needs than seriously ill or worse..

Younger 3 didn't have MMR. Caught none of them.

I was a kid in the 1960s and caught both measles (as a 6 month old baby) and German measles (aged about 9) and was told I had a very high level of antibodies to the latter. Suspect that is a healthier way to be innoculated - just catch the damn thing. The figures they used for mortality to scare people into being vaccinated - this particular vaccine, I have no problem with any others - came from poor, undernourished, and atypical (recent immigrant) populations - according to a widely respected and published consultant paediatrician who used to treat my son.

Son 2 developed autism (previously been tested and had started to speak and certainly wasn't autistic) - literally losing the ability to speak or do anything but scream for several years, the very day he had the MMR vaccine.

The storage protocols, and maybe preservatives and shit in the drugs are probably better now than the early 1990s. So on balance, I'd probably go ahead now. There was something about the age of the kids vaccinated - slightly older and they are not developing neurologically in quite the same way as they are at 14 mths or whatever age it was.

Son 2 developed autism (previously been tested and had started to speak and certainly wasn't autistic) - literally losing the ability to speak or do anything but scream for several years, the very day he had the MMR vaccine

Autism does not develop overnight. You have merely tied together two unrelated happenings.

*My child is also fully vaccinated and on the autistic spectrum.

I'd rather have her alive and with additional needs than seriously ill or worse..*

I'd rather my son had never become autistic. I love him anyway. But I'd still rather he didn't have all these barriers in the way of him living to his full potential.

As for seriously ill - as I say I had measles at 6 months and lived to tell the tale. As did every kid down my street at one age or another. Not sure where this idea that it causes mass death and destruction came from. German measles I enjoyed because I didn't feel ill in any way - got a week or two off school for just having a rash. It felt like skiving.

As for seriously ill - as I say I had measles at 6 months and lived to tell the tale

Well thats nice for you but if you had died or been severely damaged by the measles you wouldn't be able to tell us about it here, would you?

seriously getting fucked off with the 'autistic is better than dead' crap.

It was stupid and offensive the first few times. It doesn't get better with repetition.

"Not sure where this idea that it causes mass death and destruction came from. "

Immunocompromised. Never had measles. It may kill me if I contract it now.

And I happened to be studying psycholinguistics in the msot prestigious uni in the US, weeks before I flew home to England and my son had the MMR.

I was the only postgrad with a baby so we ran all our batteries of cognitive etc tests on him, to practice. Under the supervision of a professor. He was, in every sense - particularly in terms of language development - 100% "average". I was in a rather unusual position in that I can say that.

He had MMR in the morning. By the afternoon, he was running a fever, screaming and... didn't speak again til he was 4 or 5. It was that precise day. I was studying psycholinguistics.

I know it is comforting to think there is no link.

In my son's case - there was. Around 6 other kids, injected from the same batch - all unknown to eachother at the time - were later shown to have developed autism.

You may be unaware but late onset autism was the most rare form of autism til the mid 70s (IIRC, been a long time since I read this research) - coincidentally when the vaccine was introduced.

"Not sure where this idea that it causes mass death and destruction came from

Measles can kill and injure. Not sure where you imagined annyone talking about mass death and destruction.

Sorry Joffrey

It's bothering me too. Personally I would prefer to not wake up every morning at three worrying endlessly about what the hell is going to become of my son, who will never be close to independent, when I'm no longer here to protect him.

Some of the 'batch clusters' were much, much higher than just half a dozen kids. Suggesting there was something going on maybe with the storage protocol, or specific batches. IIRC 2 or 3 manufacturers' products were involved. So it was more than one make of vaccine.

Joffrey, that just isn't how it works. If something happened to your kid in a day, it wasn't autism.
I have no idea where your psycholinguistics comes into it, but as a neurology scientist you really shouldn't make such outrageous claims.

Pag my son went from not being able to speak to, at 24, being at uni and getting 2.1s and 1sts. He was in special school for years and left school at 16 without a single GCSE and unable to read.

There is hope.

He'll never be what he might have been and he hates his autism. But hey, he gets PIP and the government say he will be cured overnight in 5 years. Cool, eh?

And, with respect - you are wrong. That is what happened.

Such a clear cut trajectory was, the lawyers told me, very rare. But the correlation so strong that they were going to use my son as one of the first cases in the class action that fell apart when Blair refused to fund it. I'm a lifelong Labour member/supporter/party worker. Believe me, those are words I don't want to type.

You are in cloud cuckoo land because, understandably, you want to believe there is no correlation. There was. I was there. I saw it.

An old friend of mine in Australia didn't get her older child vaccinated. He caught measles passed it on to her newborn. Older child recovered but her newborn died. I know she and her DH regret their decision - they have been open about knowing zero about herd immunity when making their decision.

Well I'm sure you believe it but the medical and scientific evidence of decades shows otherwise. And your class action didn't go forward, so you have no legal basis either.

If parents CHOOSE not to vaccinate their kids they should have to homeschool them because I definitely would not want my children near their kids.

But if yours were vaccinated, what would be the problem?

What would be the problem? Well, the risk to any immunocompromised person that goes near them in the playground (including newborns); the fact that they are unwilling to play their part in society but want to deny someone the place in a school set up by and run for the benefit of society.
If they are genuinely unwell physically themselves and cannot be vaccinated, then , fine.