To think my friend is mad for refusing to vaccinate?

[FannyTheFlamingo]

I'll admit, I'm a bit ignorant on this subject. My DD is nearly 1 and she's been vaccinated. It wasn't something I gave too much thought to, I just did it because I thought it was for the best.

My friend has done her research and says that she doesn't want to risk her son getting brain damage from a vaccine. She says if he catches something and dies, she could forgive herself, but she couldn't if something happened as a result of a vaccination. Is she mad?

I'm hoping MN users have differing views and are much better informed than I am. I don't want to convince her to change her mind, but would like to offer her some pro vaccination advice.

Or do I just keep my beak out?

I know the conversation has moved on slightly but for those saying measles has been eradicated:
www.stroudnewsandjournal.co.uk/news/15589033.Urgent_vaccination_plea_issued_for_parents_and_children_in_Gloucestershire_after_rapid_surge_in_measles_cases/

This is now.

Jlm151
There's nothing wrong with putting forward an opinion. But you are presenting your OPINION as FACT. And then laying into anyone who has a different opinion to yourself.

And FWIW, I worked in clinical chemistry & immunology for 10 years. I have many friends who are immunologists and doctors of all descriptions. My cousin has a PhD in Immunology and Epidemiology. All of them, without exception, have vaccinated their children. Most have paid to give their children the chicken pox vaccine too. So while we're talking about 'people we know', there's my offering.

NHS on the Telegraph article about measles being eradicated

www.nhs.uk/news/2017/09September/Pages/Has-measles-really-been-eliminated-in-the-UK.aspx

My imaginary dog has seen a lot of unicorns.

So it's your bloody dog spooking my herd of unicorns!

If you don't get it under imaginary control I'll blow its imaginary brains out!

Find me one vaccine safety study where a try placebo was used. They isn't one.

I should hope there isn't Jim.

It would be both unethical and immoral to deliberate expose an unvaccinated child to a serious illness.

Amazing in a really big way, the doctor thought I would go blind when I had measles. DD's MiL was left deaf after her vaccinations but still had her children done.

Find me one vaccine safety study where a try placebo was used. They isn't one

Of course there isn't! How appalling would it be to protect some children from serious illnesses and let others risk catching it, not knowing they were not vaccinated?

(Why is it always the people with the least understanding of science who argue about it the most, and on the wrong side?)

Lots of interesting information on a Facebook page called Refutations to anti vaccine memes

You know what?
The vast, vast majority of people who have been diagnosed with autism have drunk water at some point. In addition, every person who has been diagnosed with cancer has drunk water, probably repeatedly. In fact, I would estimate that 99% of people who subsequently died, had imbibed water in the previous 24 hours.
I think it is clear from this that drinking water is causing no end of problems and misery for millions of people. We need to stop drinking water.

I know this seems flippant, and I honestly mean no disrespect to anybody (especially re: my mention of autism, cancer etc), but this whole argument is just so stupid.

There are placebo controlled studies on vaccines before they are released. I have taken part in such a study for the meningities b vaccine when I was a teen.

JLM151 it's the dose that makes the poison.

I will repeat that. It's the dose that makes the poison. 1tsp of table salt will not harm you. 10kgs of table salt will.

With regards to mercury in vaccines, the dose is so small that it is almost non existent and way below any value that is shown to be harmful. You would have to inject the same dose 80,000 times a day for it to be potentially toxic. This doesn't mean that there is a tiny risk of death from even a small dose of thiomersal. There is no risk.

It clear from the links posted here that there is a real issue about people not understanding how to balance risk and how risk is presented in scientific reports. There may be a very, very small risk to some people from taking the flu vaccine, but the risks of catching flu and suffering complications from flu are much higher and far more likely. Therefore you take the option with the lowest risk.

I also think there is a lack of understanding of the real consequences of these illnesses. My husband came out of hospital a couple weeks ago after coming near to dying twice due to developing very severe pneumonia after a bout of flu. He is a fit and healthy young man. We were told in no uncertain terms that if he had been a child, elderly or with health issues already he would probably not have survived. There is a reason the flu vaccine is prescribed to the people it is, because the risk to them from flu is high. We thanked science that dd had been vaccinated against flu and the strain of pneumonia dh had.

Jim is right though in that there are many more children diagnosed with autism. There are at least two causes for this;

1. awareness of autism/Asperger's as a medical condition

2. the very low infant mortality rate (largely due to vaccination, though of course, nutrition and hygiene has played a very important role, too) which means that there are more children surviving to be diagnosed.

Thing is Jim, quite a few of your theories, including the measles one, have been disproven.

I really can't be bothered to read this thread, as i've read far to many of them and know exactly how it goes.

OP, your friend isn't mad, your friend just sees things differently to you and is entirely entitled to feel that way. I don't vaccinate my children because I feel it is right for us. I don't berate others for choosing differently, but somehow people feel they have the right to berate me and people like me. We ALL as parents try and do the right thing by our children.

I'm pretty sure my son's autism was caused by my labour though if anything, it was LONG and he was deprived of oxygen for a few seconds, but in a child predisposed to gut issues, I worry vaccines could add to the burden on his system.
And yet my autistic son's Labour was short and very easy, however, I'm Autistic, as is his father and both his Grandfathers...

Oblada " alll vaccines seen extreme" What are you talking about.
Please read up about the immune system.
It is assaulted daily by new proteins and potential infections "antigens" and because you have immunity and health you rarely get ill.
A vaccine is a tiny challenge out of loads a baby encounters. Nothing remotely extreme about it.

Thanks Gilead that's interesting! There is no autism on either mine or my son's dad's side so I assume it isn't genetic in our case - but am open minded to the possibility. It would be somehow comforting to know it was genetic!

I should start off by saying that my children have had all their vaccinations, but I nevertheless have some sympathy with the OP’s friend. I felt something similar myself.

Like most people my age (late 50s), I had measles, German measles and mumps as a child. I was fine, so those have always seemed like ‘normal’ childhood illnesses to me, in contrast to ‘serious’ illnesses like polio, diphtheria etc. I know, of course, that measles etc can be dangerous, but my personal experience is that they were not, so it is very easy to underestimate their possible impact.

If my children had suffered as a result of a vaccination I’m sure I would have have felt that it was entirely my fault - that I had had a healthy child and had caused it harm. In contrast, if my child had suffered as a result of a failure to vaccinate, it would have felt more like bad luck - after all, children do contract all sorts of illnesses that are simply bad luck (and no-one’s fault).

I’m not saying that how I felt was logical, but it’s how I felt. Logic won out, and, as I said, my children had all their vaccinations.

Phelan, it might be worth looking back a couple of generations.

Like most people my age (late 50s), I had measles, German measles and mumps as a child. I was fine, so those have always seemed like ‘normal’ childhood illnesses to me, in contrast to ‘serious’ illnesses like polio, diphtheria etc. I know, of course, that measles etc can be dangerous, but my personal experience is that they were not, so it is very easy to underestimate their possible impact.
My experience is very different. I'm almost sixty. My favourite Uncle died a few years ago, post polio syndrome, yes it's a thing. He'd had Polio, he was crippled and spent his whole life in callipers and on crutches. He married and had children and we were all devastated when he died.
I also remember being 15 years old and taking it in turns with my parents to look after my ten year old sister who had measles and had become so fragile that they wouldn't move her to the hospital thinking that the trip might be the end of her. She is massively myopic now, but okay, but it was touch and go for a while. Some of lost friends at school due to measles, too.

Autism is, in at least a majority of cases, vaccine-injury.

What utter rubbish. That statement alone discredits everything Jlm151 quotes.

What a load of baloney!

@SchadenfreudePersonified

Yep, sorry. For some reason I imagined him as a livestock worrier. I imagine you want to imagine yourself fixing the imaginary broken gate on your imaginary unicorn paddock.

(Yet this conversation is more reasonable than the one with JLM)

@ScrumpyBetty Bows to applause I think you've left yourself open to JLM's incisive intellect:

"the dose is so small that it is almost non existent and way below any value that is shown to be harmful"

The more times you dilute the dose, the more powerful the mercury becomes because, you know, water memory :-)