SIL has not vaccinated my nieces

[Pittcuecothecookbook]

My baby has been booked in for her vaccinations soon. I asked my sister in law, who has primary school aged kids, about the experience and I was flabbergasted when she said she didn't get their jabs. I can't quite believe it!

When I asked why, she said the risks outweighed the pros but she struggled to articulate what the risks were beyond 'potential death'. I said that that was also the downside of not getting the jabs too! She said she was persuaded when her friend said that the jabs couldn't be undone if her kids had a reaction.

AIBU to be shocked and quite disappointed about this? I'm not looking forward to it by any means, but the eradication of many awful diseases and protection against those still prevalent is surely a non negotiable?

When her kids don't get these diseases, she'll be vindicated but that will likely be because the majority have had their jabs rather than proving jabs were unnecessary.

I imagine I'll get over this - my child will be protected - but I'm just at hearing this news.

Yes, due to plagues, cholera, malaria, various flu pandemics, smallpox and more recently AIDS.....not "childhood diseases".

So hang on, childhood diseases don't kill? Nearly 90,000 children died of measles in 2016. The vaccine was introduced in 1963, before which annual deaths from measles were around 2.5 million.

Cathmidston

www.psychiatryadvisor.com/childadolescent-psychiatry/prenatal-opiate-exposure-predicted-adhd-autism-in-offspring/article/760318/

Thanks Cath. Seems very recent and wasn't on my radar. Chicken/egg regarding adhd, but possible link with ASD. I shall have a look at the study. Very small sample size, but interesting nonetheless.

SharpLily...you were talking about why families in times gone by had so many kids,,to replace those that died due to illness. I pointed out which illnesses are the biggest killers in history...and only one of them has been eradicated (allegedly) via vaccine. The biggest killers of multiple members of same families (which is what you were talking about) were not measles, mumps, rubella or chicken pox.

But the childhood illnesses against which we vaccinate now did also kill people, no?

Overall, there were 54.7 million deaths worldwide in 2016.
90,000 is a small drop in that ocean (no matter how devastating on an individual level). To put it in perspective, over 1 million people die each year due to malaria, most of whom are children under 5 (according to UNICEF figures).

I love this virtual death plotting and scoping. FFS vaccines work and mean, not only does your child not die from avoidable diseases, but immunocompromised people don't die.
Car fumes kill. Lightening kills. Lick your child up in a hermetically sealed dome if you are worried about them. Or vaccinate your children and get on with your life.

Lick?? Lock, of course!

This, from the CDC website:

^Pre-vaccine Era
In the 9th century, a Persian doctor published one of the first written accounts of measles disease.

Francis Home, a Scottish physician, demonstrated in 1757 that measles is caused by an infectious agent in the blood of patients.

In 1912, measles became a nationally notifiable disease in the United States, requiring U.S. healthcare providers and laboratories to report all diagnosed cases. In the first decade of reporting, an average of 6,000 measles-related deaths were reported each year.

In the decade before 1963 when a vaccine became available, nearly all children got measles by the time they were 15 years of age. It is estimated 3 to 4 million people in the United States were infected each year. Also each year, among reported cases, an estimated 400 to 500 people died, 48,000 were hospitalized, and 1,000 suffered encephalitis (swelling of the brain) from measles.^

So in the US, deaths per year dropped from 6000 in the 1910s to 1920s, to 400 or 500 in the 1960s (out of 3 to 4 MILLION infected)!

www.cdc.gov/measles/about/history.html

And these numbers were BEFORE use of vaccines.

Quibbled is exactly right... additionally these children have a range of susceptability issues making them more likely to develop these diseases: poor hygiene, exposure to insecticides that are banned in the developed world, malnutrition, inappropriate medication, dehydration, emotional trauma, bereavement, physical hardship .... vaccinating addresses none of these issues and hence these children go on to die of other illnesses predisposed to the invasive consequences of the vaccine itself.

90,000 is a small drop in that ocean (no matter how devastating on an individual level)

Yes, and I think we'd all prefer our children not to be among the 90,000!

The point I was making was that childhood diseases can and certainly did kill, why on Earth is anyone trying to suggest that doesn't matter so much because malaria kills more people?! Surely any childhood death is too many?

In the past and in developing countries one of the reasons for the high birth rate WAS and is because of the correspondingly high mortality rate. I'm pretty sure my grandmother wasn't noting and comparing disease statistics while she was popping out 10 kids. She didn't want any of them to die of anything! (Some did too)

Sorry and yes the death rate had dropped by over 99% before the measles vaccine was even introduced due the improving nutrition and other socio economic factors ....

emotional trauma, bereavement,

It sounds like you're connecting measles deaths to emotional trauma and bereavement?! Please tell me I've read that wrong.

SharpLily So you think stress doesn’t predispose you to illness or worsen the effects of it? Seriously?

SharpLily, you brought up the subject of people having big families to replace children who died, not me. Of course childhood diseases can kill. I haven't said they don't...but they don't kill in numbers likely to spark families into having 12 kids as insurance. In my own family, 6 of 9 kids died in a pandemic in 1852. I think it was cholera. Big familes in days of yore were down to lack of contraception, or religious beliefs.

I sincerely believe that stress in under fives has little to no effect upon the global mortality rate for measles and other childhood disease going back through hundreds of years of history. But I'm happy for someone with empirical evidence to prove me wrong on this.

Quibbled, they had children to replace the ones who died, not only the ones who died from certain diseases. There was no 'hang on, Albert died of measles so we don't need to pop out another one for him, but Elizabeth had cholera so let's replace her'!

SharpLily
Why on Earth is anyone trying to suggest that doesn't matter so much because malaria kills more people?!

That's not at all what I was trying to suggest.

quibbled

Measles concerns it is not just mortality, the long term effects are blindness, brain damage, deafness, repressed immune systems and a 3 times greater chance of dying within the next 3 years. Roald Dahls daughter died of measles in 1962

SharpLily

Quibbled, they had children to replace the ones who died, not only the ones who died from certain diseases. There was no 'hang on, Albert died of measles so we don't need to pop out another one for him, but Elizabeth had cholera so let's replace her'!

You've lost me now. I think you are contradicting your original point.

Stress weakens the immune system and the stress that a lot of these children have gone through is unimaginable. So of course it’s a factor along with all the other things I listed as making these children more susceptible to disease. Whether you can get your head round that or not is neither here nor there

I know Bruffin but i was replying to a post about mortality rates in particular.

"children go on to die of other illnesses predisposed to the invasive consequences of the vaccine itself."

What are "the invasive consequences of the vaccine itself"

Mairy we’ve already done this one and you didn’t like my answer remember