To think that parents who don't vaccinate their children are despicable

[LaBelleSauvage]

Just that. And I think they ought to be sanctioned in some way similar to in Australia. Children shouldn't suffer because of parents' stupidity

@fallingout Yes that is a problem, doctors not recognising pertussis.
That must have been so scary for you.
I was quite surprised the other day to receive an email from my daughters school insisting that coughing was never a reason for absence from school. I lived in a town with a small whooping cough outbreak, it was horrific . In those that caught it (some vaccinated, some not) families were weak for the best part of a year. I sometimes hear the trademark cough when I'm out and about... It sends a chill right through me, as it was such a terrifying time. If your child is coughing and struggling to breathe, stay home! Vaccinated or not.
Germany as an example had something like 16000 cases of whooping cough last year. It isn't as rare as you'd think.

People who are anti-vax tend to only talk about it with like minded parents IME. DP has made friends with many through his Naturopathy course. When they get together they air their views, ridicule people who vaccinate and talk proudly about the time their DC got measles and sailed through it with the help of Homeopathic remedies. I've had to sit through a meal or two and listen to this unfortunately.

Wheetabix... I'm sorry you r going through a difficult period and it must be v hard being immuno suppressed in a public facing role. I don't think there is a vaccine for chickenpox though?

There is a chickenpox vaccine, by a accounts it is quite effective.
Chickenpox has an incubation period before the spots come out though, so potentially any kid is a carrier, at any point, particulary the little ones

I don't necessarily want people to vaccinate against chickenpox (at least until it's offered on the NHS) and I know that anyone could be harbouring an illness so I am as careful as I can be. But really, taking your child out with full blown chicken pox and allowing them into close contact with someone is just utterly selfish and dangerous.

It's more the attitude that I wanted to highlight - the " I shall do what I please and sod you" attitude.

Hi, just wondering if anyone knows the answer to this. If you didn’t have the MMR as child and caught both measles and rubella but not mumps should you get vaccinated as an adult?

I don’t think there is a single vaccine for mumps which would be the only one required as I have would now have antibodies against measles and rubella. What would the risk factor be in getting the MMR if you don’t need the measles or Rubella part?

Is there a test I can as my dr for to check what vaccines I would need? I’m pretty sure I’ve not had mumps but my mum isn’t 100% on that as she said one of us did catch it and she thinks it was my brother but I was also exposed so may have had a mild dose.

I didn’t get my MMR as a child. My older brother got single vaccines for all three but the Dr wouldn’t let my mum get them for me. She didn’t want me to have a 3 in 1 vaccine as it was just a new thing at the time and she didn’t trust the very little evidence of the safety of a 3 in 1 vaccine that was available back then. I should say this was long before the whole Autism thing with the MMR.

@Weetabixandshreddies
Yes you're absolutely right. I hate this too.

@thanksforallthefish
I do know you can have the mmr after natural measles . They say it boosts the antibodies.

I should also add this was in 1983/1984 so long before the MMR was officially rolled out. Our area was one of the early ‘trial run’ areas for the MMR so I can completely understand why my mum didn’t want me to get this when pretty much the rest of the U.K. still had the old style vaccines.

I’m going to have to stop reading this thread, it’s giving me the rage.

My twins are fully vaccinated, as am I - I remember having measles (twice) and mumps as a child, most children now won’t remember this.

When I was pregnant I had the pertussis vaccine but due to an admin error I had it later than now advised. My twins were then early and one had IUGR. Someone brought pertussis into nicu and he contracted it a week or so before his first jabs. His twin and I didn’t catch it but for one of the reasons listed above he did.

Only someone who’s watched their two month old baby almost die from a communicable illness would understand.
At least I knew I’d done what I could to help him. He has brain damage now from something that happened in his early months - we don’t know what.

Any anti vaxxers saying herd immunity doesn’t impact their decision is lying. If you saw measles and diptheria all around and knew your child was likely to catch it, you’d damn well vaccinate.

And to a pp, both my twins are showing signs of ASD although not til 9+ months after MMR. They are not “nothing” now, they are awesome.

But I don't know anyone who is immuno compromised either,

So you don't know any pregnant women, babies too young to be vaccinated, toddlers too young for the MMR, anyone having treatment for cancer or any old people?

I would add to that the millions of people who are on immunosuppressive medications for various medical conditions and people who have damage immune systems from chemotherapy.

MissConductUS

I don't disagree - I am one of them.

I was just trying to point out to that poster who in her every day life are immunocompromised. I think it's easy to dismiss those of us on medication as being "different" but most of us know either someone who is pregnant or who is elderly don't we? I don't see how she doesn't know anyone that is immunocompromised.

@Wilfredohoney thanks for your response. It was such a hard time. In the end I took videos of the nights (they classicly whooped more at night than in the day-when lying down) it was exhausting and frightening. My 3 yr old would go blue.
Then the dr laughing ‘why do you think they have whooping cough?’
Eventually blood tests confirmed it, but not before the head teacher of my 6 yr old had accused me of lying. Just so dreadful. Then the gp’s apologised for not recognising (the text book symptoms) it was made more frightening as I had a 12 week old baby who’d been hospitalised with bronchiolitis but luckily his jabs were effective.
And luckily the other newborns I visited, their mums had had the vaccine in pregnancy. I had just missed the introduction of it.
My vaccinated children were all due boosters so supports the fact that efficacy of the vaccine wanes.

YANBU to feel that way

Yes places like Australia have the right idea, excluding children if they have not been vaccinated (and are able to receive a vaccine/not immunocompromised etc)

Doesn't mean I'd want to go and live in Australia.

There is a chicken pox vaccine available privately, probably about £200 for the course of 2 injections (friends have had it done)

It's offered as standard in the USA & Australia, would be great if it could be introduced here as part of the immunisation schedule.

One of mine isn't vaccinated on doctors advice.

It makes my life so much easier dealing with all her issues to know I am thought despicable.

She is already excluded from so much why should she be excluded from anything more?

Thanks for that.

This.

*One of mine isn't vaccinated on doctors advice.

It makes my life so much easier dealing with all her issues to know I am thought despicable.

She is already excluded from so much why should she be excluded from anything more?

Thanks for that*

Nobody has said that.

But it is even more important for children like yours that other people who have had no such instruction from the doctor TO get their children vaccinated to help keep yours safe from illness!

I've declined the nasal flu vaccine for my son as i was advised that as it sheds it could potentially pass the flu to my younger children who are too young to be vaccinated. Am I dispicable? I was also advised they only give the flu vaccine to this age group to protect the older people, I can't risk my babies catching flu via shedding to save strangers can I?

Innocentconglomeration
Nobody has any issues with people not vaccinating for medical reasons.

Not vaccinating for medical reasons is not the same as being an antivaxxer. It's fairly obvious that there is a difference.

As people have said repeatedly on this thread, herd immunity protects people like your child. (Anti vaxxers also benefit from herd immunity but of course they'll deny that)
Ultimately each time a selfish antivaxxer decides they don't need to bother because their child probably won't get ill, they are putting your child (and everyone else who can't be vaccinated for medical reasons) at risk.

Unreal that there are still people who think not vaccinating their kids is the right choice. I genuinely think some people don't understand the seriousness of what could happen. And that is shocking.

Here's a short story about immunosuppressed me. I merrily went on my way through school, uni, work. Kept getting chest infections and tonsillitis and had lots of blood tests. Doctors said all "normal"
Went to the GP with night sweats. Nice GP did more bloods, and opened every other 50+ blood test I had. Rang me and sent me straight to haematology

I have a condition called autoimmune neutropenia. Usually occurs in children who then grow out of it, I was diagnosed age 31 but likely to have had it for 8 years before that
I kill off my own neutrophils - under 0.5 is classed as severely neutropenic. Mine were 0.3. Neutropenic is what often happens to people on chemo
So once a week I inject a medication called GCSF to stimulate my bone marrow. This gives me a headache, fever, shivering, shaking, vomiting, fainting etc for between 12-36hrs. And I do that EVERY week, usually at night so I can get the worst of it out the way before work

I needed spinal surgery and had to have extra blood tests and be in a side room as I couldn't be on a ward. I go to haematology every 12 weeks for bloods and to get my prescription

People say oh well you should avoid people/groups/concerts etc. I don't get anything for this condition

Imagine suddenly being diagnosed age 31. You have to still work FT. Otherwise who will pay your mortgage and bills? And this isn't for a few short months, it's for life. Would you want to avoid groups of people, bars, clubs, restaurants, public transport, supermarkets... for the rest of your life?

I'm just a normal person that you would pass in the street that suddenly got hit with a diagnosis that even the haematologist was surprised at

If you CANNOT vaccinate, fine. I get that. I couldn't have the MMR. But people seem to be "I don't know anyone immunosuppressed/it would never happen to me" like we are all bald sick looking people who wear signs around our necks

Oh and the photo @Buggeredpelvicfloor2013 posted?
Neulasta is what I inject EVERY week. And yes the bone pain is insane, it's like having flu where you can't stand anything touching you

Well, the OP did say that and didn't qualify, as did others on the first couple of pages.

It wouldn't hurt to have some compassion. Blanket "despicable" and don't let them at school and parents must be thick etc etc doesn't help.

There are CHILDREN who are immunocompromised who can't have the vaccinations. Think on.

As @Blaablaablaa said "heavy bias toward the anti-vaxx movement with many of the professional looking websites actually funded by anti-vaxxers". That's right and there is a reason why they look so professional. They are funded. If you need proff that anti-vaxxing theories are rubbish, well, here it is. There was a article in either Guardian or Independent a couple of weeks ago stating that is has been proven that some of the anti-vaxxing homepages are funded by Russia in an attempt to destabilize the western democracies. Especially Italy has been targeted as the country seems to be on the brink anyway and Russia is hoping that if yet another EU country gets as serious problems as Greece had a couple of years ago it will destabilize the region. There is no way in hell Putin is secretly spending a lot of money protecting the western democracies, so when it has been proving that Russia is spreading anti-vaxx propaganda, you know vaccinations programmes are good and we should all participate.