UK lost measles free status

[Stressedout10]

So due to all the anti Vaxers the WHO have stripped us of our measles free status.
What next ?

the risk of long term issues such as deafness or blindness is 1 in 15.

What's your source for that statistic, just out of interest?

It absolutely sickens me that some selfish morons are willing to risk the health of other people who aren’t able to be vaccinated just because they want to follow some trend decide what they put into their bodies and their children’s bodies.

There: fixed it for you.

In what way is this a fix? If you aren't sickened that some people will risk the lives of of people who can't be vaccinated because they 'want to decide what they put in their children's bodies' then you're missing an empathy gene. Even if you believe that parents should legally be allowed to harm their children (and others), doesn't it anger you that they do?

And despite what you suggest, the antivax movement is a trend...

@abitoflight

• @ErrolTheDragon - or if anyone else has experience, can 20 year olds just book in for 3rd MMR at gp's? Is this an accepted thing in most gp's surgeries? Thanks*

As far as I know, no. We went to a private company in Manchester, where she'd also had the chickenpox vacc before she started into GCSEs as she'd not caught it and didn't want to as a teen. IIRC it was £70. Bearing in mind she has a close friend who had to take a gap year because of mumps (and I think may have some ongoing neurological problem as a result from something she said), and that it would be more disruptive to get it mid-course - when you consider the costs of uni, it seemed cheap at the price.

DH, who like me is 58, also had 2 doses of MMR there this year - he'd somehow escaped getting any of them during childhood.

I've said repeatedly that refusing to vaccinate doesn't need to be made illegal (although I would have no qualms with it being law that children had to be vaccinated, I'm working with your scruples here). It should just be made expensive, inconvenient and embarrassing enough that it dissuades the vast majority from making that decision.

I'm in the US and we've had a couple of chickenpox cases recently in our schools. When a chickenpox case is reported, the school checks all the vaccination records, and excludes any unvaccinated children until either 2 weeks after the final case has been diagnosed, or until that child can show evidence of having been vaccinated.

It's amazing how quickly all the anti-vaxxers got their children vaccinated when they realised that not only were their children not going to be in school for several weeks, but everyone knew why their children were not in school.

Oh and DD's 18 year old boyfriend, who is unvaccinated because his mum is a stupid twat, is now getting vaccinated as quickly as possible so that he can take up his free ride at a very prestigious college.

I''m in the US and we've had a couple of chickenpox cases recently in our schools. When a chickenpox case is reported, the school checks all the vaccination records, and excludes any unvaccinated children until either 2 weeks after the final case has been diagnosed, or until that child can show evidence of having been vaccinated.

That is interesting - in the UK (or England at least - not sure if this is devolved) chicken pox vaccination is not generally offered on the NHS - only to those considered at particular risk. There was a thread a while back discussing the rationale for this - it was to do with increasing the risk of shingles in adults I seem to remember. Interesting that US has a different approach.

If I have dc2 they're getting the chickenpox vaccine privately. Nasty illness. DD got it before she was old enough for the vaccine, unfortunately.

It makes me very cross that anti-vaxxers are so evangelical. Ironically, that actually hurts the chances of their kids escaping unscathed into adulthood.

Totally agree that vaccination should be a condition of entry to schools etc unless on the case of a valid medical exemption.

If you aren't sickened that some people will risk the lives of of people who can't be vaccinated because they 'want to decide what they put in their children's bodies' then you're missing an empathy gene

Whereas I think that if you don’t understand that my primary responsibility is to my child, you are missing a common sense gene. 🤷🏻‍♀️ I empathise, but it doesn’t change my position.

I'm very happy to live in a society where the state makes medical decisions for those who can't make their own informed decisions, including children, provided those decisions are based on robust evidence. Children should not be put at risk because their parents made bad choices. Parents have responsibilities to their children and that is far more important than having rights over their children.

If vaccines are so safe, why is there an annual cost budget set for vaccine damage compensation, for settling cases with the parents of vaccine damaged children out of court? Surely if vaccines are that safe the budget set should be nil.

I don't agree that any form of medical treatment should be mandatory. Mistakes are made in big systems- things are overlooked, filed incorrectly etc. I can well imagine a situation where a child who cannot safely have a vaccine is vaccinated anyway if they were mandatory.

I do think that unvaccinated kids without medical exemptions shouldn't be allowed in schools, nurseries, colleges and universities though.

@OrchidInTheSun I have the paperwork that says my child had the mumps vaccine, I got it done in Manchester.

@Mascarponeandwine

I imagine the fund to settle the cases is to keep the stories out of the media as they would be damaging. Odds are, if they went to court, it would eventually be established in most cases that the vaccine was not at fault, but the damage to public perceptions would be done.

Mascarponeandwine - because there is a very tiny risk of side effects. The key part of that is "very tiny" - bloody minuscule in fact.

On the other hand one in ten people that get measles will end up in hospital (www.nhs.uk/conditions/vaccinations/measles-outbreak-advice/), and some of the effects of infection can be life-changing, life-long or indeed fatal

mascarpone someone wrote out all the stats a page or so ago. Nobody has claimed that the vaccine is 100% risk free, just that the possible risks are negligible compared to the risks of not vaccinating

I guess the question is do you trust medical science enough to believe that vaccination is harmless in the long term. We have done an awful lot of things that we believe are good - antibiotics for example - that then show up to have unintended consequences - ie bacteria becoming resistant.

There are studies that show the immune response to naturally caught illnesses are different to the response to vaccines. For example, naturally caught measles passes into the blood stream and milk to protect infants while the vaccine doesn’t generate the same response so infants are left vulnerable. Which isn’t a problem in a society where we vaccinate - but what happens if for some reason we stop?

That doesn’t mean I’m against vaccination but I do think we should be wary of unexpected consequences and accept that those who don’t vaccinate have valid concerns rather than the assumption they are definitely good.

There are also vaccines that produce a better immune response than getting the illness:

www.chop.edu/centers-programs/vaccine-education-center/vaccine-safety/immune-system-and-health

And vaccine immunity doesn't come with adverse consequences of having the infection.

vk.ovg.ox.ac.uk/measles

CDC measles factsheet are a good source of info

There may be long term unintended consequences. But surely they will pale into insignificance compared to the 20m+ lives saved since 2,000

There is a 1 in a million chance of vaccine damage. Therefore given the number of babies and children vaccinated each year for each disease, there will be occasional pay outs.

It always amazes me how hypocritical people are about vaccination on here. So I have my child vaccinated to benefit society and s/he suffers nasty life-changing side-effects. Will society help me then? Not a chance

Yes, it will. Both the UK and US governments offer no fault compensation for those injured as a result of vaccines

See, eg, www.hrsa.gov/vaccine-compensation/index.html

More below about the rationale for state funding of vaccination injury compensation

The public health benefits of vaccination are clear. The World Health Organization estimates that, in 2008, more than 2.5 million deaths were prevented by vaccination.1 Immunization programmes have led to the eradication of smallpox, the elimination of measles and poliomyelitis in many regions, and substantial reductions in morbidity and mortality from Haemophilus influenzae type b, diphtheria, whooping cough and tetanus. However vaccines are not without risks and it is commonly accepted that, regardless of proper design, manufacture and delivery, adverse events occur following vaccination although serious adverse events are rare.2

At a population level, it is considered that these small risks are balanced by the benefits of widespread population immunization. However this means that an individual occasionally bears a significant burden for the benefit provided to the rest of the population. Although these vaccine-related adverse events occur occasionally due to negligence, more often there is no clearly attributable fault.

Without evidence of clear negligence, it is difficult to obtain compensation through traditional legal mechanisms. Recognizing this, several countries have implemented vaccine-injury compensation programmes.3 These programmes reflect a belief that it is fair and reasonable that a community that is protected by a vaccination programme accepts responsibility for and provides compensation to those who are injured by it.

www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/89/5/10-081901/en/

I totally understand the anger directed at anti vaxxers, but I do wonder if this could have been avoided if the government hadn't made it so difficult and expensive to have single vaccines back when parents still had valid reason to be concerned about the MMR.

Children from that era are sitting GCSEs and A levels, now. It has less bearing on current primary school children.

in the UK (or England at least - not sure if this is devolved) chicken pox vaccination is not generally offered on the NHS - only to those considered at particular risk. There was a thread a while back discussing the rationale for this - it was to do with increasing the risk of shingles in adults I seem to remember.

DH and I came across this rationale when we were wondering whether to get DD vacc'd. DH - who has had shingles - considered it a nobrainer, he'd rather have shingles than let kids get ill.

However, note that there is now a shingles vacc. It's available on the NHS to the over 70s
www.nhs.uk/conditions/vaccinations/shingles-vaccination/

Seems there is a newer one available in the US which their CDC is recommending to over 50s
www.webmd.com/skin-problems-and-treatments/shingles/news/20180212/new-shingles-vaccine_what-you-need-to-know

But there's a supply issue, unsurprising for any new vacc. So I'll guess that one isn't available here and/or expensive.

Hercule Poirot - no one is telling you you have to put chemicals in your child's body, they are saying if you don't - and bear in mind these are lifesaving "chemicals" (and FYI immunizations aren't chemicals but small doses of virus) - you cannot risk other children's health.

You cannot have it both ways. Measles can cause blindness, brain damage and death. I am about to give birth and the idea that your child could ruin the life of mine or others because you wanted autonomy over something that is just pure common sense and social responsibility? There is nothing more selfish.

Yeah, i hink the CP vaccination is reserved for the most vulnerable and most prepared to pay.

The irony here, for those willing to rely on herd immunity. Wide history of autism in my family. Got the boys through all their infant and young child jabs, anyhow. They were clearly autistic, already. Now they are teens, no one is getting anywhere near them with needles or sprays - DS2 in a special school and eligible for the flu mist. So those people who think they merely need the tin foil hat, just in case, for their neurotypical kids are putting my autistic, regardless, kids at risk.