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 ?

Nobody has the right to force medical treatment in my children.

But what rights do you/should you have in these matters? I’m constantly amazed that the “parents know best for their children” mantra isn’t challenged. My children are absolutely the most important people in my world and I want what’s best for them. But this doesn’t make me an expert in all matters pertaining to them. I’m not a qualified teacher, so why should my views on education automatically hold sway? I’m not a medic, so why should I automatically know better than a paediatric specialist? It’s extreme arrogance.

Plus - my children are not my possessions. They have rights of their own. This is forgotten in these debates. Turn it around - should a child have the right to preventative treatment for a potentially deadly disease irrespective of its parents views on the matter? I think so.

That is just wrong. If you are classing it as the 0.1% risk then my vaccinated child is more likely to infect an unvaccinated child

BogglesGoggles

It is absolutely analogous. Sometimes we are wrong. Sometimes even scientists are wrong. People aren’t the property of the State and have the right to decide what level of risk they are willing to take on.

My 3 year old and 1 year old who are up to date with vaccinations, caught measles themselves. Was awful, I thought chicken pox was bad but measles was so much worse.

I think if more people realised how very dangerous measles can be, there'd be more support for vaccinations. Most parents have probably never seen a child with measles.

I had measles when I was 2. The doctor was visiting 3 times a day, and was considering admitting me to hospital, because it had led to a respiratory infection. He had seen children die from it, and my (very level-headed) mother was terrified I was going to die. A girl at my school had a sibling left brain-damaged and blind from complications from measles.

This is what these irresponsible people are risking.

NataliaOsipova

That is a slightly more persuasive argument, on the surface, than some of these others. But it still doesn’t stand. A child (particularly a baby) doesn’t have the capacity to make their own decisions about healthcare, education, etc. But one day they will. In the meantime, that decision-making power belongs to their parents.

The ‘parents know best for their children’ is a enjoying another resurgence due to the right wing. It’s about reducing the ‘interference’ by the state, which is about cutting taxes, and hence services.

It’s a political statement dressed up as a banal truism.

My DC both had MMR in the 1990s.

Wakefield's infamous paper was published in feb 1998
That's interesting because my eldest was born in 1996 and there was definitely a question about MMR safety when he was due his first vaccination. So before Wakefield's paper? No doubt it was unproven but I do remember agonising over the possible "risk".

@herculepoirot2 how? It’s a completely different product, created for a different reason, tested under a different system, given to people under a different system and for a different reason. On a fundamental level, thalidomide would never be approved for market today. It’s a medical mistake from the past in the same vein a blood letting and depriving people suffering from fever of fluids. It’s almost as if you think ‘this one example of historic bad medical practice which has resulted in a revamp of the way we test and prescribe medicines proved that it is reasonable to be worried about modern day medical practices’.

Woodland, I will try to explain this in words of very few syllables.

If a child who is unvaccinated comes into contact with someone carrying the measles virus, they are extremely likely to contract that potentially fatal or life changing disease.

Whilst that potentially fatal or lifechanging disease is in its incubation period and YOUR unvaccinated child is not displaying symptoms and is out in the community, and may be in contact with MY vaccinated child, who has been one of the unlucky few for whom the vaccine hasn’t worked, MY child is extremely likely to contract that potentially fatal or life changing illness.

YOUR unvaccinated child is therefore a risk to MY vaccinated child.

Herd immunity is not to be relied upon by the lunatic anti vax brigade, but for babies whose systems are not yet mature enough to have the vaccine, or for those who can’t have the vaccine for medical reasons.

Understand now?

They are the kind of people who want to put other people at risk, but not their precious flowers, of any purported risk from the vaccine, because they think OTHERS should provide the herd immunity for their children. And they don't care that that puts people who are immuno-compromised at serious risk from the illnesses the vaccines protect from.

100% this.

Parents don't always know best. People are very bad at evaluating risks. No risk can be 100% eliminated, it's always a matter of weighing up the different options and looking at what the experts say. In this case they say get your kids immunised, unless medically contra-indicated. Extraordinary that some people whose scientific education mostly stopped at GCSE Science think they know better.

That's interesting because my eldest was born in 1996 and there was definitely a question about MMR safety when he was due his first vaccination. So before Wakefield's paper? No doubt it was unproven but I do remember agonising over the possible "risk".

In the 90s, Wakefield tried (and failed) to establish a link to Crohn's disease - first to the measles virus and then to the measles vaccine.

BogglesGoggles

That doesn’t matter. It is just one example of the huge power held by the State to regulate what we can put into our bodies. The power to regulate what we must put into our bodies is a step too far.

Judgerinders - but that is in effect as likely to happen the other way around in fact more likely.

My vaccinated child is not at risk of measles as much as a friends unvaccinated child that is fact

If my vaccinated child was more at risk then why would anyone vaccinate?

The argument you are putting forward is very flawed - are you an anti vaxxer yourself?

My mother nearly died as a child from measles and as a result has permanently damaged vision. If we don't vaccinate then we are heading back to a time when childhood diseases were something to be feared and dangerous and resulted in infant deaths. Whatever the risk perceived from the measles vaccine, it is smaller than the risk from measles.

That's interesting because my eldest was born in 1996 and there was definitely a question about MMR safety when he was due his first vaccination. So before Wakefield's paper? No doubt it was unproven but I do remember agonising over the possible "risk".*

In the 90s, Wakefield tried (and failed) to establish a link to Crohn's disease - first to the measles virus and then to the measles vaccine.

I think what’s important to remember is at that time, the internet wasn’t as accessible as it is now, and for the average member of the public, it wasn’t as easy to carry put your own research into medical, or indeed, many other issues

It works in plenty of other countries that if you want to be enrolled in a state school/nursery you have to have all the vaccines. This should be brought in here. They will still be in the general population obviously but I imagine a lot more uptake of the vaccines would ensue.

These people are selfish and relying on the hard immunity to protect their children.

That is completely irrelevant. The State provided treatment to women, and that treatment turned out not to be safe. If the treatment had been mandatory, the State would have been even more culpable than they were. People must have the right to decline treatment.

But it wasn’t compulsory. At all. It wasn’t just prescribed in the UK, it was worldwide. It wasn’t a ‘State’ imposition. Rail at the inadequacies of the understanding of fetal medicine at the time, rail at ‘Big Pharma’ if you like , but you chose a bad example for your argument of the dangers of government imposing universal health programmes.

Extraordinary that some people whose scientific education mostly stopped at GCSE Science think they know better.

Going back 20 years, some parents then were from before GCSEs/National Curriculum (late 80s so early cohort born mid 70s). Not that the full set of O-level sciences would have in any way equipped anyone to interpret medical research and statistics either.

JellyfishAndShells

I know it wasn’t compulsory. It is an example of why we mustn’t make medical treatments compulsory because of the very real and serious harm the Government (entirely unintentionally) caused.

I need to talk to my consultant about it. Couldn't have the MMR because of an egg allergy, I've had rubella separately
But I'm not vaccinated against measles or mumps and I'm immunocompromised with neutropenia

A child (particularly a baby) doesn’t have the capacity to make their own decisions about healthcare, education, etc. But one day they will. In the meantime, that decision-making power belongs to their parents.

I’m not sure it does. And I’m certainly not sure it should do - at least, not ultimately. It’s a convenient way to deal with day to day issues and, generally, it isn’t challenged as most parents do make good decisions for their children. But where anyone lacks capacity, power ultimately rests with the state. There was a thread on here last year about not going to the health visitor assessments and how they’re purely optional. They are...in the same way that if the police ask if you’d like to come to the station to help with enquiries, you can say “no thanks”. But you can be pretty sure they’ll be back with a warrant!

And I come back to it - why should a child, who lacks capacity and the ability to speak for herself - be wholly dependent on the goodwill of one or two other persons for her health and welfare? The risks to that child are far higher than they are if the state has an interest and the ultimate right to take those decisions. I agree with Hero that there’s a political element to this; I think we should strip away the pretence. Being a parent means that you are automatically entrusted to look after your child until you show yourself incapable of doing so. And that’s all. (And I firmly believe that’s all it should be....as my children should have those rights. And those rights should not depend on me, in any shape or form.)

@Woodlandwitch if you care to read my previous post...

My eldest was born summer 1997, and when that dodgy research came out, it was a bloody scary time. I did have my child vaccinated, *but chose to wait till she was about 6 months older than the advised time.

Now I explained my rationale to you, can you explain yours to me, because I’m damned if I can understand it

it wasn’t as easy to carry put your own research into medical, or indeed, many other issues

So why choose to believe antivaxxers rather than the whole medical establishment?

And with internet 'research' ... unless you know how to evaluate scientific sources, understand statistics etc then frankly you need to give weight to experts. The ones who've done the real research.

Bold fail 🙄

Anti vaxxers are a plague on society.

Too right.

People that don't play by the rules of society don't deserve to benefit form society (healthcare, education, benefits)