Anti-vaxxers are neglecting their children?

[sallycinnamonn]

Having a conversation with a friend about this whole anti-vaxxers malarkey.

She made an interesting point saying when a parent chooses not to vaccinate their child, it should be seen as neglect, as they are failing to protect them and their wellbeing and are putting them at risk of disease/death. It should be considered neglect just as it would be if the parent was putting them at risk of disease/death through placing them in a inadequate, unsafe environment etc.

I don't agree with anti-vaxxers but have never thought about it this way before. What are your opinions on it being considered as neglect? I'm interested to see what others have to say about her opinion.

It’s really a sign of the times IMO. A lot of people are fucking nut jobs, and they’re allowed to be, because they have their own right to be a fucking nut job. Regardless of how their nut like behaviour and beliefs effect other people/society, they, have their own right to cause havoc. An individuals feelings/opinion are more important than a fact. It’s terrible.

You lot are like witches .

Witches who all have degrees in social work to determine neglect.
FFS a generation who can't just look after their own kids but think they have a right to dictate to other parents. What a shit show you are.
There were lots of children who suffered from these diseases when I was a child, much more than today. Never once did you hear these parents complain about others who hadn't immunised.
Look after your own kids, stop expecting society to do it. If you can't immunise do what others do and H educate, if it bothers you that much.

Definitely neglectful! Children shouldn't be able to attend school if they aren't vaccinated.

Well said, and yet they call the unvaccinated brainwashed! Brain damage from vaccines is fine and part and parcel of our society- as long as it's not their child eh.

Well said, and yet they call the unvaccinated brainwashed! Brain damage from vaccines is fine and part and parcel of our society- as long as it's not their child eh.
This!

Hmmm...
I'm pro vaccines, both my DS's are up to date on all vaccines.
However, anti-vaxers have their own reasons as to why they chose not to vaccinate and they believe its in their child's best interest not to do so. They don't just decide not to vaccinate because they'd rather the child have the disease.

Whilst I personally don't understand why they wouldn't, they don't understand why I do. There are risks with both. I believed that the risk of illness was greater by not vaccinating than the risk of harm from the vaccine, they believe that the risk of harm from the vaccine is greater than the risk of illness from not vaccinating.

There are plenty of doctors who are anti-vaxxers too.
So labelling them neglectful isn't helpful as they truly believe it's what is best for their child.

Every "side" of an argument has strong beliefs,
Vaxxers vs anti-vaxxers
Breast vs bottle
Stay at home vs working mother
School vs home educated
There will always be this "I'm better than you because..." attitude. When really, all any of us are really doing is trying to get our kids to adulthood without damaging them.

My uncle died at 18 months of polio back in the pre-vax days. He suffered terribly and my gran never got over it. Most of us have no concept of just how awful these diseases were and the devastating effects they had on families.

It's is a sad but irrefutable fact that parents do not always know what is best when it comes to their own children. Maybe most parents do, but there will always be children who have to be protected from their parents. In my experience working with families, most parents who neglect their DC aren't doing so deliberately, but under the misguided belief that they are doing the right thing. I worked with a 15 year old boy who was very, very unwell with a Psychotic illness and had to be detained under the mental health act. He was so unwell that two members of hospital staff had to be within arm's length of him 24/7 or he would seriously harm himself or someone else. He had no idea who he was, where he was, he didn't recognise his own family. His parents were kind, loving people and they were clearly distraught to see him this way. This boy had been well cared for his whole life prior to becoming ill but one of the reasons he had become so unwell was because they had taken him off his prescribed antipsychotic meds, without informing his medical team. This was because they didn't believe he was mentally ill, they were adamant he was possessed by an evil spirit. They were 100% convinced of this belief and no amount of evidence or pleas from experienced professionals would convince them. So the boy had to be medicated against his parents wishes, which upset them a great deal. None of the professionals involved took any pleasure in upsetting them but all knew it was absolutely the right decision. Even when the medication kicked in and he started to get better, they still couldn't accept that they were wrong. They believed that it was because their prayers had been heard.

That boys parents were not deliberately neglectful, they were loving parents but they were acting in a way that was negligent and unable to see it due to their strongly held beliefs. I believe the same is true of 'anti-vaxxers'.

MinisterforCheekyFuckery Thank you for that very informative post, its very interesting to know that non-vaccination is a big of a neglect flag when combined with other things in a dysfunctional family.

MinisterforCheekyFuckery And for your followup one too. Great to read something from someone who actually knows what they're talking about.

@WhentheRabbitsWentWild lucky you being so fit.

As long as you are ok....

Ripple

The result is exactly the same non immunisation means you either catch something or not, it has nothing to do with reason.
If you are going for full immunisation that is everyone, not everyone except those medically unable.
There was a huge increase in anti vaxers when mine were little as that man I can't remember the name of linked to Autism.

I had one that had to wait until older to be immunised. I didn't send him to school as that would have been neglectful. We moved 250 miles to a cheaper area, I gave up work, H.educated and put my child first.
This is what those unable to be immunised should do, put theirs first and not have a go at those who decide not to immunise.

I think its neglectful in the absence of medical reasons to not-vaccinate.

I wonder if rabbits realises the reason she didn't catch anything is because everyone else was protecting her...

I was never vaccinated (apart from one) and I lived to tell the tale.

That's because the majority vaccinated their children. You lived to tell the tale because of herd immunity. I'm sure you are very grateful to all the people who did vaccinate their children.

There was a case recently in the US of an unimmunised child who got full-blown tetanus/lockjaw following a small cut. He spent something like 57 days in hospital, a month on a ventilator. The doctors were deeply upset at his pain and suffering. His parents refused the second tetanus shot and any other immunisations. I think they should be prosecuted for child cruelty.

@WhentheRabbitsWentWild I know someone that survived a car accident as a child only because they weren't in a child car seat. The car was almost completely crushed by a lorry; he only survived because he'd got down into the footwell to retrieve a toy. If we're going to get into who survived X event versus who didn't... well that's just a whole big can of worms.

I also know someone who survived polio as a child. It's still not completely eradicated worldwide. I wonder if antivaxxers would stick to their beliefs if polio came back to the UK.

The thing is that is is not the hardline anti vaxxers who are directly causing the drop in uptake. They are around 1-2% of the population, always have been and always will be.
The drop is caused by a group of people who are ‘vaccine hesitant’, who have vague concerns about vaccines. In the past they talked to health care providers who, in the main, reassured them and they went ahead. Nowadays they turn to social media which has been flooded with anti vaccination propaganda.
One of the reasons for this is that a) people who are pro vaccine don’t generally feel strongly enough about it to campaign and b) people who have unremarkable vaccination experiences don’t tend to post about it (Jonny has his MMR today, it was fine).
This means that the views of the anti vaxxers are disproportionately represented on the internet, and people are starting to believe that they are a legitimate body, rather than a tiny minority.
These are the people who need to be targeted. We will never change the minds of the anti vaxxers.

I was never vaccinated (apart from one) and I lived to tell the tale .

How lucky for you. My son contracted whooping cough the week before his jabs and could easily have died. What’s your point?

How DARE YOU call parents like mine neglectful because they didn't buy into a hive mind that this forum and this thread appears to have ?

Hive mind? Do you mean science?

No, that's ridiculous. There are plenty of reasons parents don't or can't vaccinate. If one of your children was left permanently disabled due to a vaccine, you might consider not vaccinating your next. They may have medical issues. Who knows. It's an absolutely ridiculous thing to suggest

So a child with a medical issue which prevents them having a vaccine should be excluded from Education?

Every "side" of an argument has strong beliefs
Vaxxers vs anti-vaxxers
Breast vs bottle
Stay at home vs working mother
School vs home educated

The difficulty is, though, which of these scenarios renders a child more likely to die of a preventable illness? Breastfeeding? Home Educating? SAHM's? The only one of your examples which leaves a child's life potentially in the balance is vaccinating versus not vaccinating. I appreciate that you're seeing it as a balanced thing - and I agree we're all just trying to get them to adulthood healthily, but vaccines statistically help our children survive to adulthood and I can't help but think that folk who ignore scientific evidence and research are doing their children a disservice.

We had ours done privately at a clinic in Birmingham because DS1 was unwell after his first vaccines with febrile convulsions. There are ways to do it in a less invasive manner if the whole 3-in-1 thing bothers you, there are ways to do it so that their bodies don't have multiple vaccines at once. But my goodness, they need those vaccines.

Friends of ours had a DS who contracted whooping cough as a very young baby. He lived to 9 months, his older siblings had to watch his suffering to the end and I have never been more convinced that parents who simply choose to not vaccinate need either more education or to keep themselves and their DC away from humanity because no baby should die from pneumonia brought on by a disease we should have eradicated by now.

So a child with a medical issue which prevents them having a vaccine should be excluded from Education?
Not at all. For herd (or community) immunity to be successful around 95% of the population need to be vaccinated.
This means that the small number (less than 5%) of people who can’t be vaccinated are also protected.

Yes.

Unless there are medical reasons you should absolutely vaccinate your children. Not doing so is incredibly selfish and irresponsible.

The reason the vaccine damage payment have been made 900 times since 1979 is because you can have 4 doctors say it's vaccine damage and the 5th one say it isn't and the claim gets turned down. I would never rely on the government paying that out and the amount is pitiful.

The cutting of services in this country for disabled children and adults and the deep cuts made over the last ten years make me want to not vaccinate.

Im not saying I'm a anti vaxxer but when you have to fight for every crumb that your disabled child receives and then at 18 even those scraps disappear.

On a balance of probabilities I would rather nurse my child through chicken pox or mumps or measles rather than risk the vaccine. And I have vaccinated my children but different to the schedule and took different precautions as a blood relative had a severe reaction. My own children have both had minor reactions.

The people talking about neglect on here are never the people offering help to those they know with disabled family members or giving to charities that help. Yes some will and do but I'm talking generally.

The government needs to do alot more to get people's trust back and they have not tried in the last 20 years, as from what I have seen happening since all the mmr crap went around.

Even children who missed out at that time of mmr hysteria can't receive it free, if it is and was that important to the government then why can't those now in their late teens and early 20s recieve a vaccine for free.

The government have played a massive part in this and have not taken responsibility but yet parents are meant to trust them.

Do all the people bleating on about herd immunity help with the disabled in their schools and community or is it a case of I'm alright jack?? The parent not vaccinating their child is surely doing the same thing with regards to herd immunity and taking a I'm alright jack approach too. Why is it okay for some and not for others??

But Benes at the young ages these vaccines are dished out at, chances are many of those DCs are not yet diagnosed with those very illnesses that do make them more vulnerable to a bad reaction, especially from multi jabs 🤷‍♀️

Took 12 years for mine to be fully diagnosed

litecraft statement on page 3 is the reason vaccination should never be mandatory. What a huge fuck you to the parents of vaccine damaged children.