IMO the issue here is that we have become so obsessed with the need to vaccinate against everything that people are no longer in a position to know which illnesses are genuinely serious illnesses and which might have some unpleasant symptoms but are mild illnesses in the scheme of things. And as such people choose not to vaccinate than to vaccinate against everything.
It’s like chicken pox, Yes, it can be unpleasant, but CP is not a serious illness. Serious complications happen but they are extremely rare, probably about as rare in fact as complications from MMR are, and yet people play down the complications which can occur due to vaccine damage and talk up the potential complications from chicken pox.
Polio is of course a serious illness as is measles. However rubella is not a serious illness and mumps is more serious to teenage boys, and in fact there is some evidence emerging that more and more teenagers are contracting mumps because the immunity from vaccinations is not life-long.
As for rubella, if the woman is immune then she won’t pass the vaccination on to her baby.
Rather than name calling on both sides of this discussion it would make more sense for studies to be done into which illnesses have genuine risk of serious complications and which don’t, thus meaning that campaigns can be launched in order to promote those vaccinations which really are necessary, while leaving it up to parents to decide whether to vaccinate their children against the other illnesses.
Also, the fact that the government failed to make single jabs available to parents at a time when the scares were at their height led to parents deciding to not vaccinate at all, whereas if single jabs had been available many of the parents who didn’t vaccinate at all would have done so on a schedule.
It’s interesting to see how the discussion on this has changed over the years though. When I first joined MN mine was still small, and at that point there was a lot more sympathy for the fears of parents who didn’t want to vaccinate their children, as well as understanding of children who parents believed were vaccine damaged. Now parents have resorted to hurling insults which benefits no-one.
My DS did have mmr fwiw, but I wouldn’t even have considered vaccinating him against chicken pox had the vaccine existed when he was little. He caught the virus naturally anyway and is therefore immune now.
While I think that vaccinations are necessary in many instances, I also think that we over vaccinate children. Overloading their immune systems with the amounts of vaccines we give them all in one shot is bound to have an impact on a child who has lower immunity etc but which the parent may not realise.
Also, it is incredibly unreasonable to suggest that people should vaccinate their children to protect other people’s. We are each responsible for our own children. Where does this end? Should everyone have the flu jab because a few can’t? Should my whole family have the flu jab because I have a heart condition which puts me at risk of endocarditis which I did in fact contract three years ago through the flu?
It’s just not that simple, and no amount of name calling is going to change the views of someone who has done their own research or perhaps had their own experiences and has chosen not to vaccinate.
Rather than calling people thick, telling them they’re neglecting their children and putting others at risk and should be prosecuted etc, why not come up with logical discussion as to why vaccination is so necessary in so many instances?
Calling someone thick is only going to make you feel bettter, but look worse.