Anti-vaccination friends around newborn

[Originalusernameunavailable]

Hello, NC for this.

I am going to start by stressing this is not a thread for opinions on whether to vaccinate children or not. That’s an individual decision for everyone.

I do vaccinate my children because I believe the pros outweigh the risks.

My newborn obviously isn’t old enough for any jabs yet.

The subject came up with a friend as to whether I would allow our friends who are anti-vaccinations to be visiting my newborn in my own home due to risks of them being carriers of any of the ailments the vaccinations cover.

I can honestly say it’s not something I had considered before. My thoughts are my baby could come into contact with lots of people who have various illnesses, germs etc.

However, I was wondering if I’m being too laid back or whether my friends are just being neurotic in terms of the visiting/contact?

As I’ve said, please don’t make this into a slanging match about pro/anti vaccinations, please take the question as it is -

Is it unreasonable to think unvaccinated visitors are putting a newborn at extra risk?

Unreasonable - don’t be ridiculous!
Reasonable - don’t risk it!

Because they believe that half an hour on Google > several years of higher education, countless research hours, and the benefit of experience.

I’m sorry but I dint follow you.
You have a person A who you have no idea is immune to a disease or not. You know they haven’t been vaccinated and you know they haven’t had the disease (I’m assuming you’ve asked them and they remember).
Why are they less at risk of catching disease? You seem to be assuming that those illnesses are only found in children That was roughly true 50 years ago when there was no vaccine and it was considered a childhood illness. Nowadays? I can’t see why this is the case.

You have a person A who you have no idea is immune to a disease or not. You know they haven’t been vaccinated and you know they haven’t had the disease (I’m assuming you’ve asked them and they remember).
Why are they less at risk of catching disease?

People frequently pick up immunity without knowing it. I have never knowingly had Rubella, but recent testing shows I'm immune to it.

An unvaccinated child who goes to nursery, school, playgrounds, soft play, children's parties, brownies, cubs, playgroups etc etc has a much higher chance of picking up infections than an elderly adult.

But, ultimately, as I've said - and you have ignored - it's up to the parents to decide, whether you think their reasons are valid or not.

how would you know if someone is vaccinated when out and about. Most adults are not and even those who are vaccinated can sometimes get the illness. Unless there is an outbreak near you then I wouldn't worry.

@CanIHaveADrink the burden of proof is not on me. I was not the one who made any claim, it was @Louise267 who claimed that people over 30 have lost immunity to the diseases we vaccinate for. I am still waiting for their response.

all the reasonable people have said you aren’t unreasonable to keep your baby away from them

Yes you can say to someone who says they've not vaccinated their kids that the kids can't come round until your own child is old enough to have been vaccinated, but realistically there's nothing you can do about adults because you would have to ban everyone, you simply cannot know every friend and relative's immune status.

The point I was trying to make @strawberrieshortcake is that actually, you will struggle to find good quality reliable evidence about the positive side of vaccines.
The golden type of research is an RCT (the one used to show how medication is effective against x disease). To do an RCT with vaccine wouod mean giving children all a vaccination but half wouod get the vaccine and the other half would get an inactive placebo. And then after 5 or 10 years if there is a difference in the number of cases for that disease.
For ethical reason, this has never been done so we Only have weaker evidence that vaccination is effective. (In effect looking at a relationship between two facts rather than a causation - which is very different)

Add to that the fact that no research is perfect and it’s impossible to just TRUST the conclusion of a paper (you really want to look at the way statistics have been analyses, baises, confounding factors etc.... before being able to make a judgment). And the fact that, in most cases, you can find evidence for one thing and its opposite, I wouod say that ‘having proof from evidence based research’ is a bit naive. You get an idea if it’s efficient or not (eg the flu vaccine is efficient in about 40% of cases if it’s the same strain but it seems that it’s less efficient the more you get the vaccine...) but research will never tell you that vaccines ARE efficient 100% of the time or they ARE dangerous and cause auto immune disease etc...
I also think that it is also totally possible that some of the side effects associated with vaccines are actually an issue with the adjuvant in the vaccines rather than the vaccine itself which also opens up a whole range of other issues.
You can also add issues with getting multiple vaccines (see the Gulf war syndrome) and whether ut has ever been ‘tested’, the age of the child when they get the vaccination (how mature is their immune system) etc etc.....

Basically what I am trying to say is that it’s very complicated. And saying you want to see the research is not as simple as sending a couple of links to PubMed. It would need hours of work have a properly non biased opinions from the research available atm, knowing it will have flaws and unanswered questions (and will probably need to be done again in 1 or 2 years time.....).

I also think that if you think people who are not vaccinated should be staying away from babies, then you need to be able to provide evidence for that, at the same standard you are expecting people with a different opinion.
If it’s so obvious that things shouod be like this, then it shouod also be easy to find the relevant research iyswim.

Unfortunately, I am finding that most people just ASSUME the research is there And ASSUME it’s proving what they think is common knowledge.

Yes. There was a measles epidemic in Swansea when my daughter was born. (We're in London.) My Swansea God-son was not vaccinated as his mother (my oldest friend) believed the autism link. So I dis-invited them from my daughter's christening.

I want to say I wouldn’t let them near my children but my Dad was never vaccinated as a child, my Gran is staunchly religious and an anti vaxxer. My best friend also wasn’t vaccinated, his Mum was a bit of a hippy. I have let both of those people near my newborns and all was fine.

Another one who absolutely would not let unvaccinated (by choice) individuals near my newborn.

The standard/recommended immunisation are there for a reason, those are the diseases most likely to cause serious harm.

Canihaveadrink
you will struggle to find good quality reliable evidence about the positive side of vaccines

seriously? Look at the statistics. They show massive reductions in rates of the various illnesses we now immunize against, following the introduction of vaccines.

Can I have a link to an RCT then?

I wouldn't have let unvaccinated children around mine when they were newborns. And I wouldn't have apologised one bit.

You would be unforgivably irresponsible to allow them near your newborn.

Btw just in case I need to make that clear. I am not an anti vaxxers.

But I have looked at research papers quite a lot and I am annoyed at people just ASSUMING it has to be right because ‘government’ says so.
That’s not what research is (and government decisions have many many biases)

A no from me. There was recently a child locally aged 11 months who contracted measles from an older non-vaccinated child.

actually, you will struggle to find good quality reliable evidence about the positive side of vaccines.

www.historyofvaccines.org/content/blog/vaccine-randomized-clinical-trials

The "good quality evidence" about the safety of vaccines:

• drop in death rates associated with the diseases we vaccinate against
• drop in transmission and infection rates of the diseases we vaccinate against
• multiple studies, including a fairly large recent one, showing the safety of vaccines and that there is no link between vaccines and autism as well as no link between vaccines and autoimmune diseases

Nope, not allowed anywhere near my newborn

Just want to say OP that I can’t agree with you that vaccinating children “is an Individual decision for everyone”.
It really shouldn’t be - this is how herd immunisation works (or rather at the moment doesn’t because of some debunked quackery)
There really are some things we don’t consider to be acceptable choices for individuals such as whether or not your child receives medical care, whether or not your child receives an education etc. When these things are denied children we tend to see it as abuse and get SS involved. Given that denying children vaccinations not only puts the children who haven’t been immunised at risk but also risks the wider population, I am quite passionate that we are far too tolerant of anti vax being a legitimate view point and valid individual choice. We do not live in a libertarian society they allows people to do whatever they feel like, there are some (although not terribly many) basic rules that we expect people to follow to participate in in our society, and because of the overwhelming scientific evidence in favour of them, vaccinations really ought to be part of this.

In response to your specific question DEFINITELY keep the non-inoculated away from your new born! I plan to!

anyone babbling about evidence that vaccines don't work; pray tell why there is no smallpox now?

there could be no polio too if it weren't for religious nuts sabotaging the vaccination programme. It is their fault that children are still dying or being paralysed.

This year in the US it has been clear that the outbreak they’ve had was linked to people who had been vaccinated...

What nonsense is this? Please state your source.

Op, would you let a person with a loaded gun in their pocket into your house to meet your newborn. I mean, statistically they aren't likely to shoot them. But....would you?

www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd/dtap-tdap-td/public/index.html

Ten years at best for these....

I must definitely be spreading the above diseases going by some of the theories on here 🙄