To still really worry about the MMR jab?

[pastalady]

My DS of 2 yrs 4 mnths had it today after we put it off for ages because of concerns. Have dreaded him having it because of all the scare stories I have read about it. Read the MMR facts website which made me feel better, but I can't stop thinking about the stories I've read about parents who's toddlers regressive autism/severe illness and even death coincided with the jab and medical people who still keep piping up about it being unsafe.

I really don't know if we've made the right decision. Am I being unreasonable to still feel worried like this so far down the MMR scandle line?

Well 500 years ago there was enough evidence to be sure the Earth was flat! and you know a very respected and famous scientist was given a bad time about it

However, I was talking about opinions being good departing points for research not the final end of it. Evidence covers case x, z, & y, but what happens in case D? unless we are talking basic maths I don't believe in absolutes.

However, as I have said, I think the MMR is safe for the great majority of children.

By the scandinavian study I asusme you mean the Dnaish study- the one that looked at all children born between 1991 and 1998?

Lots of problems with that study

1. Adjustments were made (for things like birth weight, mothers education etc). Before the adjustments were made vaccinated children were actually 45% more likely to deveop autism. After adjustments this was changed to lss likely- but the difference was not significant.

2. The researchers picked up a rate of autism of 1 in 709. The latest UK figures are 1 in 86. Either something very different is going on in Denmark or their figure are wrong. It is possible that the figures are wrong. For starters they included children under 2 years of age who would be hugely unlikely to have an autism diagnosis, even if they were autistic.

3)And this is the biggy. They didn't consider different subgroups. They didn't consider that it might have triggered autism in a minority of the cases. The lead researcher Kreesten Madsen has said "we can say that MMR is not one of the common causes of autism". EVERYONE knows that, Wakefield knows that, the parents of autistic kids know that, Shattock knows that, O Leary knows that- everyone knows that. That's not the question. The question is whether its causing autism in a small group, a susceptible group. People in the field give the figure of around 7%. The Danish study was not dsesigned to pick that up.

I've replied about rhe conflict of interest on the other thread. It's going trhough the GMC. Elizabeth Miller forgot to decalre her conflicts of interests (funding from 3 vaccine manufacturers) on papers supporting the MMR.

Elizabeth Miller herself (yep she of the conflict of interest- hea dof immunisation) has agreed that the papers published do not discount the possibility MMR may be a factor in 10% or less of cases.

You cannot get round the fact that the work hasn't been done. There isn't a study out there that has addressed the correct hypothesis.

I'm not a scientist.

I am worried about the damage jabs can do though and was most concerned to find a Vaccine Damage Fund on the NHS website. There are many damaged by vaccines. I'm going to read that Halvorsen book.

Gess I thnk you will find the 1 in 86 figure has been discredited by the lead researcher in the work you are referring to noone knows the absolute incidence and it is not that high. At the end of the day there will always be people who believe that immunisation is some big conspiracy on the part of the medical profession to damage children. The reality is that immunistaion has been the single most important public health discovery of the last 200 years. It has saved far more lives than it has allegedly damaged. Autism is an extremely complex condition and parents will always look for a reason for it happening to their child. I have great sympathy with this but to suggest that MMR is a cause of autism for 10% of children is unfounded.

The other thing I would say is that the MMR issue is only an issue in this country. When you go abroad to conferences other hcps are incredulous about the drama that sorrounds this vaccine in this country. A colleague in Australia cannot believe that we have such low immunisation rates and in a so called devloped country we have children dying of measles due to the scaremomgering of psuedoscientists.

And by the way the single jabs are less well researched than the MMR which is now the single most studied vaccine in the world.

I don't think immunisation is one big medical conspiracy to damage children.

But I do think that there is not enough known about the negative effects and that there is a complacency about it.

Andiem,

I don't think many people believe there is a conspiracy to damage children, just that they are possibly overlooking the risks to the few in the interests of the many. All very well unless your child is one of the few...

As for other countries not being concerned - hasn't Japan gone back to single vaccines after the public lost faith in the MMR due to a series of deaths and side-effects? Not sure but perhaps a proper researcher could look into it. I'm sure I read it somewhere.

Found something referencing it here
I know it says they used a different strain of the mumps bit to us and that was the cause of the problems BUT...
I am also sure that all the parents were told repeatedly that it was totally safe for a long time before the problems were acknowledged.
I still just don't know what to do for the best.

Japan has now gone back to MMR due to problms with the single vaccines such as parental compliance etc in fact they sae a rise in the incodence of autism after the introduction of the single jabs

This is a very good article www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article2060575.ece

terrible spellin sorry one handed typing

Can you have the MMR jab seperatly?

Clinical evidence is overwhelmingly in favour of MMR. You will always find people who will say "ah yes but they didn't consider..." and what usually follows is some tiny subgroup or they offer a personal anecdote that is meant to wipe out long term, peer reviewed studies into thousands of children in many countries.

It's unreasonable (in the sense of rational) to worry but it's also perfectly normal becaues the scare has been deep and prolonged. I have been in your position and as time went on the anxiety lessened.

It is not unfounded to sugges that autism is triggered by MMR in 10% or less of cases. The published evidence that there may be something going on:

1. O leary's lab has fund measles virus in 82% of the guts of children with autistic enterocolitis, only 7% of the guts of controls.

2. A second paper from the same team- that measles virus was the vaccine strain.

3. An American team (walker et al) have now replicated these finding.

4. children who had receievd a measles containing vaccine and had developmental delay divided into 2 groups. 1 had one measles containing vaccine, the other 2 measles containing vaccines. The children given a second dose developed a reoccurence of symptoms such as blood in the stool. 61% of those who had 2 jabs had acute gut inflammation vs 13% of those who had one jab. Behavioural regression accompanied the physical symptoms

The American Institute of Medicice report on MMR and autism in 2001 concluded that MMR was unlikely to cause autism at the population lebel, but said that "MMR could contribute to ASD in a small number of children'. In other words they don't think that Wakefile's hypothesis is unfounded. The also said that 'well documeneted reports of similar outcomes in response to an initial exposure of a vaccine, and a repeat exposure to the same vacine referred to as a re-challenge' woud constitute strong evidence of an association". Study 4 is exactly that.

I don;t think that vacintion is some great conspiracy, how ridicuous, but I do think that there is over confidence in 1) their efficiency (which is why we have the mumps cock up now) and 2) their safety. Vaccine safety trials are not sufficient especially in combination with a system which refuses to notify when they should. On mumsnet there's amumsnetter whose son had MMR and a few days later developed encephalitis, The doctors refued to yellow card it. Any portential reaction should be notified - they're not.

Also mistakes have been made through vaccintion. The mass immunisation against diptheria in thr 1940's causes the massive polio outbreak. Not anything to do with the vaccine itself probably a case of bad timing; they found out later that if you give an intramuscular injection at the time someone is incubating polio they get a full whack paralysing form. It was a mistake. Urabe strain MMR was a mistake- it only cause viral meningitis so wasn't a particularly serious mistake, but still unpleasant for many.

It seems that everyone (Elizabeth mIller, author of the Danish Study, bod at the dept of health I wrote to in 2001, Institute of Medicine in USA) is wiling to admit that MMR may be causing autism in a small number of children, but they're not willing to do anything about it or consider as valid any clinical evidence from affected children.

If you have the MMR jabs seperatly does it makes any difference or is it just the same as having all three jabs in one?

oh for gods sake. The hypothesis involving MMR and autism IS that it is affecting a SMALL number of children. That is the Wakefield hypothesis. They don't cease to exist because most children deal with the MMR perfectly OK. You can't say Wakefield is wring when you don't even test his hypothesis. Personally I'm not interested in the 99% of children that are fine with the MMR, great for them, marvellous, I'm interested in the small number who are not OK. Why weren't they OK? Was it because they were incubating chickenpox, did they already have gut problems, whhat was going on with them? And how can we make them better? how can we clear up their painful bowel conditon that they can't even tell you about as they've lost the ability to speak. They're the one's who people should be interested in, not the 99% who are alright jack.

You'd be hard pushed to find an epidemiological study that hasn't been criticised on other grounds anyway, never mind ignoring the 10% thing (which actually makes the whole thing useless in terms of relevance to autism anyway)

I REPEAT WE ALL KNOW THE MMR IS SAFE FOR THE VAST MAJORITY OF CHILDREN.

Incidentally the single vaccines appear to be more effective anwyay. For example MMR appears to prevent mumps in about 62% of cases, single vaccine in 83% of cases. So I have no idea why they won't use them.

Backtobasics- dpends on the timing. Giving them a year apart is not the same as MMRing, giving them on the same day (as they did in Japan) is pointless and the same a giving MMR.

How about having them a month apart from eachother? Mt dd has this MMR jab coming up and i really do want to have them done seperatly because like you said, even though 99% of children are fine i don't want to temp fate and end up being the 1%. I know the chances are unlikely but i couldn't live with myself if my dd got ill from it. I don't mind paying to have them seperatly either.

I don't understand the argument in favour of single jabs.

er that although single measles virus jab has been reported to lead to regression in some children the numbers are far fewer than the MMR.

Catching wild type measles and mumps in the same year increases the risk of developing autism.

having an 'unusual' exposure to measles (of which MMR is one) increases the risk of crohns.

Also singles work better.

That mumps is a completely unecessary vaccine, and causes more problems than it solves by pushing up the age at which people get mumps so making it more serious.

Also giving rubella to babies then not boosting means the protection wears off in adulthood- right when women need to be protected against rubella.

Mmm. Well, it seems to me that by using single jabs you are opting to pay for a vaccine less studied than MMR which you can get for free. When this scare first broke, I remember being staggered by people who thought it was safer to queue up in some hotel room for single jabs from a doctor they'd never see again than go to their NHS clinic. But we all have different fears I guess.

Do you think i will be allowed to have them done seperatly? Maybe i will have to go private or something?

I'm pretty sure that you have to go private for separate jabs.

It's not less well studied than the MMR- where does this idea come from? it's just not true. The cochrane report has said that the MMR safety trials were inadequate. The single measles jab has had more research done on it.

Having watched a child regress following a (wild) viral infection (never disputed, its in his diagnosis letter) yes I guess we do all have different fears.

Richard Halvorsen is the one UK GP who offers single jabs to his patients on the NHS. If he's not your GP then yes you have to go private.