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?

pastalady, I am sure that your little one will be fine.
No child I know has had a bad reaction from the mmr. Most didn't even get a high temperature afterwards!
Trust yourself and your judgment.
I know many members of the medical profession and I spoke to them and my practice nurse and after doing so gave my children the MMR.
They are all fine.

Please don't panic over some of these posts, and rememeber it is all just opinion.

Breakspear are good and everyone I know who has used them (including me) would recommend them. I was originally pointed in that direction by a health visitor.

Seabright, don't judge your friend's mother too harshly - there were real problems with the 'old' whooping cough jab. There were very good reasons for people to avoid it. Weighing up the risks of harm from whooping cough vs. the risk of harm from a vaccine (no longer used, thankfully) which was proven to damage some kids is tough.

Edam, off the point of the main argument I know, but the 1970s whooping cough vaccine scare was because there was a study which suggested it could cause brain damage. This study was later discredited, and there was no good evidence to link the vaccine with brain damage. So the vaccine was actually OK.
Vaccine uptake increased again after whooping cough epidemics occured.

My mum was, before she retired, a special needs teacher in a unit for children with profound special needs. I'm trying to remember when she first worked there but I think it was about mid/late 70s. She had two children in the unit that were vaccine damaged by the whooping cough vaccine. I was young at the time so don't know how that diagnosis was arrived at but I can definately remember Mum saying that they were damaged by the whooping cough vaccine.

kiddiz, there was a major legal case about the whooping cough vaccine
The conclusion was that 'the plaintiffs failed on a preliminary issue to show on the balance of probabilities that the vaccine was capable of causing brain damage'.

Apparently one of the children in the original 'scare' study didn't even have the vaccine!

It is pretty much impossible to prove absolutely for sure that anything is 100% safe, so it is possible that in some rare cases it did cause major side effects

There were I think about 100 deaths from whooping cough in the 1970s as vaccination uptake fell.

Trouble is nothing is ever 100% safe. As I said I was young so don't really remember...it was probably what the parents told my Mum they believed had happend to their dcs.
I can say that despite my Mums teaching experience both my brother and I had all our vaccines and so have all my dcs. Because I believe the benefits out weigh the risks. I can say I did refuse when the hv wanted to give ds1 whooping cough, tetanus, diptheria, polio, measles, mumps, rubella and hib all together. I couldn't imagine his little body fighting all those at once. I was probably not very scientific on that but I preferred to split them up and he did eventually have them all.

for those looking for single vaccines, vaccine for chicken pox, there is the childrens immunisation clinic -- it is on harley street and opens on weekends (or maybe just saturdays). i believe they also have a clinic in manchester.

My GP offers a single vaccine alternative which i have to pay for -- so worth double checking. I did the first round of single vaccines in harley street but doing the single boosters through my GP.

Not had any problem with any of it. Never even had to give calpol. I also vaccinated against chicken pox (i had a terrible time when i was 13). Both my kids still got it when it went around - but both got it very very mildly (about ten spots each)

There was a scare that was found to be unjustified with whooping cough but at another date there was a big problem with one whooping cough vaccine that was withdrawn, and compensation paid to affected children (but I can't remember when). I remember in the 80s my mother being very critical of someone who hadn't had their children done - they caught whooping cough and were very ill, poor things. We could hear them coughing from our garden, ten houses away!

Fair enough Edam. I just wanted to make the point that the major whooping cough vaccine scare, which resulted in a big fall in immunisation and whooping cough epidemics, was not scientifically justfified.

(steps away from MMR threads)

Page62, I know two kids who have been hospitalised due to chickenpox, one with serious encephalitis! I'm sure I'd know a lot more kids with serious complications if other jabs weren't available. I have a child on the autistic spectrum (at the mild end) but i still got his younger brother his MMR. DS2's problems were not flagged up until after his preschool booster but, on reviewing old videos and tapes of him from babyhood, it is evident that his interaction with the world was atypical from before his first MMR. There is research going on at the moment into physical signs of autism in babies, such as tooth grinding and various postural things that appear well before the more well known signs, some children who appear to become autistic after the MMR will, on review, be found to have shown signs before. That may not fit with a severe regression but it was enough for me to not blame myself for DS2's condition (I blame his dad's genetics!.

thanks edam. good to hear that.
also good to know about harley street clinic, thanks Page62 and hamandhigh.