To vaccinate newborn or not

[confusedaboutclothes]

I know this is a very sensitive subject, but i’m asking please for FACTS only - I don’t want answers like ‘because the NHS recommends you to vaccinate your baby etc’

Id like to point out i’m not ‘anti vax’ as such, but covid really opened my eyes to researching vaccines etc i’ve done my own research on whether i should be vaccinating my newborn but it’s hard to find unbiased facts.

What I don’t like, is the pressure that is put on us to do as we’re told with our babies. I don’t like the constant reminders, the phone calls and the pressure to vaccinate - it all feels like a box ticking exercise not because the NHS are actually worried about my baby.

Please be kind, I really am confused about this and would love some different perspectives

Can I marry you please? :)

I agree with the PP who said that parents who don't vaccinate real shouldn't be parents. One of my mum's cousins died of measles in the 30s and her older sister was a whisker away from death after contracting diphtheria. My dad always told me of the day he was walking to work in the mid 50s at about 7.30 in the morning. He passed the local children's clinic, and there was a queue snaking twice round the block of parents with children. Apparently the clinic opened at 8, and it was the first day that polio vaccine was available. At that time there would have been no one who didn't know someone affected by polio.
I think some people are ignorant of the devastating effects of some childhood diseases simply because they have never come across them as vaccines have mostly eliminated them. But as figures are showing, some are sadly making a comeback.

I'd say BertieBotts post is really well written and thoughtful.

My reasoning is that we aren't that good as Joe Public at assessing relative risk. Yes, vaccines can cause problems to a very small proportion of people, but the benefits far, far outweigh the risks, at both a population level, which the government is concerned about, and at an individual level, which parents are concerned about. That's of no consolation to the very small number of individuals who do suffer an adverse reaction, but many more children are saved from the occasionally extreme effects of the diseases.

No they don’t. They get paid per service they provide, getting paid anything else is illegal in the UK, especially if you’re trying to imply they get paid by pharmaceutical companies to give out more vaccines.

OP honestly I’m not surprised you are worried because yes, it is scary making the best decisions for a newborn. And the whole anti vax agenda plays on that, they wind up your anxieties and emotions. But they do that by misrepresenting facts, that’s the bit you have to remember.

The fact is that the NHS is not a massive
money-making conglomerate the way the health service is in other countries. It only spends huge amounts of money on, for instance, a vaccination programme if there is good evidence - reviewed by people with a lot more expertise than you or I - that it will have a positive effect overall.

Yes, the NHS can feel very impersonal when you’re dealing with it. But that’s just because it is such a huge organisation dealing with a huge number of people. It has to be done on a box ticking basis, anything else just wouldn’t work.

Vaccinations have saved millions of lives. They’ve been given to millions of people the world over. Yes, there are a small number of people who have had an adverse reaction to them, but the likelihood of that happening to your baby is lower than the likelihood of them contracting one of these awful diseases if you do not vaccinate them.

If your reply was to me I didn’t google.
I was a student midwife and researched through much academic literature, case studies and trial outcomes (some of which were hidden after animal trials).

I get really do get the wanting the very best for your child, but while nothing in life is 100%, the factual evidence for vaccinating definitely supercedes that for not vaccinating.

This !

No they get a incentive if they teach a number , maybe you need to research this yourself . They do , not always in money , often I large discounts , new machines or access to them .

sadly I don't have any children to give the hpv vaccine to. yes, I am so volatile, asking questions on a discussion forum, absolutely.

will you have me arrested for my volatility if I ask if your research consisted of you having an actual scientific background or familiarity with statistical methods?

As a biological scientist I am absolutely triggered by some of the content in this thread. 😂 Fuckin hell, get down to big pharma and apply for a job if you think you know better

All I will say is, I was born in the 1950s. I went to school with a boy who wore a calliper on his leg because of polio. He could have been in an iron lung.

I cannot tell you how grateful my parents' generation was that all these vaccines were appearing

And now you have so many protections.

Use them

And research what happens when you catch

Measles
Mumps
Rubella
Diphtheria
TB
Meningitis
Polio

Etc, etc

what are you talking about? I'm very familiar with the gp funding system and none of what you are saying makes sense.

https://www.gponline.com/biggest-overhaul-gp-vaccination-payments-30-years-new-gp-contract/article/1673383

It’s simply factually inaccurate to state that chickenpox and measles are the equivalent of one another.

Chickenpox is a mild disease. Complications are not common. The fatality rate is around 1 per 100,000 cases in children, with most deaths occurring in immunocompromised children. Very few children who catch chickenpox will need hospitalisation.

The fatality rate for measles is about 2 per 1000 cases. That’s 0.20% compared to 0.001% for chickenpox. That is an enormous difference in risk. It’s 1 in every 500 children dying of measles vs 1 in every million children dying of chickenpox. They are orders of magnitude apart.

And that’s before you consider the other complications associated with measles - meningitis, blindness, seizures etc.

My sons were very happy to receive the HPV vaccine (well, one will get it next month). The rise in penile, anal and mouth / throat cancers caused by the strains of HPV covered by the vaccine far outweighed the risks in their, and my, opinion. It would have also saved me from having dodgy cells removed three times.

Because yes. I have had sex. With more than one partner who has also had sex with more than one partner. I am still at risk of mouth and throat cancers though.

WAKEFIELDS RESEARCH WAS ON 12 (TWELVE) CHILDREN

Serious Professional MisconductSoon after The Sunday Times published another damning investigative report by UK journalist Brian Deer on December 31, 20069, the UK General Medical Council (GMC) launched what would be the longest Fitness to Practice hearing in its history. Announcing its findings on January 28, 2010, the GMC found more than a few biases in Wakefield’s study and research practices:10

• Wakefield did not conduct the 1998 study according to ethical standards for research.
• Wakefield lied in the Lancet paper when he wrote that the participating children were referred independently after being diagnosed with IBD or other major gastrointestinal issues. In fact, many of the children were chosen specifically by Wakefield, and others were recruited with the help of the same lawyer who was paying him to conduct the study.
• Wakefield subjected vulnerable autistic and other developmentally challenged children to a variety of difficult GI tests, including colonoscopy and lumbar puncture (i.e., spinal tap), without any medical indication to benefit the children.
• Even before publication of the study, Wakefield was working on patenting his own version of a measles vaccine, which he would sell at a great profit as a supposedly “safe” alternative to the MMR vaccine. The father of one of the children in Wakefield’s study was a cofounder of the planned business that would market this product.
• Unrelated to the particular paper in question, the GMC panel also found that Wakefield had paid children at his own son’s birthday party £5 each so he could draw their blood for use in his research. He later joked about this during a lecture.

exactly. or even better, get a job as a doctor in the NHS so you can see first hand what happens when people decide not to give vaccines. I am also happy to fund one way tickets to countries with less access to vaccines for some brutal eye opening.

This.

There are no studies showing general health of vaccinated vs unvaccinated. Why not?

You might what to read up about polio vaccines they are not all good!
www.theguardian.com/global-development/2019/nov/28/polio-outbreaks-in-four-african-countries-caused-by-mutation-of-

Childhood diseases kill
I can't imagine why you'd want to put your baby at risk, when these are readily available
Personally I think it should be mandatory before school admission unless there is a very good reason, but that's my opinion

Then you'll be aware that usually wouldn't be enough to get you an MSC, let alone anywhere near a PhD.

I'm not questioning your research skills, but you won't have had access to even the resources fully funded departmental research has.

I also wanted more information about vaccines so I have now read plenty on this subject. I made my decisions based on books such as thismost recent, this, this, and many more. I would say do as much research as you can, i don't believe the decision is as clear-cut as people say it should be.

I didn't want to wade into Covid as it's so polarising.

But... I live somewhere that was basically zero Covid until everyone had the opportunity to vaccinate (think, like New Zealand). It was also a very vaccine skeptical place so lots of people refused - as is their right of course.

When the government opened the borders (after everyone had been offered a vaccine), Covid ran through the population like wildfire. Many of vaccine refusers very sadly died (the health authority initially published whether those that died had been vaccinated or not). Vaccine take up then improved quite a lot.

Of course correlation is not causation and other factors may have been at play - those with less trust in the medical profession may have had other risk factors. But the difference was stark.

Merely anecdotal so probably just as useless a contribution as other ill-informed posters, but my own experience living here has made me confident that the Covid vaccines saved many many lives. And we haven't all died of blood clots or turned into robots

No they really do not. This is very highly regulated in the UK. What a load of rubbish. And I don’t need to research this, it’s my job to know. What is yours?