to be cross my ds has measles because other parents didn't vaccinate their children

[snickersnack]

He's 11 months old, poor little thing . Fortunately he's going to be ok - he got off quite lightly, I think - but it was scary and he was really poorly for a day or so. Spent 10 hours in A&E yesterday while he had chest x-rays, blood tests, IV fluids etc. Now we're just waiting to see if his sister,who's 2, gets it - she's had one dose of MMR already so fingers crossed she's immune.

We live in an area where immunisation rates are among the lowest in the country. Now I have to go and tell all parents of the other babies he's met recently that their children might be at risk as well...

MD - No, I don't mean they met him, I mean they referred patients to him and the patients were considerably helped. And when I said that the other doctors information came from the newspapers I mean I said 'Oh I'd heard good things about him' and they said "I'm just going by what I'd read in the newspapers'. The conversation has come up a lot socially with the many doctors in my family/friends as they're all so interested in my having had measles encephalitis last summer, so I get into conversations about measles all the time. But I really have to bow out of this one, I've got work to do and I only came on MN to have a 10 minute chat, and have now been sitting here for an hour

Yes Beachcomber.

I'm with BITCAT on this one.

"Why have scarlet fever deaths followed a similar incidence to measles, etc despite there being no vaccination for it?"
ummm because its caused by a bacteria and we now have penicillin!!
Just proves that lay people don't really "get" the science and just belive the propoganda....

Not measles, but I know some people affected with rubella syndrome. It's not pretty, believe me.

Yes, the people are still alive, but if their mothers had had a vaccine, maybe they would have been able to live on their own and not be brain damaged, blind and have heart defects?

But Macdoodle whooping cough, TB and tetanus are all bacterial diseases yet they are vaccinated against.

Sorry but I really take issue with the idea that lay people are unable to grasp the issues.

I like this quote from Dr Jayne Donegan;

"if a parent says, ?I?m worried about the safety of vaccination,? they are told, ?You don?t understand, you?re not a doctor.? However if a doctor says, ?I?m worried about the safety of vaccination,? they are told, ?We?re charging you with serious professional misconduct.?"

What propaganda are you talking about exactly?

As far as I can see most parents either want the MMR or they want single vaccines or they want vaccines without certain chemicals that are risky. The only group trying to prevent any vaccines are the government who would rather you had none at all than take the singles ones.

So ask THEM why!

Macdoodle why do you discount Dr Wakefield's patients when you ask for medical proof of an MMR/autism link?

Do you also discount the stories told by many parents of how their children regressed after receiving MMR?

Do you also discount the recent Poling case in the US?

No one wants to leave their child at risk from measles, or anyone else's child. I had it, I was hospitalized with it [as a young adolescent when it can be much more serious.]
However, the Cochrane report, the government's own post Wakefield study into MMR safety, concluded that there was insufficient evidence either for or against to prove MMR was safe. This was hailed by the media as conclusive proof that MMR was safe, as few journalists actually bothered to read the whole report, if you want to talk about believing hype and propoganda.

Wakefield's hypothesis was that only a very small subset of children are at risk from MMR, he never said that MMR was risky for the majority of children. So we are talking about MMR causing maybe 7% of all autism cases, a percentage which can be hidden in large scale statistical studies.

Now, the government, and many people here perhaps, feel a small number of children devastated for life by the MMR is a risk worth taking for the greater good of public health. Why does it have to be either/or? No one wants to risk having their career and character destroyed by continuing research into MMR safety, post Wakefield. So the research is not being done. It is rather flippant to say, ah well, autism does not kill. It can severely handicap a child who otherwise may have had a normal life - having to witness that tragedy every day must be extremely painful.

I'm sorry, but i think it is disingenuos of people to say they gave their dc MMR not just for their own safety, but for the safety of public health. If you knew your child had medical issues which made MMR more risky for that individual child, I don't believe you would go ahead and do it anyway, for the sake of public health. There is a little bit of research being done out there, when parents are abandoned by their gps and local consultants, and their child is suffering, that can help you make the right decision, or help you post MMR to give an affected child the best chance of improvement. But it is hard to find. If your child or a child you knew was the one damaged by the MMR, even if that child was one only a few hundred in the population, you may have a different attitude towards the whole debate.
Ironically if the government and medical insitution had not been so furious that their status quo had been challenged, and had listened to parents whose chidren had been damaged [and the few doctors brave enough to back them up] we may now hae been in a better situation for the whole of public health.

Totally agree with ruty's post.

Also totally agree with Ruty's post.

Would be very interested in what others make of the Cochrane Report, especially the bit where the MMR safety trials were described as 'largely inadequate'.

Just a note on the dog shit thing-people can get toxocariasis from dog poo, this comes from usually touching soil/the ground which has been infected with the eggs of the worm, but the eggs can live and are able to infect people for up to a few years after the dog has pood there.

But it's only unwormed dogs that would carry the eggs, and the eggs need a couple of weeks to mature in the soil before they are able to infect humans.
So it's better to touch fresh dog poo!

Toxoplasmosis is usually caught from cats and cat litter.

The latest paper (BMJ this week) suggests that there is currently a 90% takeup rate for the MMR, with 5% going on to have at least 1 single vaccination and the other 5% having no vaccinations.
I also have to say that all the medics I know (and as one myself I know many) do not have a very high opinion of Andrew Wakefield. I think our problem with him was the publishing of such a small case study which then went on to cause widespread panic and massive drop in the vaccination rate.

I haven't managed to read all the post but I would like to say that I knew a girl who caught measles age 14 and ended up severely physically and mentally handicapped - she is now in a wheelchair and unable to communicate or do anything at all. I think people do drastically underestimate how atrocious these diseases are - possibly due to the fact that they are not as common as previoulsy due to the fact that most of US were immunised as children.

I understand that it is a parent's choice but if you saw the devastation they can cause to not just the sufferer but the family around them, I would strongly recommend that everyone gets their child immunised, whether singly or MMR.

It is a fact that in this country we are extremely lucky to have the option at all - we are blessed to have immunisations and the medical science and options that we do here.

that wasn't his fault fleximum - it was the fault of the media. And Richard Horton of the Lancet praised his original paper and still regards it as a sound and valid piece of research. It needed following up, which is now impossible to do.

my issue is with the govt handling of it ... all they need to do is provide choice and you'd have herd immunity again .. when people are told MMR or nothing and there's scare stories associated with MMR it's obvious going to affect uptake

the other thought is how quick medics are to jump to an 'it isn't the vaccine' conclusion even if you don't ask ..

I delayed my youngest's MMR until 18 months (because the measles doesn't take as well under 15 months anyway) ... 10 days later she was hospitalised with pneumonia ... "It's not the MMR" was the cry that went up ... I hadn't asked actually but anyway

anyway 2 doses of MMR as babies does not confer lifelong immunity as is suggested

well i know of children severely damaged by the MMR Rumpel. Neither is an appropriate scenario, both need to be avoided if possible.

I agree - the thing is we do have choice here don't we - you can go for the single - I know you need to pay and it should be a choice given as standard on the NHS, but let's face it, when it comes down to it, if you knew it was going to protect your child you would pay - even if you had to go without other stuff. I know it is not fair but that is the way it is - life isn't fair sometimes.

Rumpel I did pay for DS to have singles because I didn't realise his primaries contained thimerosal .. However I fought for DD to have primaries without thimerosal so judged the MMR acceptable for her

I would say though it is easy to bandy about you'd pay if you had to .. but really? at £110 per shot that's £660 per child .. not actually that affordable really

and that is if you are PRO-vaccination .. many people can argue ludidly against vaccination

Of course there's no proof that the MMR causes any effects at all, no research will ever be done into it and if there is any, it definitely won't be government funded.

For research to be taken as fact, you must be able to replicate it exactly and find the same conclusions. Well, who were the bodies that reenacted the Wakefield research? Government bodies perhaps?

Even though we were told the findings were not conclusive either for or against, we will never know the true findings.

Who knows what the powers that be know about all the vaccines, the government or the WHO will never ever say. Can you imagine the huge backlash and lawsuits. Every family who has an autistic child and has been given the MMR will sue and every family whose child was given the MMR even without a reaction will sue.

Did Tony Blair ever say whether his youngest son had the MMR?

Fleximum how can Dr Wakefield, his collegues, the Royal Free Hospital, The Lancet and the article peer reviewers be to blame for the media and the government's handling of the situation?

Dr Wakefield was not some maverick working alone. He is being used as a scapegoat.

Let's see some hard evidence of why his paper and its (cautious) findings are at fault. All this rubbishing of his reputation and blaming him for everything related to MMR problems just looks suspect.

Dr Wakefield's work cautiously suggested that there could be a problem with MMR for a small subset of children and recommended further investigation. That investigation has still to take place as his funding was pulled.

Why the huge scandal? Why the need to rubbish the man? Why the weird GMC tribunal? Why are we still talking about him 10 years on if it was a load of nonsense?

"..i just think people should be shown the effects of measles/rubella on an unborn baby before they make a decision."

Absolutely. And it should then be the responsibility of those people to go get themselves vaccinated before they get pregnant.

I fail to see how it is the responsibility of wee babies to be exposed to viruses in bulk so that adult women can be free of the responsibility to get themselves immunized before pregnancy against diseases that harm the unborn child.

"obv. some children shouldn't be immunised, but i'm sure 90% could be"

I agree. The problem is determining which 10% are at risk.

Each mother's responsibility is to their own child. If there is a 10% chance that my baby will be so adversely affected by a vaccine that she will suffer the consequences for the rest of her life, she will not get it. End of story.