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...

Suey2 thanks for your long and detailed response.

You still however have not detailed what the 'conflict of interest' that you accuse Dr Wakefield of entails. I have been following the GMC hearing through Martin Walker's commentary (the hearing transcripts are not being made available to the public) and if you care to read the following you will see that not only is the notion of C of I highly complex but that it is far from being a proven charge.

read the bit about Horton of the Lancet

With regards to the Danish study if you won't read a critique of it then you are unable to defend it. I think you would find that the Danish study is fatally flawed due to its methodology if you cared to look more closely at how people with specialised knowledge deconstruct it. That it was authored by people with serious conflict of interest helps to explain the motivation behind the in-build flaws. That those who commissioned the study chose to actively seek out authors with C of I is highly revealing.

I outlined some of the fatal flaws in the two Baird studies and you have yet to respond. I have posted a link which demonstrates that the Danish study is highly dubious and flawed and you refuse to read it or comment on it.

You seem to think that the possiblity of a government and medical cover up is shocking. I completely agree. Is is shocking but it is the only logical explanation for the series of highly publisised flawed studies, the pulling of the Legal Aid for the UK MMR litigation, the hounding of Dr Wakefield and others, the refusal to compare vaccinated with unvaccinated children, the refusal to examine children suspected of MMR damage, the curious inability to directly replicate Dr Wakefield's original study and the smearing of Dr Wakefield in the press.

Are you aware that the MMR in current use is actually the MMRII? The original MMR was withdrawn due to its unfortunate side effect of encephalitis-type conditions, including meningitis. The people that you seem to think are above criticism are the ones responsible for introducing this vaccine in the UK. They were well aware of its documented (and potentially fatal) side effects as it had been clearly demonstrated in Canada, Japan and Sweden. Many of the UK litigants's children were damaged by this now withdrawn vaccine. The vaccine that damaged my own child has since been withdrawn (not MMR).

See here.

Plus on some serious conflict of interest the following;

on the Wakefield GMC hearing

on the pulling of the UK litigation Legal Aid

it just gets worse

Unlike you Suey2 I don't think that I have the time, expertise, knowledge of a wide range of highly technical subjects, access to protected data or technical critical reading skills to be able to analyse and draw conclusions from the vast amount of information that has bearing on this issue. I refer to the work of experts and people better trained and better informed than myself to help me make my way through this political and technical maze. You may of course form your own opinion, but I prefer my method.

Oh and when I say that Dr Wakefield's original hypothesis remains unchallenged I mean that no study has been able to refute its claims in a direct replication and that the epidemiology used to defend MMR is flawed and irrelevant. There you have it, all these huge studies done, all that money spent, all those experts beavering away and they still haven't been able to come up with anything concrete and irreproachable despite 10 years of trying.

MM I wouldn't say it was refreshing to read Suey's postings. Many of us have read a lot further on. And, excuse me Suey, but I really don't like that "trust me, I'm a medical professional and I know a lot more than you I promise" kind of approach. Many, many women who post here are intelligent, professional or formerly professional women who are quite capable of serious analysis, assessment and understanding even if the subject is outside their professional field.

You can't have done much reading round the subject, MM. There's plenty of that side out there. It's not refreshing, just the same old stuff.

I think most people on here are furiously agreeing with each other that more research is needed. Which I think means we don't trust what we've got already.

Beachcomber I think we have the same life schedule -- we are continually cross-posting. Your depth is impressive.

only scanned but lol at suey being a troll.
What's the gist then? the NHS is doling out vaccinations to harm children?

Actually I can't really believe the Danish studies are still being brought up. There's been wide acceptance that they're seriously flawed, in terms of looking to disprove the MMR-autism theory.

I find a refusal to read critiques of a study a very surprising approach to take. Part of my own methodology (totally different field of course) would be to study the original work first myself (entering it unbiased) and afterwords read critiques and serious comments. I found it helped looking at the original work from many more angles when taking other scholars studies and views into account.

ah thankyou! i wondered what made you so biased! I am truly sorry you have a child who has suffered. But your admission that you cannot read a piece of research without someone else to interpret it for you speaks volumes.

How can you say i can't defend the danish study? I read the full paper, not someone's biased reporting of it.

I also take exception to your previous patronising attitude, bearing in mind your last post. If you have just said that you do not have the skills to evaluate pieces of research, how can you start the ball rolling with me by accusing me of not knowing what a single case study is? or an epidemiological one?

You back up dr wakefield at every turn. how can it possible be ethical to conduct research by paying parents £5 a time at a party for a sample of their children's blood?

What is the point in discussing the studies with you if you cannot understnad the points i am making? If you cannot understand the studies themselves without referring to other's analysis you will not understand my explanations either.

Re the vaccination / standard of living debate. Measles wouldn't have been erradicated / reduced by increased standard of living (although some diseases, such as polio and TB would have been reduced). Measles is a highly infectious disease which doesn not require particularly prolonged close contact to spread, and in an unmmunised population nearly 100% of all individuals will get it. Increased standards of nutrition may reduce the severity, but would not reduce the incidence.

Suey2 - why do you think you are the only person capable of understanding a particular study? Do you not trust others to be able to do so, or do you not want to read the holes others are able to pick?
Why do you assume all critiques are biased and flawed?

i admitted the danish study was flawed, but IMO some of the paper is worthy of retention.

I think we have to agree to disagree here. There are people on this thread who seriously believe there is a medical conspiracy to cover up the link between MMR and autism. Others like myself, believe that no link has been proven and that on the balance of probabilities it is safer to vaccinate our children to prevent M, M and R than it is to avoid doing it in order to prevent autism.

We could talk about this forever. It is much more than a PhD thesis. I don't see the point in continuing, i think i have said it all in my previous posts and there is no point in repetition.

I have been branded a scientist, as if that is a slur (actually incorrect, i am a clinician) and obviously am inherently corrupt as a result. I have also been accused of being a troll. There is no arguing with that position. I will bow out now.

Beachcomber hasn't been a bit patronising. You might find it so, as she is addressing with confidence the points you've tried to make, and plainly you don't like it. She hasn't got cross and facetious as you seem to have done. Let's not take this into shallow waters.

Suey, you are closing your ears and eyes. You don't like what you're reading. You don't like that we can see something you don't.

not to see yurt here though i can understand why.

Nevertheless, suey, we (in Britain) live in the post-modern era, where All truth is seen as socially constructed. In other words, no-one can ever be 'objective', or exclude their own bias (however much they might want to) because their opinions and the way they respond to ideas or the questions they come up with have all been formed by just their own experiences of life, which are different from anyone else's. As you say, you use YOUR experience and education to inform YOUR appraisals of research. This makes your conclusions subjective.

Every decision I have ever made has been partial and biased towards either what I want or what I believe as a result of social or cultural conditioning, NOT as a result of 'objectivity'.

But this is slightly off topic, except it highlights how EVERYONE involved in this debate (both on MN and the wider one) has their own, subjective take on this issue.

Midnight I'm sorry to have taken so long to come back to your question.

I have done some reading on this but would have to go back and look at the data again to do justice to the subject.

However from memory (remebering that I suffer from mummy brain and have had a couple of glasses of wine) the following springs to mind;

1. When a person catches an infectious disease the bacteria or virus usually enters the body via the mucus membranes. These membranes play a vital role in how the immune system deals with the infection. The immune system functions on two levels called TH1 and TH2. The initial level is stimulated by the mucus membranes and communicates vital information about the invading infection to the deeper organ response of the second level. Many infections are dealt with at the primary level and present as subclinical cases (around 90% of polio cases for example). Vaccination bypasses this natural system by accessing the body through injection thereby avoiding the mucus membranes and their major role in how the body reacts to the introduction of disease. The introduction of viruses or bacteria through injection allows quick access to the bloodstream, the vital organs and the opportunity to cross the blood brain barrier (particularly in babies where this barrier is incomplete). The secondary level is unprepared for the invasion and has no prior information about what it is dealing with. This situation is entirely unnatural for the body and extremely violent. The immune system of young babies is still developing and doesn't resemble that of an adult until about 7 years of age IIRC. These assults on an immature developing system upset the fine balance between the TH1 and TH2 responses and can have long term consequences.

There's more on this but I would have to look it up. I'll try to post some links but my DH needs to use the PC so it won't be tonight.

1. Vaccines contain adjuvants and preservatives and indeed a whole host of chemicals. Some of these adjuvants (aluminium for example) are designed to provoke an immune response from the body as the presence of an attenuated or killed virus alone is not enough to stimulate an antibody response. These chemicals are not part of the natural experience of infection with a wild virus and we have increasing amounts of evidence that point to them playing a role in why the body is damaged and can end up with a deep persistent infection. Thimerosal (eythlmercury) is the usual example given here.

1. Vaccinations have a cumulative effect and interact with each other. In nature it simply doesn't happen that somebody has to deal with three viruses at once. Nor is it likely that by the age of two they will have been infected by polio, tetanus, pertussis, measles, rubella, mumps, Hib B, etc and lived to tell the tale. We know that viruses have a synergenic effect and that they tend to depress the immune system for quite some time after infection. Hence the call to compare vaccinated and unvaccinated children and the recommendation by Wakefield to space vaccines at yearly intervals.

1. There is a load of stuff on different strains but I will really have to look this up to avoid talking a load of nonsense!

1. You are right that wild strains of measles and rubella can trigger autism. All the more reason to think that vaccine strains can do the same. Again there's more on this but I would have to look it up.

HTH, sorry to not give links, be more detailed, etc but DH will go mad if I don't stop hogging the PC!

Night all.

Just a quick last word as I have read the last few posts to say thank you and to stuffitllama. I needed to understand what had happened to my child and once I stared reading I couldn't stop.

Suey2 I am starting to loose patience with you.

I'm so sorry about your child Beachcomber. Don't say thank you. There are two or three on here, you, Yurt, Ruty, who have facts and figures at their fingertips, and others who are also amazingly knowledgable, and the reason for it is often very sad. And it's because of mothers who raised the roof when their child was affected, that I was alerted to the issue and researched enough to limit and final stop jabs for my children, and avoid that danger. So please don't say thank you.

It makes me very when evidence from mothers is dismissed as "anecdotal" and not worthy of consideration.

And the old "I'm alright Jack" makes me want to throw things at people

Have a nice day Beach

There's something wrong with the way I've written that, but I hope you know what I mean.

I'm just fuming about Suey actually -- how dare she suggest that because of the problems your child had, your views are not worth attending to.

The parents of the damaged children are those who trusted the system and all that herd immunity crap in the first place. As soon as they fall foul of the big vaccination experiment they are abandoned and dismissed.

My SIL is another example. She was 3 when she had a vaccine that changed her life, and changed the life of her entire family. She is 23 now, cant walk, cant talk, is not toilet trained, in many ways she is on the developmental stage of a 1 year old. The medical profession soon gave up finding a name or description for her condition, and she was soon forgotten. MIL is now a widow, and her sole carer, SIL has never seen the inside of a school, or an institution, not even for my MIL to get a break.

I came to this debate late, I admit I have neither facts nor figures, neither have I a medically trained mind. I am on the other hand able to read the posts and make up my own mind.

However, the attitudes of certain posters is proof that a (at least self professed) medically trained brain is no guarantee for neither understanding of the subject matter, nor of human compassion, tolerance and even polite behaviour.

I am shocked at the attitude towards Beachcomber who seem extremely knowledgable from Suey2.

"But your admission that you cannot read a piece of research without someone else to interpret it for you speaks volumes.
" - Now that is one way of twisting a post and turn it against the poster, if I have ever seen one! This is a personal attack, no less. And it is coming from a poster who has closed her mind to the fact that anything worthwile can come from something that is not an original piece of research.

I am actually personally a little bit offended by that attitude. It is not only patronising Beachcomber, but all those of us who have spent considerable time in Academic life researching and cross referencing, reading other reports, if nothing else to refute an opposing scholar.

Just caught up with this long thread! I'd just like to mention that Beachcomber's description of her child's reaction to the DTP could have been written about my ds. He had the hugely swollen leg (looked like a sausage about to go bang) and screamed for days. He's almost 8 now and we are just starting to see some improvement in his gut problems. He's also severely autistic.
At the time my concerns were dismissed by the practice nurse and in my blind faith in the medical profession ds went on to have the next two lots of jabs. How I wish I'd had mumsnet then! At least we might have been warned and questioned things a bit. Ds had single jabs for Measles mumps and rubella but by the time he was due for boosters we had had enough. I doubt we will ever give him any jabs again unless absolutely necessary.
Oh and there is no history of autism in our family so I reckon it really can happen to anyone, and will continue like that until we have some way of identifying vulnerable children.
The only child I've known who had measles got it not long after his pre-school booster.

No. People who refuse to get their kids vaccinated make my blood boil. Measles used to kill, deafen, cause heart defects and brain damage. It was not a harmless little dose of the flu. The triple is the safest option we have - far safer than the spaced, separate jabs. I have a sibling on the autistic spectrum, so I have more reason than most to worry about a child with ASD, and yet damn straight I'm vaccinating my kids; if they get measles because some self-righteous twat thinks they understand the science (from garbled websites) better than professional dedicated scientists, then I'll want to batter them. One woman started bleating that she thought the best thing was to "build up her kids immune systems!" The silly mare appeared to not grasp that that was the fundamental principle underlying innoculation - stimulate the immune system with a small dose so it can vanquish a big one later! Someone clearly failed Biology 101. Which wouldn't matter, if it was only their neck they were risking - not their kids' and every other child who played with them, and then the kids who played with those kids....

I'm a bit irate, because I found out today from my GP that a lot of people are refusing rubella jabs now, so herd immunity is breaking down there too. I am pregnant; this does not amuse me.

Qally. You should have checked your immunity first rather than relying on the nation's children to mind your health for you instead of doing it yourself.

You don't really have any right to talk about bleating, garbled, silly mares and self-righteous twats.

Go and do some reading and thinking. Your post is horrible.

You'll batter them? Great stuff, Qally. Welcome to Mumsnet. You're just the type of person we like around here. Intelligent, well reasoned and articulate.

Why is MMR 'far safer' than separate vaccines?

I guess it's because I am a 'silly mare' that I don't get it.

Maybe Qally would like to 'batter' me for it