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...

Regarding the perception of the seriousness of diseases: when dd had chicken pox earlier this year, I googled to try to find information on making her comfortable while the illness took its course. I was amazed to find pages and pages of information stating that chicken pox was an extremely dangerous disease, fatal in x number of cases etc. I eventually realised that these were all American sites, where chickenpox vaccination is routine.

Does anyone know why chicken pox is considered so serious in the US? Here most of us are glad if our children get it as infants as it saves them from the risk of a much more serious illness in adulthood.

I wouldn't want to speculate on the mechanism that connects routine vaccination to the perceived seriousness of an illness, but it does seem that we might be seeing something similar in the UK in our changed attitude to mumps and measles.

No I don't think that, a friend of mine recently won £2,000,000 from her local heath care trust for misdiagnosing her tumor with aneorexia and punishing her in a psychiatric unit for a year and so I don't trust doctors without question. Of course everyone wishes that there were single vaccinations for everyone and not just those that can afford it. I am a utalitarian and so the end justifies the means, for me.
More research is needed. What do we do in the meantime though? Do we advise everyone not to vaccinate?

silverfrog- you are right to be concerned. There was quite a big outbreak among students at Exeter a couple of years ago. They were mostly allegedly fully vaccinated young people as well. I think the university health service may offer the mumps vaccinations and boosters to him anyway: they are quite on the ball when it comes to things like this. And it'll be up to him by then, not his mum...

The university I am based at is always reminding students to get mumps boosters (so it's the whole MMR again).

I do not understand the rationale behind mumps vaccination.

yurt- I think if they have unfortunately avoided getting mumps because of vaccination early in life until early adulthood, it may actually be safer for boys (to preserve fertility) to get a booster, personally. Ideally they would get mumps at about 3-4 and be fine, but wait until adulthood and it's far worse.

IB, I met a woman on holiday who's daughter was in hospital for three weeks with chicken pox on her kidneys. My dd had it for a long time, six days of new spots, and had a temp of 104. That woman also met a family in hospital who's son had it on his brain and the scars caused damage....

hatrick, so our boys should wear icy pants??

oh I agree duchesse - it probably is (although single would be better than whole MMR again- and it works better for mumps) I meant I don't understand the policy of mass vaccination for mumps.

but we don't have chickenpox vaccine in the UK PosieParker. Isn't the government being terribly irresponsible then by not including it in the vaccine NHS package?

Maybe ten children a year have serious side-effects from chicken pox- a disease that pretty much every child in the country gets sooner or later. Those are not high odds.

Telegraph article about problems with CP vaccine.

agree that I don't understand the mumps vax thing. If ever there was a disease that one should have in childhood...

Sadly, if the idea that he needs a booster is rubbished by his mother, he will believe it to his dying day (he is well trained in accepting anyhing his mother says as gospel, and anything we say as rubbish), but I can do no more than give him the information.

iorek - the info re chicken pox on USA sites is terrifying. we were recently on holiday in the states and dd1 came down with chicken pox - I was so paranoid I spent half the morning checking wheher it had been made into a notifiable disease yet! Needless to say, it was the usual, slightly uncomfortable childhood case of chicken pox (dd2 is coming down with it as I type...)

[jealous] that Hatrick's daughter got mumps. I want my children to get mumps!

Good to know about the ice pants... Maybe I'll worry less about my son not having had it yet.

Can't remember where I'veposted this there are so many vaccination threads going on- but did anyone see this article about the 'side effect' of prevenar vaccination

thanks for posting that ruty- I was thinking 'gosh this person knows their stuff' then saw who wrote it

If these vaccines are not worth it why is the government spending money, is it just pr? controlling the masses? because they can? Not rhetorical I am just wondering why we have these vaccines of they are not necessary?

Sorry, no idea hatrick.

If you google the manufacturers you can usually get a list of ingredients.

Well I would imagine that mumps was rather over-enthusiastically adopted (they thought it worked better than it did) and now they're too scared to say 'whoops' because then people will stop vaccinating and they'll be in a right old mess (tricky to remove yourself from a vaccination against childhood illnesses in particular as you don't want bunches of adults turning up with measles, mumps or rubella for obvious reasons).

Remember there was a discussion about vaccinating children against flu to protect the elderly....... (caused a bit of a hoo ha).