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...

bb, thanks, tried sonic deterrent ages ago - it didn't work. We suspected one very old cat who may have been deaf. Tried water - loads and loads of different cats came in our garden, often while we were out in day or very early so we weren't around to squirt them. We lived in a terrace where the houses and gardens were very close together and we were the only ones without a cat... Have now moved house and it is slightly better but still occasionally happens. Just feel a bit helpless as I know cat owners can't control where their cat is all day - but does that mean we can't use our garden??

Greensleeves I agree with you (on vaccination, haven't been following the dogshit thing closely). Most of the people I know who have vaccinated haven't done much research (I didn't before vaccinating DD1).

Most of the poeple I know who don't vaccinate or don't follow the schedule are extremely knowledgeable about the subject, some are politically active to improve the information made available to parents to help them make their choice.

Interesting that every measles outbreak makes the headlines but the US Autism Omnibus case which conceeded that Hannah Poling developed features of autism following vaccination has been largely ignored by the mainstream press.

YNBU
My fil is completely blind because of childhood measles.
I was very close to death with an allergic reaction to the Rubella part of the jab as a kid, so my doctor insisted that my kids have the jabs separately, which was great .. but I had to pay for them .. which was not so great.
Artichokes, my best friend had measles when pregnant and her son was born a heart defect which she has been told is a direct relation to her measles.

What has the MMR got to do with dogs they cant be blamed for measles

for bb99 on shingles and chicken pox (you can't catch shingles):

hcd2.bupa.co.uk/fact_sheets/Mosby_factsheets/shingles.html

Sorry, just felt had to set record straight for that nameless mother and spotty child on the bus who didn't give your Pa shingles!

Sorry to hear about what your mum and dad have gone through however; doesn't sound pleasant. My mum got terrible depression as a consequence of a bad bout of shingles

oh and apparently I am very nearly deaf because of the MMR or thats how mum tells it

Lol, it is quite a surreal turn in the debate isn't peanutbear

Beachcomber, herd immunity is very well proven as a phenomenon in a wide range of diseases and settings.

It's not always easy to predict because there are so many factors involved- human populations are after all much more complicated than mathematical models. But it works.

As one example of a practical use of herd immunity, it was used very effectively to eliminate smallpox.

Sorry westcountrylass, wasn't trying to imply that YOU were putting pressure on people! Just meant that I don't like an unproven concept being used by the government and repeated by the public as part of the 'social responsibility' argument.

I also am pro-choice. I am pro informed consent but I don't think the info made routinely available comes anywhere near being comprehensive enough to allow parents to make an informed decision for their child as an individual. With hindsight and what I know now, I see that my DD1 was high risk for adverse reactions. A decent questionaire to be filled out with a doctor before vaccinating would go a long way to avoiding damaging children like my daughter. I'm over it now but for a long time I was very angry with a system that takes such a 'one size fits all, head in the sand, let's hope it will all work out' attitude to children's health.

Welliemum if you have any links that prove with real people and real diseases how it works I would be very interested, thanks. I haven't been able to find anything that demonstrates the phenomenon working in real life.

It appears from my reading that smallpox is not so clear cut.

So should pooper-scoopers be handed out when you immunise your children?

Am glad to hear that as you enver know how the written word transmits across the net!

This will open up a whole can of worms but I don't think the one size fits all model is isolates to childrnes health.

Oh, meant to say also, 100% vaccination in a population can never mean 100% immunity, because no vaccine is 100% effective. It depends on the person's immune system as well as the vaccine.

The aim of a country-wide vaccination programme usually is firstly to protect each individual from the disease, but then, just in case the vaccination doesn't "take", to use herd immunity as a safety net. Once the number of cases in a community drops below a critical level, the disease will die out even if some people are still not immune. That is the maths behind vaccination targets - for measles, usually it's around 90-95%.

Measles is very tricky because the vaccine works better the older the child, but obviously if you vaccinate late there will be more babies without immunity. That's why vaccination age is different from country to country because the risk/balance will be different depending on the amount of measles in the population.

HTH.

Hi Beachcomber - happy to find you links. I have to go out (am in NZ and it's daytime) but will come back tomorrow with more info.

I agree that population-based medicine conflicts with individual-based medicine because what's good for the population won't always be good for the individual. Whooping cough, as I'm sure you know, is a good example of that conflict. Yet a population is made up of individuals. I don't think there are any easy answers.

ITA westcountrylass. Doesn't make it ok though.

BTW somebody posted earlier about vitamin A being used as part of measles treatment. This is good advice for anybody worried about measles. My doctor said the same to me (neither child has had MMR). It is worth reading up on.

Measles can be treated effectively with vit A to significantly reduce the possibility of serious long term consequences such as hearing/sight problems. Why parents are not readily informed of this I don't know and it makes me .

Prob because if 'they' divulge that there are treatments then it makes the need for immunisation seem less.

Thank you Welliemum I would be very interested if you have time over the next day or so. I'm going to go to bed (in France and it's bedtime here, what an international lot we are on MN) but will check this thread.

Well ds had the most dreadful reaction to the mmr. Subsequently I cannot risk that happening to my other children, so 5 of my children have not had and are not going to.

Before you judge please consider that people may well have very valid reasons for not giving their children through such a cocktail of drugs.

kittywits!!!!! we AGREE!!!!!

NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!

BB99- you cant catch shingles from exposure to some one else, its a reemergence of the chicken pox virus that lies dormant in your nervous system for the rest of your life once you have had it. I looked into why UK does not have a vaccine for chicken pox once my 2 had it as it seemed such a medieval disease to allow kids to go through, but I think the problem is the vaccine may wear off in later life leaving you vunerable to chicken pox as an adult, which is horrible.

It's thought that more people could develop shingles as use of the vaccine grows, actually.

smallpox anyone?? polio?? oh of course I forgot silly me vaccines just don't work do they???

Did anyone here say that, Macdoodle?