Parents choosing not to vaccinate their children

[MidnightPatrol]

A child has died in Liverpool as part of an outbreak of measles. 17 are currently hospitalised with it in the city, as part of a wider outbreak.

73% of children in Liverpool are vaccinated against measles - vs an England average of 84%.

A rate of 95% immunisation is required for herd immunity. No child in the UK needs to be getting measles - we can vaccinate against it.

In Liverpool, there is a risk of a widespread measles outbreak due to this low rate of immunisation - it is very infectious, so the risk to the population is significant.

If you are a parent that doesn’t get your child vaccinated, why?

Should the government not be using further incentives to encourage people to take up vaccination - are a third of Liverpudlians really against vaccinating their children?

Should non-vaccinated children be limited from accessing nursery or schools (as in other countries)?

It's horrifying that misinformation and ignorance is leading people to not vaccinate.

For me, it only makes sense that for the safety of the majority that restrictions are placed on those who do not vaccinate their children or themselves.

It's astounding to me. I grew up in the 70s though when measles was much more common and I had it myself when I was 4, the vaccine hadn't been around long and uptake was poor. I can remember how ill I was. People have forgotten what an awful illness it is because vaccine uptake was so high in the late 80s until recently, it was largely stamped out. Unfortunately, as more children die or suffer from this awful illness you'll finally see uptake start to increase again.

You are absolutely right OP, however, judging by similar threads on this you’ll have a group of people defending the rights of the anti-vax movement and tell you just to protect your family and be done with it. That they won’t be vaccinating just to protect your feelings etc. Completely ignoring that some people medically will rely on herd immunity as they can’t have the vaccine.
These aren’t new vaccines, they have proven track records at preventing a disease which decimated communities in the past.
Yes, some people have had issues with vaccines but this number is far lower than if we all didn’t vaccinate and you had widespread outbreaks.

Unfortunately vaccines have become victims of their own success- people have forgotten that we didn’t die of something preventable because of them. Not despite of them.

I just wish it wasn't so many at one time. That's the only thing that puts me off saying that all of mine are still vaccinated.

Suppose your body comes into contact with loads of stuff that it fights off everyday so that many at once is probably nothing in comparison.

I posted on another thread but will put my experience here as it was pretty bad.

I had encephalitis due to measles as a child and suffered some short term cognitive issues. I went from being a child who had taught themselves to read before school and was very advanced to having to relearn stuff. I caught back up but it took a year and I was moved down a year for that year, it was very upsetting. I was born just before the vaccine was available. I remember many adults being disabled due to polio when I was a child.

At the University I worked at about 15 years ago we had an awful outbreak of mumps, really bad.

They ‘do their research’ by watching TikTok’s and believing social media bollocks

I had a parent a couple of years ago tell me they didn’t vaccinate their baby because they didn’t know what was in the ingredients.

I couldn’t be bothered to ask if she knew what ingredients were in the paracetamol she took or the antibiotics we gave.

She kicked off because we dared nurse her baby on the open ward (amongst younger, more vulnerable babies) and ‘he might catch something’ because he wasn’t vaccinated, which of course was her choice… I’m fairly sure she took him outside where you know, germs exist. 🙄

It’s just not worth the conversation sometimes.

Doing their research means ‘I googled it’.

I agree.

The spectre of these childhood diseases as killers, experienced in the past though the loss of friends and siblings, is now out of the minds of modern parents.

I’m generally liberal and think people should be able to live with limited government interference - but in this example there are people other than the individual at risk of serious harm as a result. The child, who cannot choose - and wider society, who are exposed due to herd immunity not being achieved.

Yes, they should certainly be excluded from schools and nurseries.

A good look around any old churchyard might be a good education for anti-vaxxers, to see how, in pre vaccine days, 2, 3, or even more, children from the same family died within a very few weeks, as a result of some epidemic disease that had been more or less wiped out until fairly recently.

I don't know any anti vaccinations in RL excluding covid vaccination.
I have seen the impact of measles.
The little girl died two years later, she was incapacitated for the two years.
A healthy 4 y.o before the virus

Here in Australia you have to be vaccinated to attend public school or nurserys 😊

i agree. We have communities like this in Australia too with low vaccination rates. It’s only a matter of time until it ends up here. We have had whooping cough outbreaks in these areas and it’s awful.

That seems fair - same as France I think.

I wish they could be excluded from schools and nurseries in the UK unless there is a medical reason why they cant have it and they have certification to that effect.

I know a couple mums at a toddler group I attend who are anti-vax. What annoys me about it is their argument is they also weren’t vaccinated and have never any of these terrible diseases- but they won’t listen to the fact that that’s because most of the people around them have been, so they’ve always benefited from herd immunity. But their children may not be so lucky.

Covid vaccine and the way people were treated around it has increased anti vax feelings, and it’s quite obvious why.

Those expressing concern over the vaccine were treated badly, shut down, called idiots and worse, the Covid board here was awful for it. The discussion was completely shut down. Any topic, particularly those involving our own health, should be open to discussion. The shutdown, insults and accusations only go to strengthen people’s feelings that they are being lied to, or something is being hidden to suit some agenda. The obvious psychological tactics used by the government around all this only made this worse.

See also - the current rise of anti immigration that correlates to discussion of problems within the sphere of immigration (illegal immigrants, Pakistani rape gangs) being shut down and calling anyone racist bigots for suggesting there’s a problem. This has only made perceived racism worse.

I’m not an anti vaxxer, but there needs to be a balance here. If we want to reach certain vaccination targets then we need to find a way to reach those who stopped trusting them, whether it was Andrew Wakefield or Covid. Find a way to explain the science in layman’s terms, show the research results. Stop calling people fucking idiots and murderers, you’re never going to increase vaccination rates that way.

My cousin never vaccinated her now adult children because 'god will save them'. It makes my eyes roll even more given she is an intelligent person.

This is exactly it. People have no idea how awful most of these childhood illnesses were because we’ve grown up in a time and place where (due to the success of vaccinations) they’ve no longer been a threat.

You just have to look at the gravestones in an old churchyard to see how things used to be. Whole families of siblings dying within weeks of each other, etc.

Even now there are places in the world where people would think us absolutely insane to turn down the vaccinations we are lucky enough to have available.

It’s so incredibly frustrating that a century of work to eradicate these illnesses is now being reversed because science and medicine are suddenly seen as bad words.

i agree, I’m pro vaccine, but it’s the amount given all at once which concerns me. Husband used to have to have vaccinations as part of his job, he was taken really ill after one set of them, the older experienced doctor who had to house visit said he thought it was a reaction to the yellow fever vaccination given in conjunction with the others, it overloaded his immune response. If it had this effect on a strong, healthy, full grown man, what might it do to a small, young baby. I was able to have the I had the measles vaccination singularly for dc, but that was many years ago. I think there are a lot of people who have this sensible concern

@SheepInMyShed the poor take up of childhood vaccines was an issue long before covid - and these vaccines have been around for decades, so they are well understood.

The (discredited, false) link created by Andrew Wakefield between MMR and autism was in 1998 - and that was really the trigger in collapsing vaccine uptake, which seems to have persisted / morphed into a ‘movement’ almost thirty years later.

It’s common to feel ill after a yellow fever jab. You know what makes you REALLY ill though? Not getting the jab and catching yellow fever.

The denial of medicine and science will be the downfall of civilization. And I don't think that's as hyperbolic as it sounds.

Your key question is what can we do to encourage and support. Going to war and exclusions will harden some adults position, and its the children who suffer.

People are naive to illnesses that they haven’t seen during their lifetime for precisely that reason - they haven’t seen it. They have seen acute and self limiting childhood illnesses which are treated with ease or easily accessible meds from the GP, so they think all illnesses fall under this umbrella.

I had a colleague who said she didn’t vaccinate because she believed building their own immunity, I didn’t bother explaining that’s what a vaccine does. Because you can’t build immunity without exposure and what she’s saying is she wants to take her chances with hospitalisation.

Another thing that pisses me off is the egotistical anti-vaxers who present at hospital wanting treatment. If they’re against modern medicine why do they go there when their plan back fires?