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)?

Absolutely, proactive and very sensible, far better to achieve the desired result with options which address the blocks to vaccination

But the vast majority of babies' bodies do cope with vaccinations perfectly fine. It would leave them more vulnerable to vaccine preventable illnesses for longer such as whooping cough etc wouldn't that concern you more?

I think it's really tricky and caveat with the fact that both of our children, grown up now, were vaccinated.

DS was born at the end of 1994 when there was a little debate about an association with DTP and the development of allergies.

When my HV called when the baby was 12 days old I asked what her role was and was told she was responsible for making sure my baby was vaccinated. This surprised me because I thought that responsibility lay with my DH and me.

I told her I was pro vaccination but would like some information about the DTP/allergy link. Her response was oh I don't know, I only know what's in the leaflets, and yet here was a health professional telling me they were responsible for vaccinating my child. I asked her if she could please, as she was responsible for vaccinating my child, pont me towards the research.

What she did was write to the area's child immunologist to ask him to provide an appointment because I was concerned about vaccinating my child due to his breathing problems. (He had none).

I think sometimes the system does not support genuine questions or facilitate the sharing of evidence based research and this undermines the system's transparency and allows conspiracy theories to arise.

My child was vaccinated, I did not waste the time of the immunologist and I never say a health visitor again - what was the point, if they were incapable of correctly recording information.

I suspect there may be an infinitesimal risk. I think it is important that any such risk is clearly explained and that parents are facilitated to make the correct decisions balancing the probabilities of those risks.

Sadly, what will make the herd turn is tragedy rather than reason but the medics and public health people need to bear in mind their part in the tragedy and the lack of clear and balanced information.

I can understand that but at the same time, parents with immunocompromised children simply want the chance to watch them grow up at all.

I personally would feel more comfortable if they got vaccines at a later age - if most people were getting vaccinated then there would be less risk of them contracting diseases.

Whatever fuels some parents’ reluctance to get their children vaccinated, I think re-introduction of the possibility of single jabs for measles, mumps and rubella could significantly increase uptake. I don’t know why there isn’t the choice at least. Single jabs have been completely outlawed for some reason, probably financial and commercial.

For right or wrong, the MMR has been tainted in a lot of people’s minds, and the mistrust doesn’t seem to be going away for large swathes of the population, so why not go with the flow? Surely better to have the separate jabs (albeit with some disadvantages), for those with misgivings, than none at all? I think a bit of psychology wouldn’t go amiss. People always respond better to choice than coercion.

I don't understand why so many people question vaccines yet eat processed junk every day, will quite happily take medication such as ibuprofen or if diagnosed with a more serious illness will without hesitate take any prescribed drugs - many of which have much more serious side effects. Like any medication, there are risks - however the risks of measles - one of most highly infectious diseases on the planet are far worse. I do wonder if we'd have the same anti-vax sentiment if Ebola was a thing in the Western World.

Most vaccines have been around for a long time.

Some of the thinking of anti vax mums is this -

Everyone else vaccinates so I don’t need to.

They are smug, thinking their child will be safe because everyone else vaccinated.

The risk would be there for longer than it currently is and for no reason because nothing suggests that younger babies' bodies can't cope with vaccinations.

I have friends and relatives who are militant anti-vaxxers. I've stopped talking to some of them, as I can't listen to this shite. They think vapour trails from ordinary aircraft are spraying them. There's one cousin I laugh at. He's really stupid and won't shut the fuck up. I don't care what their opinions are, but I'm not going to listen to this lunacy.

One of my friends daughters can't be vaccinated for some reason. Other than that, all the sane people I know have their children vaccinated.

I’m sure they do, they just hope it won’t be them or their children. But it’s the “I’ve made it to 40yo without ever getting measles” that annoys me, when they don’t mention the fact that it’s down to the multiple million people around them who are vaccinated. Otherwise it would be a very different story.

Smallpox 1796
measles 1963

how long do you want or wait for side effects ?

The NHS has recently managed to come up with clear, evidence based leaflets for the pros and cons of e.g. testing for colon and prostate cancer, smears, mammograms (picking out the leaflets DH and I have received) so they absolutely could address questions about childhood vaccinations in a more evidence-based way. As the research I linked to earlier stated, a big part of the problem is access to GP services is difficult for everyone whatever it is they're trying to access and parents aren't clear what's due when.

Sometimes the guidance changes too. DD had to have a polio booster when she was about 10 due to an outbreak in London.

I agree. I think there is generally less trust in medical professional. I wonder if some of is linked to a lack of continuity of care. My said when I was baby the GP popped round to see me. I don't think people know who their GP or health visitor is. Maybe it's feeling anxiety?

Yes and people damaged by polio are still with us. My parents, in their 80s, have a friend who is struggling with mobility in old age due to polio damage as a child (his joints have worn out due to asymmetric use).

“I’m not an anti vaxxer but…"

See also “I’m not anti abortion but I just think it should be limited..." (to the point of being inaccessible.

There were not “huge risks” and there is not evidence of causal links between vaccines and subsequent episodes of illness. There is rather more evidence of causality between Covid and subsequent episodes of illness.
Covid was a new and serious disease which itself was not well understood. The vaccines were new so didn’t have the track record of eg Smallpox or measles but were tested on healthy volunteers (I worked with many of them) long before they were approved for use. Initial roll out was to those most at risk from Covid.

As @Parker231 points out 8 billion vaccinations and 55 deaths, only a few of that 55 have any real suggestion of a causal link.

As PP say - anti vax conspiracists were loud and furious long before Covid. As for “why would they do that” - follow the money. There is a lot of money to be made out of successful conspiracy theories. Hasn’t done Wakefield’s bank balance any harm - got him established on the celebrity circuit.

I had my children in the 90s. I had no trouble finding information on vaccines and their safety/risks/benefits. It was perfectly clear to read. It was also very evidence that it contained veriafiable data unlike the high temperature emotive bullshit from the antivax lobbies.

My DSis and I didn't have the whooping cough vaccine due to the scare stories referred to by a pp whose daughter has lifelong side effects. DSis and I were fortunate - caught it but recovered (after a lot of coughing).

Vaccination as a principle as been in use since the 12th Century with evidence that people used variation (exposure against smallpox) in China and the Middle-East. Not actually that new.

I think the "red book" has now gone online? I have a paper one from 12 years ago. I'm going to look at it later to see what it says about vaccines.

Your memory of this is faulty. As soon as it became publicised that one person had died from a lung clot (later discovered there was an underlying health issue), the NHS stopped using the AZ vaccine for a short while. When it came back in use, it was not given to groups of people who were deemed vulnerable to this incredibly tiny risk. AZ’s product information had been updated to include a warning in April 2021, just a couple of months after the vaccine rollout began in the U.K. They didn’t refuse to believe any cases were possible, they refused to believe it caused TTS “at a generic level”. That position hasn’t changed. Indeed there are more cases recorded in people who have not had the vaccine than who have. The number of people who experience TTS is not higher than it was pre vaccination. If there is a causal link, it has never been found.

It didn’t take the legal system to get them to admit anything. It took the legal system for people to raise a claim for compensation, which is absolutely how it should be. You can’t just rock up to a company and demand compensation, it needs to go to court. The case hasn’t been concluded as far as I can see, so until we know the judgment, taking one line, misreported from what will no doubt be thousands of pages of evidence in order to decide there is some kind of cover up happening, is quite unreasonable.

There is a choice. Single jabs are available you just need to pay for them which they clearly don’t want to do.

I stand corrected [so edited my previous post]: vaccines in phase 3 do get through double blind study
https://historyofvaccines.org/vaccines-101/how-are-vaccines-made/vaccine-development-testing-and-regulation

I’d have been furious if one of my DC caught measles when they were too young to be vaccinated- in fact this happened to me, caught measles at 11 months from an unvaccinated older child.
Usually I would be against restricting nursery places for unvaccinated children, and think it can sometimes have the opposite effect because people don’t like being forced into things, but with the rates being so appalling in parts of the country it may be time to consider it.

Eldest two had MMR but it got complicated with my youngest two.
DS has multiple severe anaphylaxis allergies so medically advised not to give MMR. DD very severe failure to thrive then under oncology for benign bone tumours, again advised NOT to vaccinate by her hospital Drs. DD caught measles and was very ill. She souped the virus up and gave it her dad, he was so ill in negative pressure isolation not sure how he lived he was that ill and has been left with permeant damage.
DS then campaigned to be allowed to have vaccines even if he had to stay in hospital all day just in case he had a severe reaction.
Concur with others making the point some kids need the rest of the population to have vaccines as they medically cannot.