Measles vaccination.

[Slimagain]

Just heard the tragic news from Alder Hay children’s hospital . This post is not about this specific heartbreaking case as none of us no the reason for none vaccination. There are very specific circumstances where it is not advised or should be delayed .. (immunosuppressant, thrombocytopenia, allergy to Gelatine etc) .. but given the fact that MOST children do not fall into that category. What on earth reason can parents be thinking if not vaccinating against this serious, life threatening disease .. ? I worked in a developing country in the 90s with MSF.. administering this life saving vaccine. Each camp we worked in had a 100% take up from those children clinically advised to have it. Do we really need to see hundreds of kids suffer deafness, brain damage and death before parents stop believing nonsense on SM ..

Our average uptake is at a three year low for first dose . 88.9%. Way below the WHO target of 95%. The worst area is London at 82%. why ?

AIBU - I don’t want my child vaccinated
YANBU - Of course I do./Have

I presume you would have listened to the conspiracy programme on radio 4 this morning when that crazy anti Vax COVID denier nurse persuaded her adult daughter to reject cancer treatment for a type of cancer which was potentially curable and persuaded her to have coffee enemas (do you have milk and sugar with them) several times a day instead. Sadly the daughter is now dead.

This. Also, it’s the parents choice not to vaccinate but the child has no say whether they get longterm side effects from these diseases. Or worse.

No it wasn't all individual vaccines before 88 although measles was. In the 70s they had a triple of whooping cough, diphtheria and tetanus. Because my son couldn't have the whooping cough he couldn't have the triple. I assume it was the same until 88 but it didn't apply to mine so I can't say for sure

Lived experience.

I am in my late 50s. I'm the eldest of 4. I couldn't have the measles vaccine back in the late 1960s as an infant due to a severe allergy to albumin, an element of the carrier fluid, according to my parents.

All my younger siblings were vaccinated.
Measles was still rife throughout the population at that point.

In the summer of 1975 I contracted measles. I spent 8 weeks in bed at home. I was very, very ill, but not quite ill enough for hospitalisation, thankfully. I was too weak to return to school in the autumn and didn't really recover until the next year. Luckily I have no long term problems.

It was just horrible.

None of my vaccinated siblings contracted measles, despite being in close contact to me throughout the time I was contagious.

Yes this was a huge fear of mine when DD was too young to have had the vaccine yet. You are totally at the mercy of hoping that everyone else you come into contact with has been vaccinated. Sorry you went through this it sounds truly terrifying.

It's so sad but people are trusting vaccines less and less, especially since covid. Both of my children have had there's but I do wonder how many people are not immune even though they've had their vaccines. I found out I wasn't immune when I received my blood work back after my blood tests I got when I was 12 weeks pregnant. I went on to have the vaccines again after I give birth then 3 years later I found out I wasn't immune again with my blood tests from my second pregnancy. I got the MMRs again after my second child but now I have had them 6 times. I would have never known I wasn't immune if it wasn't for my pregnancies.

All I know is if my children were to catch it and I didn't get them the vaccines I would never forgive myself.

My parents were also worried about the (not MMR but) single measles vaccine that was around in the 80s. They had a GP friend whose child had developed autism / regressed around the time he had had the vaccine, and the GP believed his child was vaccine damaged. Back then the GP friend called it "mental retardation caused by the measles vaccine".

A lot of us who either were single vaccinated or not vaccinated at all (I was also withdrawn from the rubella vaccine offered at age 11) can catch up on our vaccines as adults by contacting the GP's surgery. It's free, relatively painless and I had no side effects at all.

I am old enough to remember people walking around with leg irons from polio. I had whooping cough as a toddler, and my husband and I both had measles. My DH also caught chicken pox as an adult in his forties and was seriously ill, the doctors thought it might go into his brain. People have forgotten the dreadful results of these diseases. In some countries children are not allowed to start school without being vaccinated, and I wish we would do the same here, unless there is a real reason why not.

Forgot to add, my DHs eyes are permanently scarred as a result of the measles.

In the mid 70’s the whooping cough vaccine had issues. I remember my DM not getting my younger DSis done. Then spent the next 10 years panicking whenever anyone coughed. She took my DSis back to GP and was vaccinated.
There were no scare stories about when I was a baby so I had everything.
My DF best friend as a baby caught Polio and he believes in every vaccine saves lives.

Why traumatic?
mine were both fine, I explained beforehand what would happen, a needle into each arm for just a second, which would probably hurt a little, and the medicine would prevent them getting diseases that would be much worse than the injections.

both sat on my knee, the nurses laid out all the stickers on the seat of the chair in front so the child could concentrate on choosing which one they wanted, a quick 3,2,1 countdown, both jabs done at the same time.

they didn’t even cry. And they both remember it.

it was probably worse for the children of friends who were lied to about where they were going, or were told that it definitely wouldn’t hurt.

Exactly. I was born 1969. I had a measles vaccine when I was too young to remember (only knew about it because it left a grey dot on my shoulder that I asked my mum about) and the rubella one when I was 13. No mumps vaccine given.

And, at the age I am, I have also known or met various people of a similar age who didn't get the new vaccination and have lasting effects such as deafness in one ear, thanks to measles. I also knew someone more recently whose dd couldn't be vaccinated and died from the long term effects of measles encephalopathy.

I think many people still distrust MMR. I have wondered in the past if there was still an option to have them separately (or even just Measles separately as that generally seems to be the most serious in children I think?) then there'd be an increase in uptake.

I do vaccinate in general but am completely convinced I react badly to the flu jab and so I'm not quite so inclined to believe it's all automatically good.

Re areas with low takeup, maybe they ought to run vax clinics at schools for Reception children - take the vaccine to the children, rather than trying to get parents to bring the children to the vaccine.

I was in the first cohort to have the polio vaccine. I had it at school, my younger siblings had it at the baby clinic.

At secondary school, there was a girl in my year who had had polio and been left with a wasted leg and foot. She had been unlucky enough to catch it before the vaccine was available.

We all had measles, mumps, chickenpox. because there were no vaccines available then. Fortunately with no lasting effects.

What you mean, like how the Covid vaccine eradicated Covid.

Which is why others need to be vaccinated to give the extra herd immunity
if measles wasn’t circulating, the child wouldn’t have got it
I can’t have the MMR and couldn’t as a child

The covid vaccine was never intended to eradicate covid, much like the flu jab hasn't eradicated flu. The vaccine works against the most dominant strains and is designed to lower the risk of contracting it, reduce the risk of severe illness and/or complications if it is contracted, and lower circulation within the community by reducing contagion.

I think the sciences and medical professions have lost the confidence of much of the public. And almost entirely through their won fault.

I'm not far out on the fringes person, fwiw - much of my birth family is in medicine, at high levels, and I've worked in that sector too, and my spouse and ILs are largely scientists or medical.

Trust in process is a hugely important part in science, and yet we all (should) know there is a serious crisis in peer review, publishing, around commercial interests in the pharmaceutical industry in particular, the number of experimental results, even in hard sciences, that prove not to be reDeGrasse-Tyson.peatable. And more.

And we increasingly have a cohort in the media who treat certain topics as dogma rather than science, where questions and alternative models are decried as blasphemy.

Idiots in public facing scientific "public intellectual" roles, like Neil DeGrasse-Tyson don't help, which is perhaps unfair to working scientists but it certainly affects how people perceive those roles.

More immediately, Covid has the most to answer for. So much scientific nonsense not only proposed, but pushed on people who were punished if they didn't toe the line. From putting up plastic screens in shops, to insisting paper surgical masks stop respiratory viruses, the 2 meter rule, to calling people who though the lab leak theory was plausible racists - all supported by governments, none of it science based. (A crazy local one to me, for a while we had to wear masks into a restaurant, we could take them off as long as we were sitting, if we got up to go to the toilet we had to take them out of our pocket and put them back on.)

And anyone who works in vaccination programs in countries where there is a distrust of vaccines will tell you the main thing you should not do is try to force people to be vaccinated - it has the opposite of the desired effect. (Public health people knew all this stuff, btw. They just... chose not to care.)

People see the authorities telling fibs to manipulate people into doing what they want, often for reasons that don't make sense, most scientists don't speak out.

Plus all the usual stuff. Vaginal mesh scandal. Contraceptive shots causing brain tumours, after many years of use. But apparently no need to worry about new products/vaccines/etc.

The result - massive distrust.

Covid is due to a rapidly evolving corona virus and the way it acts, the way the immune system reacts to it and its highly contagious nature means its effects can only be reduced, in most cases. Many other diseases are caused by more stable viruses or bacteria and can be completely prevented by vaccination for the majority of people.

There was a lot of talk about herd immunity though when they were pushing people to vaccinate. Not quite so much in the UK, but where I live, and the US, for certain. It was used as justification for letting people go from their jobs - and I don't mean in healthcare, but people working at mechanics shops and things like that.

Covid was so international, even more moderate places like the UK are now suffering the social effects that more far out policies created in the population.

Complacency about vaccines makes me so cross. We are so fortunate in the UK that a comprehensive vaccine schedule exists for every child, bar a tiny minority who cannot have them. Around the world there are so many children who don't have this ready access. The idiots who smugly refuse to vaccinate their children have for years been able to rely on the majority of us who do use vaccinations to protect their children. Now it may no longer be the case. I feel sorry for the children who had no say in the matter and are now at risk, as well as those who are too young to have been vaccinated yet.

This. My GP explained herd immunity to me when my first DC was born and I get so irritated by smug anti-vax parents explaining to me that their children don’t get sick - that’s because the rest of the vaccinated population are protecting them but sadly, diseases that were almost eradicated such as Measles, Mumps and Whooping Cough are now back due to people who refuse to vaccinate. It’s so unnecessary and many more children will die due to this. Make it make sense?!

I just want to say, not everyone who doesn't vaccinate is a mad conspiracy nut. or neglectful parent. Some of us (me) have seen horrendous vaccine injury first hand (not supposed "autism regression") and, as a result, they terrify us. I am equally as scared of the vaccine as I am of measles. I had spent the last few days in abject panic about what to do for the best. I have read every research paper I can and I have also looked for examples of where the vaccine has caused damage so that I have a balanced view. I have called the GP surgery to speak to a nurse (and potentially book in for the MMR), was told I would be called back and haven't heard a peep. I am scared. Scared of doing the wrong thing. What if I vax and he's inured - I couldn't live with myself. I equally couldn't live with myself If he caught measles and died. For what it's worth, I am on the verge of just booking him in and throwing caution to the wind - but he's my precious "baby" (6) - the only kid I'll ever have. I know some of you will think I am some monster with blood on my hands but I'm not - I'm just a scared, anxious mum who is struggling to see past serious vax injury.

What serious vax injury? Becase of course, there ARE people who can't or shouldn't be vaccinated. But was this injury really genuine? Was it more serious than measles? Was it an injury that your child suffered or someone else?

These are the questions you need to ask.

I know a woman who has terrible reactions to vaccines. She therefore does not want to have any more vaccines for herself. Fine. I get that. But I don't understand why she thinks therefore that it's reasonable for everyone else not to get vaccinated. They are HER side effects, they're not THAT serious and they only affect HER.

I understand this logic, I really do but fear is the greatest judgement-clouder! It was a friend's child and was proven to be the vaccine (they had a large payout) and equal to a worse case scenario of measles.

I am desperately trying to rationalise that this does not mean my child will be injured but then I think "what if?" and I am back to square one. It also doesn't help that my partner with a science PhD is also reticent (for the same reasons as myself) but is open to do whatever to keep our son safe. I will book him in today and what will be will be - I can't let my fear dictate this.