to not allow ds2 to have mmr jab?

[TheLadyEvenstar]

I don't think I am, after ds1 had it i noticed a major difference in his behaviour and don't want to go through it again,

Totally agree with morocco. I don't think there's anything categorically wrong with the MMR, but personally I am not 100% confident about it either, and could not have lived with myself if I let DD have it and there were repercussions, so we had separate jabs. It is bloody expensive, but what price your child's health and your peace of mind.

escortss - just because 'society' thinks one way does not reduce the parents individual responsibilty for their child - are we all supposed to behave like bloody sheep just because that's what the government tells us?

I do not denigrate parents who choose to have the MMR jabs for their children so why should I and others like me be pilloried for exercising our freedom of choice, particularly when we are paying hundreds of pounds for private single vaccinations, so NOT being irresponsible in terms of the possible effect on society.

Also, out of interest, I'm the same age as OP (33) - how many people of our age had all the childhood diseases (MMR etc) and are still here and healthy to tell the tale?

I do appreciate there are bigger factors to consider these days, but I think the propagana about MMR cuts both ways.

i'm 42 and lived through these illnesses

but

mumps was not very nice, I remember being very sore and pityfull and having 3 weeks off school

measles was a diferent story. I can remember being incredibley ill. My eyes felt like someone was continuelly poking them, even wearing sunglasses and having velvet, lined curtains closed, it was pure agony. My parents set up a bed downstairs and took it in turns to sleep with me. I was 12. I have since had other illnesses but have never felt so bad since

I also had whooping cough and that is terrifying. you don't know if you will get another breath during a coughing fit. I honestly thought I would never breath again and die during the coughing fits. I was 11

I was adamant my kids would be vaccinated as I wouldn't want them to go through what I did

I have no lasting effects but the fear I can remember like it was yesterday

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18252754?ordinalpos=7&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsP anel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17867721?ordinalpos=9&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsP anel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

also, for a more palatable version
"In the Journal of Medical Virology May March 2006 there was a paper by Afzal et al, looking for measles RNA in children with regressive autism after MMR vaccination, using tools so powerful they could detect measles RNA down to single-figure copy numbers. It found no evidence of the vaccine-strain measles RNA to implicate MMR. Nobody wrote about this study, anywhere, in the British media (except for me in my column)" from the lovely Ben www.badscience.net/2008/08/the-medias-mmr-hoax/#more-772

this was also published in BMJ. 2007 Jul 21;335(7611):126-7. Epub 2007 Jul 18. but you can't access without subscription.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15173555?ordinalpos=1&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsP anel.Pubmed_DiscoveryPanel.PubmedDiscoveryRA&linkpos=5&log$=relatedreviews&logdbfrom=pubmed

and I'll end with the one which is most cited I think, as the thinking scientist's antidote to the Wakefield effect.... (affect? My brain is going).....hope I'm not repeating myself, I had 201 papers to choose from.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15366972?ordinalpos=2&itool=EntrezSystem2.PEntrez.Pubmed.Pubmed_ResultsP anel.Pubmed_DefaultReportPanel.Pubmed_RVDocSum

OK, now I really do have to go and put my family first :-)

I couldn't not have my children vaccinated. My mum's brother had polio and it is the saddest thing for her that her brother was terribly disabled and died very young.
I couldn't put her through seeing that in her grandchildren too.

Scared - I appreciate that measles at 12 is probably very difficult to having it as a young child as I did.

I also remember mumps being pretty hideous (over Christmas when I was about 6), and also had very bad whooping cough as there had been concerns about the vaccination for that and my parents had decided not to let me have it. My lung collapsed, I was off school for 2 months and had to go to hospital for physio twice a week, so I don't raise the issue lightly.

It just galls me that those of us who are reluctant to 'toe the line' are often the butt of a lot of negativity, when to me, and I'm sure many others, I feel it is wrong that we supposedly live in a 'free' country, but NHS health professionals are not allowed to advise as they see fit, but have to conform to government guidelines, which are at least partially there for the sake of economics.

My HV was not 'allowed' to give me contact for private clinics, when I decided I wanted DD to have separate jabs, but when it came to her boosters recently, and I told the nurse I was considering having the triple for that as DD was older, they told me they completely disregard any private vaccinations, and my DD would have to have 2 lots of MMR as a result.

Because I was made redundant earlier in the year, we can't afford to have the separate jabs at the moment, and there is no way on earth I am letting DD to go to my local GP's where she will end up having another 2 lots of MMR on top of the set she has already had.

If the powers that be, would at least support parents freedom of choice, by providing information about separate jabs and private clinics, rather than assuming we are imbeciles that need to be dictated to about ou children's wlefare, I suspect more people who don't like the idea of the triple jab would opt for private jabs sooner, thus bringing the level of protection up again.

Sorry for the rant - it's a subject close to my heart (as you may have guessed!)

Hi Molly - my poor family - I just can't stay away ...

I applaud your decision to get single vaccines, it was obviously given a lot of thought.

The thing that makes me go "AAAAAAAAAAAAARrrrrrrrrrrrrrggggggggggggghhhhhhhhhhhh", is that until that stupid stupid paper was published, and the cretinous media took it upon themselves to misrepresent it even further (it was about 12 children with autism, who had also had MMR, but still didn't show one cause the other), no one - NO ONE questioned it, and we didn't have these diseases. One of my links shows that in France they had a hissy fit in the 90's about the HepB vaccine causing mutiple sclerosis, and there was another one, I forget what, in the US. No one else around the world batted an eyelid, and of course both times it was the result of one obscure paper somewhere, that the media whipped up.

As for others posting, again with the "we're all fine now aren't we".. why do you think that is?
Are you happy to risk your child going through what Scaredoflove describes? Or just relieved that because the vast majority of vaccinate your children, the roulette is weighted in your favour...because of course the brutal truth is that you can probably all get away with not vaccinating your children, and statistically,chances are, Your children will escape the illnesses.

in 20 years you'll be able to say "oh, well my children were fine". Meanwhile someone somewhere will be dealing with death, blindness, deafness and sterility.

Hope it's no one you know.

One last thing from me, I promise. I was curious, if the "government" decides on MMRs because they're cheaper, surely they would want to make sure it was worth it.

I've just found this link about the costs of Austism. If having single vaccines really made a difference, surely it would be worth it?

www.channel4.com/news/articles/society/health/autism+costs+uk+28bn+a+year/1065657

That's it, I'm going now!

Mollycherry, going through it at 11/12 made me able to understand the true horrors that these diseases cause, even when no lasting damage.

When I had my first child I remember thinking, how could I ever put her through anything like these illnesses. A small baby may not remember but at the time, how scared, terrified would they feel? I barely coped at 12, I understood why I was ill. A young child would just feel fear, pure terror

My last child had a brain injury at birth, the docs were reluctant to immunise as her little brain had already been through a major trauma. I insisted on vaccinating her. Again, I couldn't bear the thought of her going through the illness or being left more disabled than she already was. Her body and brain coped with it and she isn't as disabled as they originally thought. So, if I hadn't vaccinated and she had caught measles or whooping cough, she could have ended up in much worse state and of course, being unvaccinated would have put her at huge risk from low take up

I am closer to grandparenthood as my eldest is 19, if she ever asks me what I think, I wouldn't hesitate in telling her vaccine is better than illness

Ok, just an apology first, i didn't run off after starting this..my internet connection went down.

I have not made this decision lightly. As i have already said I have 2 ds's 1 is 10 and 1 is 14m. DS1 had every jab except the preschool booster and mmr booster. After the mmr at around 4 there was a major noticable change in his behaviour. I now know I do not want ds2 to have the mmr as I do not know for definate if this is what caused the changes in ds1 and am not willing to do this to another child.

I spent a long time talking to dp last night and told him exactly how i feel. He and I got talking about various children we know and how they were/weren't affected. DP and his exp have 2 ds's, the eldest (24) did not have the mmr and the youngest (14) did but not until he was almost 6yrs old. Now a few of you will know from my past postings that dss has "problems" these apparently only occured after the mmr as well, he was fine before and then he too changed drastically.

Knowing that 2 ds's in my family ave changed after the mmr has made my final decision for me. I am not putting ds2 through it, childhood illnesses are going to be caught.

these questions and answers are from various sites i have been on lately.

How do we know the vaccine is really safe?

No vaccine is ever 100 per cent safe. Most reactions are mild, but more serious reactions can occur. There is a risk of having a convulsion (fit) 7-11 days after the MMR vaccine.

and for single vaccinations of m,m,r

How long do you recommend between the vaccines?
We recommend a minimum of six weeks between each immunisation. However some clinics recommend longer, even up to six months. There are no hard and fast rules to this, but we happy to go with your preferences on this matter as long as there is a minimum of six weeks.

I'm worried about giving so many vaccines to my baby when he is so young, can I wait until he is older?
Babies are at their greatest risk of developing vaccine-preventable diseases during the first 12 months of life.

So someone tell me if it is so safe to give them all at once why the 6 week minimum between the seperates???

The 6 week gap is nothing to do with safety, its to do with allowing the immune system to develop the maximal effect to the immunisation and provide the best cover.

I purposely haven't read all this thread as I am both scared and angry about the total social irresponsibility of people NOT immunising their children.

My ds2 will be having his first MMR in the next month or 2. In fact I'll be calling the HV on Monday to see if we can get it sooner. In the meantime we are living in fear of him catching measles, we have an epidemic in our area because the uptake has fallen so the population is not fully protected. I appreciate the concerns but the research that linked the MMR to autism etc has been utterly discredited and there is a huge weight of evidence against the link. Measles kills, mumps can make boys sterile. To me its a no brainer...

Hi Tles this is our family's opinion of the MMR based on our experience. (Was posted on our other thread)

Have to say I left ds 1's MMR till he was four as I would then know his personality. We had it done earlier this year in April/may and six weeks later he developed the rash, swollen glands, diahorrea (sp?)extreme tiredness and concentration problems. He hasn't been right since and has been re referred to the paediatrician again (was referred in Aug) as his glands are still swollen (6 months now) and he his still extremely tired so much that school have asked him to reduce his hours as they think he is too tired to be at school. This may a total coincidence but when I told my osteopath about ds 1 he said it sounded like his immune system was being battered by something that his body couldn't fight. When I said he'd had the MMR 6 weeks previously to him becoming ill he said 'there you go' My Dr thinks there is no link at all and ds 1 has a Glandular fever type virus. I am left feeling that I have done something awful to my son when I believed I thought what I was doing would be beneficial. I understand the MMR may be totally unconnected to these symptoms but due to the nature of the beast it's not even being considered yet the NHS website does list possible side effects and the above list of Ds 1?s symptoms covers most of them. What it doesn?t say is how long these symptoms can go on for which means this long illness of Ds 1's can be attributed to something else. I'm not looking to blame the MMR I just want everything to be considered so we can get the whole picture of what is wrong with him and not to discount certain possibilities due to them being a political hot potato. We aren't going to get Ds 2 MMR'd although I am happy he has all the others.

I really don't want to put anyone off and are desperately not trying to scare you but I do feel that some children will always have reactions to immunisations as it is possible to have reactions to any drugs we put in our bodies. I believe Ds 1 is one of the few that do and that the benefits of immunisations still outweigh the possible consequences, however, you always want your children to not be the ones who have the reactions.

We opted for the single vaccinations. It did cause some friction between DH and me as he couldn't see a problem with the triple jab but I got myself so worked up about the whole issue it actually made me feel ill. I kept myself healthy throughout pregnancy and was blessed with a DS, the thought of putting him at risk (however small) was not an option. When DH told a friend of his, he asked "whats so f*ing special about your son?"

YANBU your child your choice

I don't know if yabu or not...honestly.

Ds1 had MMR and I thought he changed too, but I am not sure.

Ds2 hasn't had it yet but only BECAUSE he had suspected measles at 10 months, well the GP said it was, with an ear infection at the same time...they took swabs and one came back positive, which could mean he had measles or it could have been from maternal antibodies. (I was still feeding)

So I am reluctant for him to have the mMR if he already had measles. Trouble is it is very hard to get his immunity tested, I have to see the DR about it. Only if it comes back as not immune will I consider the MMR. I'd like him to have the separate vaccines but don't know where to get it done - presume I'll have to pay.

MarlaSinger, you are not being irresponsible and are doing the right thing by arming yourself with the facts and not scaremongering, you will be making an informed choice. Whatever you decide you have to feel comfortable with that decision.

There has been a mass of good quality research into side effects connected with the MMR and none of it has found a link with autism or other serious disease..

On the other hand there is clear proof that a small number of children who get measles will develop serious respiratory disease and encephalitis.

The thing that makes me saddest is that there are children in every community who are immune compromised for various reasons who are at serious risk when there is a measles outbreak as they are more prone to develop serious complications. Meanwhile the worried parents of well children, who - according to all respectable scientific opinion who have nothing to fear from having their MMR, are creating the conditions for an epidemic by not having their children immunised.

Fwiw I am now concerned as to whether ds2 has suffered ear damage as a result. He has very few words, shouts a lot, etc.

I am not sure how to find out.

As the mother of a deaf child PLEASE PLEASE think about other children as well as your own.

What happened to your LO, Nawty?

Nowty, sorry

Marlasinger - you are replacing one unproven risk with a PROVEN risk.

There is no evidence that having the mmr will put your child at risk of serious illness.

There is very good evidence that you are putting your child at risk of serious complications from measles from not having them immunised.

In addition you are putting other children and unimmunised adults in your community at risk - some of them who will be much more vulnerable than your child.

It's not just about our children - it's about all children.

we don't know for definite but was told by one audiologist that I may have contracted rubella whilst pregnant but didn't know it at the time