to be bl**dy furious that my DD has measles because other parents won't vaccinate?

[elportodelgato]

poor DD is only 11 mo and has horrid measles all over her, full of cold, streaming eyes, diarrhea, very unhappy and sleepy and limp. I am so so for her, but more I am absolutely bloody with idiot parents who won't have the MMR!

The doctor actually told me this morning that the reason it is so prevalent in our area is because of stupid people refusing to vaccinate their children and compromising the immunity of the whole group. So now my LO, who is only 2 months off having the vaccination herself, is really really sick because of other people's stupidity. It's making my blood boil! Do people not realise how dangerous it can be in little babies? And does anyone still seriously believe the so called "research" which claimed a link between MMR and autism? It has been so completely discredited in recent years you would think people would have got over it by now and started vaccinating again

Arrgh!!

The thing is with your first you're clueless aren't you and you do what others tell you, believing that are right?

I know that my cousin's child developed terrible childhood arthritis after his mmr booster and will never be cured of it. He is now 16 poor lad.

I would personally much rather they caught the illnesses, they are healthy and strong, have a good diet so the chances are they would be fine.

I would be happy for the boys to have the mumps jab in their teens if they hadn't caught it and of course for the girls to have the rubella.

Kitty just as it used to be then...girls having the rubella jab in school at 13.

YANBU and I agree with someguy.
Some of my friends made the decision not to vaccinate on the basis of misguided media reports. And don't get me started on Fiona Philips

When I was a child parents used to take their children around to visit those who had measles>>

Ib, thanks for reminding me of that. I'd forgotten and of course it made perfect sense with diseases that were often more serious if caught in later life.

Of course if any of the vaccinations actually stopped you catching the disease for life it would be different, but they don't do they.

I was working as a nanny for Andrew Wakefield when this whole debacle took place. was only 25 at the time with no kids of my own, obviously, but was deeply affected, not only by the constant media attention but by the parents of children with autism and Crohn's disease who used to ring the house and speak about the doctor to me as if he were a saint.

It definitely had an impact on our decision not to give our children the combined jab, despite the fact that he has been so completely discredited. Having known him and worked and lived with him, I can only say that I completely trust that his belief in his work was absolute.

Having said all that, YANBU. I am so sorry that your dc is so unwell.

Letthem - his work hasn't been discredited. I have seen lots of references to it being discredited but nothing published which even tests his hypothesis. So it can't have been discredited.

When the royal free team was broken up that expertise was lost from the uk. I know parents who were told that there had been a mistake. That there was nothing wrong with their child's gut- this was despite these parents having seen the ulcerated guts themselves. Because there was supposedly nothing wrong with these children they could no longer access medical treatment for their painful bowel condition. They were dropped - well and truly. Wakefield stood by them and had his career destroyed as a result. Consequently he does have a saint like status to some. He wasn't the only one -Simon murch has come under a lot of pressure too for example but Wakefield was the main man. And the gmc hearing has not apparently picked any holes in the original paper (not that that was the point of it but it has of course been
discussed).quite the opposite - the paper has been praised.

It's a pity that the OP hasn't been back to coment on the posts by parents who have not given the MMR. That's what I find very frustrating about these vax threads. People give legitimate reasons why they have not vaccinated/opted for singles, but the OP (and others) fail to acknowledge that they have acted in the best interests of their children - Junglist and a few others excepted. The herd immunity arguement pisses me off as well. Yes, we have a responsibility for public health as well as the health of our own children, but honestly which one of you would sacrifice the health of your own child for the benefit of others?

My son has a family history of auto-immune disease (diabetes and thyroiditis) and that is good enough reason imo to opt for the single vaccine for measles. It's a pity that the NHS won't fund singles (particularly measles) - especially when they are lamenting the poor uptake of vaccinations) but what annoys me far more is their obstructive stance.

The paper has been discredited the patholigists involved disagreeded with changing the normal biopsy results for 7 of the children from 'norma' to 'colitis' for instance and IMO was discredited for accepting money from legal teams suing over the vaccine

You know in the 60's it was known that smoking caused illness, cancer strokes etc but because ,as I understand it, there was no medical proof linking them "they" said it wasn't true. It was obvious at the time that smoking caused cancer and it is obvious to many of us now that the mmr causes problems.

One day there will be medical evidence that will not be hidden by governments.

YANBU.

Both my children have been vaccinated fully, and I did do LOTS of research both times before going ahead - that doesn't make me a Sheep in the herd, blindly doing what the government tells me.

DS has recently had his MMR after much debate - for us, it was the safest thing to do. I read some research suggesting that at the time of the MMR (13-14 months), the behavioural signs of Autism become evident naturally, and it's very likely that the vaccine isn't anything to do with that.

Yes, I could have given the single vaccine, but what about all the families out there that can't afford to pay for that? How is that fair? I disagree with it entirely, it's just another way for this goverment to keep people down, and in doing so, created a divide where there needen't have been one.

OP, I hope your little girl gets better very quickly.

YANBU at all and I hope you DD is soon better.

I know someone who's first child was "normal" and had the MMR all fine

Second child had MMR and has AS, she blamed the MMR.

Third child had single jabs and is also AS,
Not sure what she is blaming for that.

I have a child who is in the AS spectrum, but it is NOT bewcause of any inoculations he has had.

We are going to see a rise in these illnesses and in child deaths because of them if people stop protecting their children.

my mother NEVER had my sister of I inoculated against anything and I remember how ill I was with these illnesses and I can not understand why any parent would want to have their child so ill, my mother did not have us jabbed as in her words "she knew someone with twins one of whom went funny in the head after the whooping cough jab" .

oh ffs Kimi Your mother was right to be cautious with the whooping cough jab, though whether she was right not to get you vaccinated depends on your individual circumstances. My mother was advised by her GP not to vaccinate my brother against whooping cough because he'd had several head injuries. As for suggesting anyone would really want to see their children seriously ill...........completely stupid comment.

There was a fairly well-documented rash of brain damage following the whooping cough vaccine given in the early 70s, hence why my extremely cautious parents had us vaccinated against everything available except WC (at the time that was measles and mumps I think). That would be why your mother didn't have you vaccinated, Kimi. And I can really understand why.

We all 5 had whooping cough at the same time during the outbreak in 1978. We're all fine (although my poor mother had to stay up for a month nursing us all).

The vaccine for whooping cough even now seems not that effective anyway.

Also for anyone whose child has a long-lasting cough without a diagnosis: the site of a GP who has been charting cases of whooping cough in the general population for years.

I'm afraid I sit on the fence on this one, I work for the NHS, with GPs and have a lot of faith in modern medicine, so my DD was vaccinated.

I also know of one occasion when a health visitor was literally filling the needle to give MMR when the child started to have a fit and became very unwell, if she'd given the jab a few minutes earlier I'm sure the parent would have blamed the MMR, although the child was already ill.

I'm lucky to have a healthy child, so I believe parents should make their own informed choice.

Renaldo could you link us to some actual data rather than just giving us your personal take on all this?

Your opinion may be that there has been a breach of ethics in terms of legal fees but the GMC in the cases of Wakefield, Murch and Walker-Smith has not only failed to find one but has, on the contrary, established that Horton and the Lancet were informed well in advance of the legal expert work Wakefield was doing and were aware that it had no bearing on the publishing of the Lancet paper. Wakefield followed procedures correctly and the Lancet was fully informed of the legal expert work a year before publication of the 1998 report.

It is not a breach of conduct for a doctor to act as an expert for a legal team and accept money for doing so, it is a common and perfectly ethical practice as long as certain rules are adhered to (as they have been by Wakefield)

Lots of people seem to have picked up the idea that the GMC case is about the science involved here. It is not, it is about complex ethical procedures, protocols and paperwork. It is about whether the proper procedures which distinguish clinical work from research work have been followed.

The science as the saintly poster saintly never tires of informing us has not been discredited.

The science has not even been directly replicated or scientifically challenged.

Please for the love of reason could someone who asserts that Wakefield's science has been discredited do two things in order to have some modicum of credibility about their views;

Firstly could you actually give a reference and link to which one of the many papers Dr Wakefield has published you are refering to. Could you actually specify which element of his excellent research career you are libellously declaring to be rubbished. Otherwise it just looks like you have read something on Bad Science or Spikedonline and ever since been repeating it (just as it has been intended that you do so by those in positions of influence) whenever you get the opportunity. Could you show that you have actually read the original work yourself because otherwise it seems extremely naively trusting to base your views on the words of others who, may or may not, have a vested interest in the outcome of all this.

Secondly, could you link to (and read) the science you are so sure exists which challenges Dr Wakefield's work and explain which elements of his work are being put in doubt. Please.

We are dealing with serious issues here, spreading misinformation and libeling a very important doctor is not a responsible thing to do.

I did ask earlier that some posters take a look at some of the ever increasing body of scientific evidence which establishes links between vaccines and autism and the only answer I got was that people didn't want to look at this important research cos they didn't like the websites it was on. (Websites by parents of damaged children who have done an excellent job of linking to original work and gathering it together so that it is easy to access). I did think about doing a list of direct links to the data itself myself, thereby repeating the lists to be found on these websites that people are prejudiced against despite not having actually looked at them. I decided it would be a waste of time because then people would start to complain that didn't like the paper the research was written on or some such rubbish. Will do it though if anybody would actually read it.

There's been quite a shift in whooping cough. I can't do the search now, but in 2002 the new scientist reported on work by a korean team which showed the there was a new strain of whooping cough which wasn't protected against by vaccination. DS2 had whooping cough. He was fine.

Also new measles strains are often discussed.

turnip- thanks, that shift might explain why my sister had it again recently (despite having had it as a child) as the same time as her vaccinated 4 yr old son...

renaldo - the Lancet study was completed before the Legal Aid study had even started. The GMC hearing and evidence arising from it has made this very clear. The Lancet study was completed before the legal aid study started. Before.

So how does this discredit Wakefield's work?

Am I the only one who is absolutely sick to the stomach of this oft repeated offensive idea that parents of children who developed neurological, behavioural and physiological problems after vaccination are "looking for something to blame"?

These parents are trying to find out what has happened to their children in order to have some chance of helping them and relieving some of their distress. These parents are trying to advance the work that needs to be done in order to establish what makes a child vulnerable to this sort of damage and thereby develop screening procedures in order to prevent other vulnerable children from being damaged.

God, I despair of all this when I read threads like this. How do you manage to keep so calm and reasonable saintly (very apt new name)? Is it because you have regular discussions with people who actually have informed and sensible scientifically based views on all this?

Thank you again for your voice of reason, encyclopedic knowledge and useful links.

Flightattendat25 - I'm with you. I can totally understand the OP beign furious - but blame the government and the nanny state it has imposed on us by not giving parents an alternative, rather than the mums and dads who are just trying to do what they feel is best for their children.

I know that even if there is a link between MMR and ASD/bowel disorders the odds of being one of the unlucky ones are remote. That said, I wasn't willing to take that risk with my DD and we had separate vaccinations. We only managed to afford it cos I was working and both sets of grandparents chipped in. At £350 for the full set and with a recession in full swing a lot of people aren't in such a fortunate position so leave it later or don't vaccinate, not because they are irresponsible but because our government refuses to offer us a choice.

Beachcomber- the ironic thing is that when I watched baby videos of ds1 - after avoiding them for years- he was doing far more than I remembered.

I was one of those not vaccinated against whooping cough cos of the brain damage scare (mid/late 70's).

I had it when I was about 6. My lung collapsed and I missed 2 months of school and had to have physio twice a week for God knows how long.

A year later I was diagnosed with asthma which I have always wondered whether this was a side effect of the wc.

None of that would have persuaded me to let my DD have the triple jab TBH.

Beachcomber, my personal favourite is "the signs of autism become apparent at around the same time as MMR is given" - which can therefore only be a coincidence.

Because it would be entirely natural for a child to regress, lose speech and any gained continance, have difficulty digesting food, spend hours screaming and in pain - all happening overnight, and if the MMR wasn't given at that time, no-one would think it odd that this happened