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!!

At a population level yes the risk is tiny. For children with pre-dispositions which make them more susceptible no - it might be very large indeed.

What are the pre dispositions?

Well it does soen't it? Because you can take the informed decision not to have the MMR based on your family history. But for the vast majority of the population, it isn't relevant.

Fine. But I'd rather not be told I'm a Daily Mail reading idiot who does not understand the research has been discredited.

I agree with you on that but don't you think there are a large number of people out there with no relevant family medical history who have avoided MMR based on scare stories?

And the problem is identifying children who may be vulnerable when they are 13/14 months old. They may be a tiny proportion of the overall population, but they are still children. Offering singles on the NHS would protect those children. Allowing more research into MMR safety would protect those children. but, no, fuck em, because those it affects are statistically a tiny number.

Agree with you on that ruty, and that distortion has caused so many misconceptions

YADNBU! I would be furious too
Most people who refuse to vaccinate do it usually through complete ignorance of the facts. The Wakefield study used only 12 subjects from one community. That makes it completely invalid and unreliable. In a quantitative study that is credible you should expect at least a few hundred subjects. The study was not able to be repeated due to errors. Yet people still take this as being a link. Most people who choose not to vaccinate have no idea about how to read research effectively and literally just look at the results and conclusion without looking at anything else, such as sample size, geographical area, statistical tests used, sampling method.

And just when you think you are getting somewhere.....

Erm it was a case series Dilly, so would be a bit odd to be 'testing' a few hundred participants.

sorry, didn't have time to read all the thread.
Yes the risk is tiny. There is a belief in some fields that lots of infections could point towards immuno-suppression in some children and that the extra viruses of MMR would overload the system. However, children come into thousands of viruses in the first year of life without being vaccinated, 3 more is unlikely to have adverse effects. Children are symultaneously exposed to several viruses at a time naturally, with no adverse effects.

Novicemama ? I?m pleased to hear that your baby is getting better and I, too, would be very upset if my toddler contacted the disease. But can I ask you why you thought ?it should be all but eliminated in a developed country?? (point 4).

Surely it is a well known fact that the MMR uptake (in the U.K.) declined after the Wakefield paper. Although on the rise, it is still less than required to achieve herd immunity. Therefore, as the level of maternal antibodies decline and without herd immunity, it is very much a question of luck whether a baby/toddler gets the disease before being vaccinated. As the vaccination does not work for all children, one would really need to have the immune response checked to confirm that the child is protected. There were about 1,350 cases of measles in the U.K. last year. Although not a vast number by any means, I would hate it if my child was one of the statistics.

Mine will have the single measles vaccine in a few days time and until I have his antibody level checked, he does not go to crèches etc. I am fortunate in that I have a choice. There are no contraindications to having a live attenuated virus vaccine. It is not an easy decision to make as no vaccine is 100% safe (or medicine come to that) and as a parent one has to carry out risk evaluations all the time. Does one risk 1) contacting measles in the first place 2) having got it, serious complications that may arise 3) side effects of the vaccine itself? An individual evaluation, an individual decision to make. And this is how it has to be in any voluntary vaccination programme, the rights of the individual are all important. Would you want it any other way?

Even if it was a case series it would still need more evidence that it could be extrapolated to the wider population. It was only valid within the population tested and the group was closed.

Sorry have not read through all the posts so apologiese if I am repeating.

Becaue of so many "scare" stories in the media a number of parents chose to not vaccinate. ALL of these claims have been unproven and in fact the original docter who put out the report about a link with autism has been struck off. I really don't understand why parents are still not vaccinating. It is safe and has passed all tests to prove this.

It is a disgrace that the OP child and others get measles because other parents beleive everything they read in the press. No child is fully immuned untill they have had their booster at 3+ so any child under 3 can catch measles even if they had the first jab at age 1. All children should be immunsed and if a child has not been they should not be allowed to be enrolled in nurserys, pre schools or school untill they have received the vaccination.

Kate - some of the posters are saying that if your child already has a known condition then it's not safe to vaccinate.
don't know that these condidtions are though as everyone seems a big vague on that one.

But the paper was not extrapolated. It simply described (in lots of detail) the type of novel inflammation seen in the guts of the 12 children, and said that in those 12 children symptoms started with the administration of the MMR. It didn't say anything else. It didn't extrapolate to the wider population.

The 12 children were not from one geographical area either, one was from the USA and one was from the Channel islands.

Children don't come into contact with 1000's of childhood illnesses every day of the year. In fact catching chickenpox and measles (wild type) within the same year slightly increases your risk of developing autism.

I think many people miss the point on here that most of us on here DID vaccinate. We did it. Quite happily in my case. 90% of the people I know who give no vaccinations DID give those vaccinations to previous children.

Nancy66 - severe gut disorders/significant family history of autoimmune disorders.

or mitochondrial dysfunction.

Lots of the autism population have immune system oddities- some quite strange ones as well. - one talk I went to suggested a model whereby an event during early pregnancy could leave to a situation where the baby was triggered by later exposure to an environmental agent. Including vaccinations.

Canada has also experienced measles outbreaks in adult immigrant populations

Sassybeast Beachcomber has spent 5 years reading about this subject.

Beachcomber has nursed her child back to health thanks to and only thanks to the internet and the help of other parents when the medical community washed its hands of her vaccine damaged child with her trashed immune system and distressing and painful gut problems.

Beachcomber is well and truly sick of people using name calling and personal attack instead of bothering to read the science and construct counter arguments.

Beachcomber is fed up with people talking utter bollocks and being too lazy or narrowminded to even take a look at important, cutting edge science.

Beachcomber is sickened by the idea that it is ok for some kids to be devastatingly damaged by MMR just as long as the rest of us don't have to deal with measles.

Beachcomber is wearied by the trotting out of the notion that measles is a killer disease with no effort on the part of anyone to look into the fact that measles complications are actually very rare in healthy well nourished children and when they do occur can usually be successfully treated with Vitamin A, C,D and zinc (check Pubmed for research on this, 72% of children admitted to hospital in a US study were viamin A deficient with the deficiency having a direct correlation with the severity of symptoms).

God but I really understand why Pagwatch loses the rag on threads like this. Again I express my admiration for the saintly saintly. I take my hat off to you.

For a long time now I've been convinced that the vaccine/autism link cannot be kept under wraps for much longer due to the sheer numbers of people involved now and the amount and quality of research being done. This thread has seriously made me question that and has, frankly, been quite disturbing. People just don't want to know do they (as long as it isn't their child that has their health devastated that is.)?

Can I just say that there are so many sweeping statements on here that it is impossible to keep up.

I know very very few people who base their decision to vaccinate idly. Those who are saying that most people do - well maybe you have dim friends or more likely you are happy to just be rude about everyone who reaches a different conclusion to you.

Also. I will happily ( well not happily but ...willingly) detail what happened to my son after his vaccination.
That does not make me anti-vaccine.
The throwing around of Anti-MMRs and anti-vaccinators is ridiculous.
I would never tell another parent not to vaccinate their child. What happened to my son remains in the minority of responses.
But it DID happen and that places my DD at risk were I to even consider it.
Just because I feel this jab does not sit with my families particular auto-immune response does not make me anti-vaccination.

I have been called stupid and selfish etc etc on this thread now more times than I can count.
It is strange that with all the reason in the world to be anti-vaccine I choose to respect parents rights to do their best for their child. And that whilst most on here frankly have no knowledge of and could care less about the life my son will now lead THEY seem prepared to throw insults and stamp their feet insisting that my right to try and protect my daughter be removed.

FWIW the pre-prep my DD attends has no problem with her being unvaccinated. Nor does her GP , nor her paediatrician. So many posters who now want to ignore all those professionals in order to insist that they must be right. Talk about a witch hunt.

Finally all you experts insisting that my sons ASD was nothing to do with the MMR. What does cause a child to loose all gained skills within a two month period? Because no one yet has been able to tell me. If it wasn't the MMR then what happened to him?