to consider not immunizing ds against swine 'flu?

[deliakate]

And can we do a poll - who is and who isn't and what are the ages of your dcs?

just bumping for myself as I'm supposed to be finding graphs on disease decline

DS 18 months, not having the vaccination but he's already had swine flu.

He caught it at 12 months. High temperature and poorly for 2 days but mega cough for about 5 weeks.

Interesting about the fish, the form of mercury and its relative toxicities, but I would draw a clear distinction between ingestion and injection.

Are people here alive to the idea of the incipient immune system needing 'a workout' from the childhood diseases, if not H1N1. It makes a lot of sense to me. The state sponsored paranoia about measles eg gets my goat.

I am rumbling on because no true scientist will say vaccines are 100% safe so it becomes a question of outlook, values, philosophy even. I incline a bit towards the hippies and a bit away from the medical industrial complex.

On the subject of H1N1, it seems to have given up doesn't it? Was it the cold snap?

For that poll: DD is 6 next week, never been vaccinated, had Calpol once, is noted for her physical robustness (despite her slight build) and good humour. Has had homepathics and osteopathy. Goes to state primary. My homest opinion is that if she had been on the vaccination programme she would not be as light and healthy and happy. I see many many ill at ease children around: disgruntled, petulant, out of sorts. I blame vaccination, TV/computer/phone screens, as well as undersleeping and irregular eating (last two of which of which I am regularly guilty).

I'm sorry PapaCass, you are entitled to your opinion, but I can't help feeling your child is benefitting from the herd immunity because most children are vaccinated. When there is a measles epidemic people still die from it and most of us would rather make sure our child is not the one who suffers.

I'm also not convinced that there is a "state sponsored paranoia". It would be a lot cheaper for the NHS if vaccination were abolished which surely suggests the people suggesting vaccination genuinely believe in its benefits.

I don't think any scientist could say that vaccines are 100% safe as the derivation of the word scientist is to know and we can never prove 100% that vaccines are 100% safe for many of the reasons already stated on here.

PS Welcome back, gaelicsheep! You and fledtoscotland make me feel less alone.

Am with you Papacass. I agree with a great deal of what you say.

The graphs will be coming, I hope: but I'm trying to find a source that will satisfy you. All the sources that you will accept show measles decline after vaccination. They leave off the huge steep hill, of which it is a continuation. The other graphs come from websites which you won't like. Which is not to say they aren't accurate: but you might use that as an excuse for scoffing I think!

dd 7mo had the jab at 6mo, no reaction to the jab and no reaction afterwards either.
I read the official weekly pandemic reports before I made the decison and I am very glad she is vaccinated.

You have to put in perspective the number of side effects reported with the huge number of people vaccinated.

pappacass - there are a great many immunized healthy happy children out there, including mine, and I object to your implication that we parents are somehow disadvantaging our chiuldren by protecting them from very serious diseases that can land your child in real trouble.
avoiding tv and poor eating / sleeping habits all valid ways to improve life for a toddler. missing out on routine immunisations that have been safely used on this demographic for many years is just being reckless with your child's health

HAVING SAID THAT the swine flu vaccine is as far as i know not properly tested on under-5s and i am reluctant to let my dd be a guinea pig - i want to see some hard facts so i can make an informed decision in this circumstance

Happyseven I am with you too

Cheeseycharlie - I am not questioning your decision in anyway. For me however there was no 'hard facts' that the jab was dangerous but there were hard facts that healthy children were taken seriously ill.

Its all about weighing up the different risks and the value you assign to those risks for your particular family. I really dont think there is one right answer for everyone. I am just grateful we live in a country where we have access to medical expertise, vaccinations and sanitation in these situations .

Am to be asking this because I feel I should know but is it a one off vaccine? How long does it protect for?

It will protect until the virus mutates, which is likely to be by the next flu season.

HappySeven, I don't know how many in dd's class were vaccinated, I do know a couple in the class went down with SF (or something similar) and so the likelyhood is that dd was exposed but did not contract.

You say people die from measles epidemics but there is a lot more to say on that. Eg There have been cases of people who have had the jab and contracted measles anyway. Then there are the abreactions (a few of which are fatal). How many die from the complications from measles? Probably a similar very small number. I think I once came across the statistic that 1 in 100,000 measles cases goes on to get encephalitis as a complication. Now this relationship is important. I admit I don't know the figures but I reckon that vaccinating or not vaccinating both carry risk. Seeing as this is a risk averse society that is unpalattable information and the med.prof doesn't package it like that. They (say they) weigh the risk, they make the judgment and then shrink it into a soundbyte namely: get'em jabbed. And it is easy to understand why, given their opinion they give people the bottom line because that is what a lot of people want...

Upandrunning, I know what you mean, I have also seen info stating that many of the diseases that were allegedly wiped out by vaccination were in cyclical decline anyway or were wiped out by improvements in sanitation which was indeed a giant leap for human health.

CheesyCharlie - I have no doubt that you are doing your very best for your children, we all are, but I have arrived at different conclusions. Regarding what you say about under 5's, I think it is fair to say (and relatively uncontroversial) that the younger the child the higher the risk of damaging consequences. Hence the hedging option of delaying giving the jabs and then giving them one at a time, a logical thing to do assuming you believe that the thing you are vaccinating against is a)bad for your child's life and b)effective in preventing it.

Does anyone remember when measles was considered a right of passage, not something to be terrified of? Not that that proves anything, just wondering.

I don't think measles was ever considered a rite of passage unlike chicken pox. A close relative is deaf having contracted it as a child and another has had many health complications since having it as a small child which are all linked to measles.

You are right in that some children who were vaccinated did go on to get measles anyway which is why they now have two vaccines. 0.2-0.3% of children who contract measles die while up to 1% suffer complications. If you're happy with taking that risk then that is your choice. I preferred to vaccinate having had the vaccine myself as a child.

Which makes me wonder, may I ask if you were vaccinated as a child, Papacass? If so, do you believe it has had a detrimental effect on your health?

PS the mortality may not seem very high but when you realise that equates to 164000 deaths in 2008 (or 450 a day) it seems way too many to me.

I beg to differ on the right of passage... I even have a story book written by Richard Adams (Watership Down) where measles is portrayed as such. The folk wisdom was that it was a right of passage which left the child stronger.

I find it hard to believe that measles was ever killing 450 children a day in the UK, do you have anything to back that up?

I was vaccinated though off hand I don't know which ones I had. I think today's children get more doses and more jabs, though somebody made the point earlier that there may have been more mercury salts in previous decades.

Has it affected me badly? Nothing horrific, though my digestion is not great. One of the points I wanted to make is that abreactions are not confined to keeling over the next day - they are reputed to range all the way to behavioural effects and tendency to develop chronic disease, stuff that is hard to measure and hard to prove. I suspect that it will eventually join the many things on the list entitled 'We used to believe... however we now know...', like lead pipes, prescribing Valium like smarties, antibiotics at the drop of a hat, or use of the long list of pesticides and food additives that have been banned over the years.

Final point - the received wisdom among the anti-vacs is that the incidence of complications and fatalities is much more prevalent in deprived circumstances. I suspect this is true.

June2009: "You have to put in perspective the number of side effects reported with the huge number of people vaccinated." I agree with this statement wholeheartedly. The problem, though, is that people in positions of medical responsibility did exactly this when endorsing the vaccine, and exactly the opposite when looking at statistics of the incidence/ outcomes of SF infection. They looked at the SMALL number of severe reactions to the drug and endorsed it, and at the SMALL number of severe reactions to the illness and decided a vaccination programme was needed.

With this extreme level of inconsistency/ hypocrisy, plus for other reasons, I decided not to trust the vaccine.

HappySeven - Are you using world stats? The WHO records that there were 164000 deaths worldwide from measles in 2008 and that more than 95% of these were in low income countries with poor health infrastructure. In the UK there have been 2 deaths in the last 16 years - both were in immunocompromised children. It is well known that measles complications are more common in children with Vit A deficiencies and in fact the WHO now administer VitA to suspected measles cases and this reduces the risk of death by 50%.
I'm 29 and had measles as a child, as did lots of other children in my school. When I asked my mum about it she remembered it as 'just another childhood illness' that everyone was expected to get. - read some of the old medical dictionaries if you doubt this. It's only when a new vaccine becomes available that there is a huge push and all of sudden the illness in question becomes a monster - watch what happens with chickenpox now that there is a vaccine available.

Yes, they were WHO stats and I do understand the point about it not being the UK but then vaccination levels in the UK have rarely fallen below the herd immunity levels and so we are protected.

I can see people's point of view when it comes to the immuno-suppressed but my nephew (deaf from measles) and sister (lung complications) did not have known problems before measles. I guess I also like the idea of protecting those that are immuno-suppressed by trying to eradicate these illnesses and keeping the herd immunity.

Bubbleymummy, are you sure you had measles along with many friends? I am older than you and my contemporaries and I were all given the single vaccine. I think it was brought in in the 1970s.

I am confused - it is not a live vaccine - thats correct isn't it? So then how can people feel ill afterwards? Sorry if I am being stupid.

For the poll - DS is 11 months and had the jab last week. Didn't cry and has been fine. The reason that we went for it was simply the fact that swine flu seems to be worst in under 5s even for perfectly healthy children, which scared me!

I think the real truth is that the minority who don't vaccinate ARE getting a free ride off the herd immunity.

The majority vaccinates, thereby suppressing the childhood / developmental diseases at whatever cost to themselves (which I think is significant), and also artificially reducing exposure to the unvaccinated.

In the nineteenth century the infant mortality rate was so much higher that it may be significant even once you have factored out sanitation, neglect, antibiotics, poverty etc. The fact is people got ill in a different way: there was a high prevalence of infectious disease from which you either recovered (and were stronger as a result) or died.

Many many died. With vaccination we have averaged the risk like we do with car insurance. The 'premium' is increased prevalence of major chronic disease and possibly increased mental illness (23% of Brits suffered mental health problems in Britain last year with a similar percentage on the verge - Affluenza, Oliver James).

Also I suppose that if you are a minimum interventionist, if child's tempreture gets really high, say 105F for an otherwise healthy infant, then that anti-pyretic is going to be all the more effective, likewise with antibiotics, (though not with antivirals they are mostly useless). No question about it - the full armoury of modern medicine intelligently applied can solve an awful lot of problems, enough for me to say 'Cure is better than Prevention' if the alternative is pumping chemical toxins into DD.

Cheesefarmer - you are quite right that it is not a live vaccine, and does not equate to giving someone a dose of swine flu. I'm no expert, but I've always assumed that the reactions are to do with the body's immune response to the inactivated virus. Obviously the body is expected to make such a response in order to develop the antibodies that will protect from the virus in the future. A few people's immune response is stronger than it needs to be. Does that help at all (or in fact make any sense)?

Cheesefarmer - the toxins in the vaccine are capable of making the recipient ill. In the case of SF vaccine that'll be mercury one of the most toxic substances on the planet. While I'm on that subject, up the thread someone was saying that it's not mercury it is this or that compound containing mercury, which is a fair point, water contains hydrogen and oxygen, but water is not explosive - however - Thiomersal, the substance in question is initself very toxic by inhalation, ingestion, and in contact with skin - and presumably injecting into babies isn't a great idea either. Heavy metals are bad news for organisms because although some will be excreted they do tend to accumulate in the body where they continue to do damage.