To expect the Doctor to respect my wishes?

[loumum3]

I have not vaccinated my youngest child. I have done this after much research and made an informed decision. The Doctor's surgery has phoned me several times now and written requesting I go in for a discussion about this. I haven't got time for a visit to discuss this, nor do I want to so I said if I had to, I could talk about it on the phone....I have had the Doctor on the phone this afternoon grilling me about my choices, really trying to scare me into having the jabs done and trying to make me feel bad. She cannot see my point of view at all and has been very rude.

Is is really too much to expect a Doctor to respect the decisions I make about my own children ?

Has anyone else experienced this ?

Electra - where kids are given the mmr seperately and inform their gp (as I did) - they are considered vaccinated.

Always interesting these threads - would like to know if anyone who chooses not to vaccinate based on what they have researched and not necessarily on medical advice (vaccines like most medicines are not 100% safe and therefore not suitable for all) transports their children by car? After all it's one of the most dangerous things we do on a day-to-day basis so I would like to find out how they justify the risks?

And for the OP - or whichever name she is posting now - I think the GP should respect your wishes, however I think you should reciprocate the respect and acknowledge that if they are carrying out their job corectly then you will be questioned on your decision.

After all people change minds and you will be asked again should you move, a nursery/school will want to know etc. If you are comfortable with your decision then you should be ok with people asking you about it.

Linden, that's a very silly thing to ask. What do you think it would prove if they do use a car?

Re: responsibility. Measles used to be rare among babies. Partly due to natural herd immunity (rather different from claimed vaccination herd immunity), mothers' immunity and so on. Vaccination has pushed normally mild, self-limiting diseases into age groups where they are more damaging -- very young babies with no maternal protection due to maternal vaccination and, as Sooty points out, mumps to adolescence.

The final hurdle for the social responsibility argument is the failure of society to show any sense of responsibility to those parents who did what they thought was the right thing, but their children subsequently suffered or died.

It's evinced by this thread. Denial, rejection, refusal to examine or investigate, claims of delusion, false memories. These parents were "socially responsible" and have been abandoned and their lives destroyed. And in the case of the MMR parents, threatened with legal action that could make them homeless.

It's a scandal and too many people on this thread just suck it up. Bollocks to it. Bollocks to it. It's only thanks to those suffering parents, the ones who spoke up, like tokenfemale, that others know about the dangers.

sooty7 people only used to get one vaccine which wasn't enough for everyone and is why children now have the vaccine twice. Mumps was always nasty in adults - a friend of my mother's caught it while on honeymoon, poor bloke, in the 50's and was left infertile.

I wasn't aware there was a mumps vaccine before the MMR (there was measles) and was led to believe that the medical establishment was partly convinced of the benefits of MMR because of the reduction in numbers of infertile men.

People assess risks differently though. You take some risks and don't take others. You can't say: "ha! you drive a car therefore you should vaccinate". It is ahem nonsense.

People who don't vaccinate do say it's because they don't wish to take a chance with their child's health - which is definately nonsense because a) not vaccinating is risk-laden too (to a greater degree than vaccinating imo) and b) because we all take risks with everything all the time. What I guess they mean is they don't want to take that particular risk for reasons of their own - which largely imo revolve around misapprehensions and fear.

Before the introduction of measles vaccine in 1968, annual notifications varied between 160,000 and 800,000 (notification began in 1940) with peaks every two years - with around 100 deaths from acute measles each year.

From the introduction of measles vaccine 1n 1968 until the late 1980s coverage was low and was insufficient to interrupt measles transmission. Notifications only fell between 50,000 and 100,000 - between 1970 and 1988 there continued to be an average of 13 acute measles deaths each year. Measles remained a major cause of mortality in children who could not be immunised because they were receiving immunosuppressive treatment.

Following the introduction of MMR in 1988 as well as coverage levels rising to 90% measles transmission was substantially reduced and notifications fell to very low levels.

Because of the reduction in measles transmission in the UK children were no longer exposed to measles infection and (if they had not been immunised) they reamined susceptible to an older age. A major resurgence of measles was predicted - mainly affecting the school-age population and small outbreaks did occur in England and Wales (1993) and the west of Scotland - A UK vaccination campaign was implemented in 1994 with over 8 million children aged between 5-16 being immunised with MR (not MMR) with the result that the endemic transmission of measles was interrupted.

This was followed by the two dose MMR schedule introduced in Oct 1996 - the efficacy of a single-dose measle vaccine is 90% hence the second dose.

Between 1992 and 2006 there were no confirmed deaths due to acute measles in the UK.

The reduced incidence of measles has also caused the almost total disappearance of SSPE (sub-acute sclerosing pan-encephalitis) - in the 1970s when the SSPE register was put in place around 20 cases were reported each year.

These FACTS support the theory that vaccination does reduce the number of measles cases as well as the deaths due to acute measles and the cases of SSPE.

Yes vaccination is a choice in the UK - No - it is not suitable for everyone - Yes there are risks associated with it - like all medicines - BUT it is a great topic for discussion after all - it is emotive, it has an element of fear and it can draw people from all sides with hidden agendas. Thank you to Pixie for explaining my point - travelling in a car is a very risky thing to do - I wonder how many unfortunate deaths there will be today - and yet we still drive.

backtotalkaboutthis - I think I've figured out who you are

Northernlurker - no you are talking nonsense because you don't seem willing to take on board that the risks are not the same across the board for all children - for one child the risk will be much higher than to another.

Why is that so hard to grasp?

It's a risk benefit analysis.

Vaccination: we don't know the risks, and the benefits are exaggerated. We can do little about the risks except avoid or take singles.

Car driving: we know the risks and the benefits. The unpredictability lies with other drivers. But we can do quite a lot to minimise the risk. The benefit can be seen to outweigh (or not, for some people) the risk.

not sighing at you electra!

I wonder if you have, but I can't reveal, isn't that pathetic

backtotalkaboutthis the risk of anything happening if you don't vaccinate your children is only low because most people do!

Personally it annoys me that people say 'oh look nothing has happened to my non vaccinated children' when most of the time that is because everyone else is vaccinated so not passing around disease.

However, this does not extend when the non vaccinated children do catch something and happily pass it to the immuno suppressed children or those too young to be vaccinated does it!

My mother never had my sister or myself vaccinated against anything at all.

Oh the happy memories I have of both my sister and myself having measles, mumps, whooping cough, my sister almost died. I got German measles the week before my wedding, that was great

I have two children and they are jabbed to the hilt, I could not watch them suffer the things my sister and I did.

I know someone who's child was not accepted in to a nursery because they had not been vaccinated.

I am interested in what you can do to minimise the risk from the unpredictability with other drivers?

Are the benefits exaggerated for all vaccines? Polio and Diptheria?

Some of the people on here I have probably argued/discussed points before - most I have a great deal of respect from

THe OP and (possibly some of her aliases) worry me when they are totally against vaccination and wish to put people off vaccination (when we have no idea of their background etc) - when they take no responsibility if they have managed to persuade someone not to vaccinate their child and then that child ends up with measles/polio/diptheria.

We know why the vaccination schedule exists -we know the qualifications of the GPs/nurses who may administer it - we recognise we have a choice about what to do in the UK. This thread once again throws the worst up from oth sides - so time for me to bow out!

Respect for and from - oops!

runawaywife my sister got mumps even though she was vaccinated. At the time the GP said there were around 200 cases a year in the UK, now there are more than 10000.

My sister had an awful time with it so I would never ever risk something like that happening to DS, yes there is still a chance you can catch it but why take that chance? I just cannot understand it!

Disease is a real risk and not a fun one!

I have had the rubella jab three times now, and as far as I know, I'm still not immune. I had it at school as a teenager, but when I was ttc my first child, I was tested & found not to be immune, so I had it again. When I was expecting DS I was told I still wasn't immune so I had it again after he was born - still didn't work, so I was worried all the time I was pregnant in case any of DS's friends went down with it - luckily this was pre-Wakefield, so the risk wasn't as bad as it would be today.

"(possibly some of her aliases)"

see that's just a smear -- how predictable

"backtotalkaboutthis the risk of anything happening if you don't vaccinate your children is only low because most people do!"

no it's not, check back to my posts if you want to know why

Polio. You know those warnings you get: make sure you wash your hands when changing nappies after the polio vax?

Now assert with certainty that multiple vaccines given to children in developing countries in slum areas with diarrhoea and no sanitation will not result in polio cases. Note that the cheaper vaccine, OPV (normally given in developing countries) is live attenuated and not inactivated.

My point again, is not, let's stop giving polio vaccine. It's that we don't know the risk. A risk benefit analysis is impossible if we don't know the risk.

Have only read the first 4 pages.

But Both of my two boys have been vaccinated. Mainly because its for their health. End of.

I have heard stories of people having and not having the jabs and children get the viruses.

the thing i don't understand is the mothers who do not vaccinate and then their children may be around a newborn baby who has not yet had its jabs. It the non vaccinated child is carrying a virus like mumps or measles or whatever and then they pass it to that baby, What will happen to that maybe say 3 week old child. I think its wrong. With the amount of Non British Nationals in this country i do not think its wise to not give our children the MMR or any other vaccine for that matter.

As for the OP i think the doctor is just trying to put his point across that more and more viruses are more and more rife in this country than ever before, isn't there recordings of TB been found in the country? And people only get that vaccine at age 14/15. Why not give it sooner?

Have only read the first 4 pages.

But Both of my two boys have been vaccinated. Mainly because its for their health. End of.

I have heard stories of people having and not having the jabs and children get the viruses.

the thing i don't understand is the mothers who do not vaccinate and then their children may be around a newborn baby who has not yet had its jabs. It the non vaccinated child is carrying a virus like mumps or measles or whatever and then they pass it to that baby, What will happen to that maybe say 3 week old child. I think its wrong. With the amount of Non British Nationals in this country i do not think its wise to not give our children the MMR or any other vaccine for that matter.

As for the OP i think the doctor is just trying to put his point across that more and more viruses are more and more rife in this country than ever before, isn't there recordings of TB been found in the country recently? And people only get that vaccine at age 14/15. Why not give it sooner?