in thinking Measles can't be more dangerous now than it was 15 years ago ?

[Onajourney]

Hi

Wondering if there are any GP's out there that can tell me this ?

My eldest child is 15 and I still have his baby books and they say Measles is a mild disease and just to keep their temperature down etc, they liken it to chickenpox. I remember not being worried about it at all when he and his 11 year old brother were small.

Fast forward 14 years and we have a 1 year old who is at "huge risk from this killer disease" according our GP, but I can't understand how it can have changed so much.

Can anyone tell me, is Measles worse now than it was 15 years ago and if so why ?

Thanks

However re: asthma, measles, atopic disease, ASD and so one: there is now apparently a significant self-selecting non vaccinating group. I would like those studies to be done and so should we all. We have the yellow card system now too.

Ten years worth of research (and not retrospective) should be very convincing.

Seeing as you can still catch Measles even though you have had the vaccine, does this mean you will get it at a lower strength ? Or could you get it really bad still ?
Anyone know ?

Only read a bit of this thread (sorry), but in response to Onajourney - I was vaccinated against measles as a child and then caught it. But I think it was just a mild case, a temp, a bit of a rask, felling a bit poorly. I remember being taken in the back door of the GP at the end of the surgery to save taking me through the waiting room while infectious but not much else.

(I also had chicken pox, mumps and german measles, twice each, as a child. So maybe I just have a duff immune system?)

It is no more or less dangerous than before, simply that before the vaccine, there was no point in scaring mothers witless for what the vast majority of children, is a mild disease, and is very common. In a few children however it can be very very serious. Hence the point of the vaccine. Same argument for swine flu: most people have mild disease, a few unlucky people lost their lives. In the end it depends on your assessment of risk. Nothing is ever ever 100%, so there is probably a tiny from the vaccine. The best description of the science: is very likely that the risk of the vaccine is far far less than the risk of the disease.
Apologies for sounding too goodie 2 shoes, but we are all fortunate to have these choices to make.

sorry typo: "tiny risk from the vaccine"

I would assume, although TBH I don't know, that the reason for not using the singles is financial: it presumably costs more.
The pot of money is not infinate, for every pound spent, some is not spent elsewhere, if the gov feel the science does not support the single vaccine, it is difficult for them to justify the spending.
Although I fully accept they have no problem wasting it elsewhere!
Would those objecting to the 3 in 1 be prepared to buy the singles at cost price?

It wouldnt just be a case of buying the vaccinations, but also paying someone to administer them.

If the government believes that the MMR is a superior choice to the singles it would be hard for them to justify offereing a less suitable vaccination schedule at higher choice.

Anyway the MMR is a stupid (and unethical) vaccine. Boys do not need rubella vaccines and they are better served by being allowed to contract wild mumps at the appropriate age. Same for girls with rubella.

The old policy of offering measles vaccination and then testing adolescent girls for rubella immunity worked perfectly well.

We are now seeing mumps in older boys as a direct result of vaccination policy. We are making a generation of girls dependant on rubella boosters and the vaccination status of others in order to protect them from rubella during pregnancy. This is insane public health policy.

Exposing children to vaccines they do not need that will not protect them at the age appropriate time is indefensible and unethical.

What Beachcomber said. Exactly.

DS had rubella at 4 months. It looked like heat rash, was gone within a day, and didn't cause him any discomfort. Why on earth would anyone want to vaccinate their babies against a disease so mild?

Hi cote. How did you get it confirmed as rubella? Both my ds have had suspected rubella but we were told that the only way to have it confirmed is with a blood test

Because it causes birth defects and a high rate of miscarriage. Rubella is not a disease that is around all the time. It comes in periodic epidemic of every 5 or so years. It is very easy not to get it until adulthood. I caught rubella from my mother when I was 13, it was a few weeks before I was supposed to the vaccine. My work colleague didn't have it until she was an adult either.

'DS had rubella at 4 months. It looked like heat rash, was gone within a day, and didn't cause him any discomfort. Why on earth would anyone want to vaccinate their babies against a disease so mild? '

Because it's not always so mild or a given they'll contract it young.

There was no vaccine against it when my mother, who is now 69, was growing up, of course.

Yet she did not contract rubella until she was 17.

It made her very ill.

Similarly, at least two people around the same age she and my dad (age 75) know personally did not contract mumps until they were pubescent. Obviously, no vaccines then.

They are infertile.

Beachcomber: Utter nonsense.

What's the appropriate age to 'allow' 10% of children to get mumps meningitis, or some of them encephalitis? Maybe when they're old enough to get pancreatitis?

Vaccinating girls at 10-11 certainly did not work in eliminating the danger to pregnant women. Why do you think the policy had to be changed?

Er, Rouvax, the leading single measles vaccine and used in most private clinics, is made in France by Sanofi Pasteur. so don't know where you got your ideas that single vaccines are made in shady places with no controls. There is one measles vaccine made in India but I have not heard of any problems with it, and it is easily avoidable anyhow. The other measles vaccine, IIRC, is made by the Berne Institute in Switzerland.

Yes, I'm sure one of the govt's reasons for not offering singles is cost. So obviously protecting children is NOT their main priority. If uptake for MMR is still so low they should be reassessing their priorities.

It is nonsense to talk about a 'tiny risk' in that it is a tiny risk for the majority of the population, but for a very small subset of children, the risk may be much larger. One size does not fit all.

Musukebba, now that IS scaremongering. those Complications are rare and/or mild when associated with mumps. here. Once again, as with rubella, it is more complicated in adulthood so where is the logic in vaccinating when young so that it wears off when you are older and more susceptible to complications?

Also vwry interesting that 30% of mumps cases are asymptomatic.

When I read these threads I understand that what people want is the removal of the childhood vaccination program for measles, mumps, rubella, and for no further vaccinations to be introduced.

Are there any other vaccinations in the existing program that people would like to see dropped?

bubbleymummy: before MMR, mumps was the leading viral cause of hospitalisation of children with meningitis. Actually I was being conservative with the 10% of cases; some studies have noted 15% (one-sixth). These are documented figures from the HPA (used to be PHLS). Scare-mongering it is not; people forget or choose not to believe it.

Ah..... this thread has just reminded me I am a couple of months late for DC3's MMR..... which I will book now.....

I was really very very ill with measles. My mother still remembers it as one of the worst times of her life.

DH got mumps as a small child. He was 100% fine - minor illness etc. Unfortunately his father had never had it, caught it at the same time and was left sterile, extremely sad as they had hoped for more children.

My DD recently spent over a week in hospital due to chickenpox complications. She was really quite unbelievably shockingly ill. But it wasn't the chickenpox that nearly killed her it was the staphyloccus infection that got into her spots. Infection in the spots has always been a well known complication with CP - I think the scary thing now is the high level of antibiotic immunity around - a simple course of antibiotics just doesn't cut it anymore to shift a resistant staph infection. Everyone i spoke to in the hospital said that they would immunise against CP (even though you can't get it on NHS) as they said the cases they see in hospital are so very nasty. I wish I had vaccinated. Poor DD had an absolutely shocking time of it and has horrendous scarring now at the infection sites.

expat - Rubella is indeed a very mild disease. So mild that most people don't even know that they have had it. The only people who should be wary of it are pregnant women who are not immune. That is why there should be a program to detect immunity at 15 or so and vaccinate the non-immune.

It is absurd to vaccinate babies against rubella, especially the boys.