All of you who CHOOSE not to vaccinate your children

[UniqueAndAmazing]

Do you realise that's the reason why there's now an epidemic of measles in Wales?

You know children with auto-immune problems, children with cancers, children with allergies that mean they can't be medicated, children who react badly to drugs?
You know them? They're suffering because of you not wanting to vaccinate your child.

You have no medical reason for not vaccinating, but plenty of reasons TO vaccinate.

You are causing a whole generation of children to be endangered from a preventable disease.

Measles can be fatal
(that means it can kill )

Hazard. I agree with your analysis and crossing road is a bad example as there's no real choice in that. Too lazy to look up the statistical risk of vaccination versus other actions but am prepared to bet that most of us do things with our kids which carry greater risk than vaccination and without the very significant upsides for our kids and others.

'yes, cansu - of course yours was valid.'

I am a bit perturbed that someone with no medical qualifications feels able to decide that tbh

or that millions of other people's reasons were not valid

Lazy is good, ChompieMum. I'm a big fan of it, especially at weekends. :)

OP you seem to be contradicting yourself regarding any link between MMR and autism, you say Wakefield has been discredited and no link has been proven therefore parents should give MMR, but you also accept that parents of children with autism should be able to opt out of it and say you understand why QueenofCats would be reluctant after her friends experience.
I have a 20 year old son with autism, he was diagnosed in late 1995, by the time I had my second son in May 1997 I was well aware of suggestions of a link between autism and MMR in some children, this was well before Andrew Wakefield's papers were published - he was not the first person to raise concerns. I have also met parents who thought MMR was linked to their child's autism.
Although we did not think there was a link in our elder son's case, we were aware that any further children we had were more susceptible to developing autism and so were obviously keen to avoid increasing the risk in any way. When my younger son had his first injections (June 1997) it was noted on the permission form that we did not require MMR and would like single injections, interestingly having a sibling with autism was an accepted contra-indication. My HV told me to contact her shortly before his first birthday to remind her so they could make sure the single vaccinations were ready for us. Of course by then the general public had been alerted by Wakefield and we were told there were no single vaccines available. I was not going to be bullied into giving him MMR and we couldn't at that time afford to pay so he remained unvaccinated, although he did eventually have the MMR when he had his boosters at 14.

Incidentally, unlike MisforMum's son, my son with autism is not able to have an opinion on this, he does not understand what autism, vaccination or even death mean, at 9 years old he was still in nappies and had limited speech.

Sorry that turned into a very long post.

I hope I haven't offended raising my experience of Autism. I wasn't intending to glamorise or give a complete view. We have continence issues at 9. I've cleaned the bathroom just after such an incident. He struggles to settle at night, he struggles to sleep if he wakes in the night, he gets very frustrated if something doesn't seam logical. He flips out in a very large toddler temper tantrum way if I need to divert on the way home from school to buy milk or similar. To name just a few of our daily bits of fun.

Autism or ASD is a spectrum disorder and every child with or without it is unique. DS has a very vast vocab but emotionally and socially he's closer in age to my two year old DD than his 7 year old brother.

The argument against single vaccines of the repeated visits and concerns they will be missed is a bit weak really.

The pertussis, diptheria and tetanus jabs are also over repeated visits. That doesn't seem to be a concern there?

Long time since my lot have been at jabs age so if the P/D/T ones are given in combined form now too fair enough.

Combined form and in one go I mean.

MisForMum, not offended at all, obviously as you say it is a spectrum. It's just a lot of people will only have experience of the milder end of the spectrum, children who attend mainstream school and although a bit 'odd', not that bad- many of them would probably not have been diagnosed as autistic 20 years ago.
I would stress that even at the time I did not think it necessary for most people to avoid MMR, just for our family it was a risk we didn't feel we could take.

The main thing I don't understand about this situation is why the parents who choose not to have the vaccination initially are queueing now to get it.

This suggests to me that the reasons for not having it aren't anything to do with autism worries or strongly held convictions but perhaps more mundane things like not getting round to it, children being ill and forgetting to rebook appointments, not being called for vaccinations.

If people really are truely antivac they wouldn't queue up now would they or are being offered single doses now. My children have had their MMRs so I haven't been paying attention to all the details.

Right well for many who don't have a 'good' reason, I'd guess it's the balance of risk.

If you are offered something that is likely to make your child feel poorly - for a day or two - and at that point there appears very little risk of them contracting the disease itself, then you're going to want to give it a miss, because it's unpleasant and feels counterintuitive.

Then once the disease is on the doorstep, it becomes a bigger threat than the vaccine reaction and so you decide that on balance you'd rather a little bit poorly child than a very poorly child. And at that point you decide to do your bit for the herd - too late probably. But not too late for your child, with a bit of luck.

It's a bit like someone saying to you, I can hit you lightly on the nose, if you like, or I MIGHT punch you in the eye really hard in a few years - but I might not. And I very probably won't if you let me hit you now.

You would walk away.

But then when you see the person approaching you a few years later wielding a cricket bat, you suddenly see the little hit as the better option.

Oh and I should have said. The light whack on the nose comes with the tiny risk that you might become unconscious and lose faculties for the rest of your life. as does the big punch...

My 3 dc were vaccinated for everything in the 90's, but that was before the scare, however I would have. Myself and sisters had measles when we are young(this was before a vaccination program), my mother said it was awful, and very scary. On another note my mother had scarlet fever when she was a child and very nearly died, thankfully this disease is no longer around, and with vaccination measles can be too.

Iboro as I said up thread, a lot of the children queuing up aren't the ones who have never had a jab - they're under 3s having their boosters early, or babies - the public health officials are actually very disappointed with the numbers turning up who are the 'missing' adolescents who were babies at the peak of the autism scare.

Steph scarlet fever is still very much around, my friend's DS had it recently

Thanks Amandine. Do records exist of which children from those years had their vaccinations? Maybe a more targetted approach is needed, writing the "missing" ones or getting their GPs to contact them.

mandragora the risk of innoculation is less than the risk of complications following the disease itself. So the light whack/ big punch analogy doesn't realy stack up.

I agree OP.
My son is autistic. I'd still vaccinate any of my children again and again and again, because yes, he lacks social skills and communication and is academically behind but you know what? He's alive, he's healthy and to me and any one we know - he's amazing, he's funny, he's kind and I would rather the life he has now than risk any of the complications caused by measles.

In fact, even if the MMR caused his autism, (which I don't believe it did) I'd still do it all over again. To me the risk of death outweighs the possibility of any MMR side effects may give. I'd rather my child was alive.

I've seen my friends children hospitalised because of measles and it was horrible, even she said she wished she'd given the MMR when it was offered.

Well Said, buskers.

Agree with op.

I believe they will have been contacted - we've had a few genetic get-your-child-vaccinated letters from school and the last one said that those who weren't vaccinated would be contacted. Plus I believe when the schools go back on Monday they are going to run clinics in the worst affected secondary schools. To be honest though any parent who is sitting in the middle of this with a child who remains unvaccinated is very unlikely to take it up now I'd have thought

My mum and I were just talking earlier actually about "the good old days" where women might give birth to 10 children and only half of them might make it to adulthood because of childhood diseases. Fwiw the paper that linked mmr to autism is used in medical schools as an example of the most flawed study you could ever conduct. And it has been disproved over and over.

Italian courts decided that mmr can cause autism and paid out on it.

American courts have also paid out.

There are many recognised cases, including in this country, of immunisations causing other problems including severe brain damage.

Immunisation is not without risks and no parent should criticise another parent for making what they have decided is the best decision they can for their child's wel being based on all the information they have at that time.

As op so eloquently points out, the only child she can impact on is her own. It is the same for all of us.

Narmada, I was trying to explain why a lot of people are getting vaccinated now when they didn't before. The exact degree of risk probably isn't relevant/known to many of them.

The people who choose not to vaccinate will have to have conviction in their decision this week, especially those living in Swansea... They will be questining their choice this week.

"Italian courts decided that mmr can cause autism and paid out on it."

No. One Italian judge decided that- and he was basing his decision on Wakefield and the decision is being appealed.

"The people who choose not to vaccinate will have to have conviction in their decision this week" Bibs

Or, like any of us with anything in life, they could re-assess the situation in the light of changing circumstances, and change their mind.