Vaccinations: Should you vaccinate your children?

[hannah2210]

Hi everyone,

For one of my A-levels (Welsh Baccalaureate), I completing a project on the arguments for and against the vaccination of children. I am wanting to know what your thoughts are about this subject or any information on this subject. I will be using this information as primary research for my project and I won't use any of your information (i.e. username or anything from your profile).

OP this subject has been done to death on here, just use the search function and you can see all the previous threads.

I firmly believe that every parent should thoroughly research the pros and cons and ingredients of vaccines before deciding on letting their children have them.

The trouble is, there's a lot of absolutely dreadful, misleading information out there purporting to be proper scientific research. Most anti vaxxers are incapable of understanding that.

User, when you say "research," do you mean conducting epidemiological studies with statistically significant numbers of participants? Or do you mean reading stuff on the internet?

Forgot, op everyone should vaccinate their children unless there's s medical reason not to do so.

I am opposing your thoughts and challenging them. The fact I said "shit" doesn't suddenly invalidate my point. Which is that there is nothing innocent about dying from a preventable disease.

Most people living in the UK nowadays have no idea what it was like when these horrible diseases were common. We, as a society, have forgotten how devastating they were. We have the incredible privilege to be able to access vaccinations to prevent them, a privilege many people in other countries can only dream of, and yet some people then them down because of spurious claims of them being "unnatural". Too right I think that shows a lack of intellect. This is one area where you really should listen to the experts.

You know what, everyone should thoroughly look into whether oranges are round, and not just take it at face value. Do your own research, I say. Greengrocers want us to trust them at their word, but if you Google
square orange you’ll find out they’ve been hiding stuff from you.

I really appreciate the responses everyone

"Personally I've only vaccinated against some of the schedule and not others after thoroughly researching"

Gosh. How lucky that you had the foresight to get all the appropriate qualifications and grants to do proper research before having children. Where did you publish your results?

I'm struggling with "should". I don't go around telling people what they "should" do.

I would like people to get their kids vaccinated to protect the kids, themselves, and other kids. The arguments against the routine vaccinations are not compelling.

I don’t have a problem with should. It’s like: you should look both ways when crossing the road. You should never ignore it if your car’s oil indicator light comes on. You should wear protective gloves if dealing with chemicals...

My reluctance about 'should' is because I'm more ambivalent about personal risk than most MNers.
Before I read MN I thought the British were relaxed about personal choices.
(I am now educated otherwise! )

Should be kind, should pay taxes, should not be selfish, should listen to others... I have some Shoulds in my vocab, just not about jabs.

Not sure if the British are relaxed about anything lljkk

I think Mitch Benn succinctly summarises the subject:

Love it! 😂

IMO asking for arguments for or against vaccination is too broad a question because vaccines are all very individual, with individual risk profiles, effectiveness, longevity, and necessity (in terms of the 'nastiness' of the disease they are designed to protect against). Vaccines are on the schedule for a multitude of reasons, including economic, and indeed the schedule itself is drawn up with many factors in mind which aren't necessarily about giving the best protection. (I'm thinking about logistical reasons here, such as giving 4 at once at 12 months to remove the need for repeat visits - there's no medical need to give so many at once, but it is more convenient for the NHS.)

Some vaccines will be a no-brainer in the majority of circumstances (like Polio for instance), while the need for some others on the schedule, and indeed the ethics of giving them to babies/young children to mainly protect other groups (see Rubella or the Flu spray), are far less clear. The age at which they're given and the simultaneous administration of multiple vaccines are all also relevant points for debate.

You could just as well be asking 'are you for or against surgery in children' - the answer will usually be 'depends on the circumstances: to save my child's life, absolutely, but because my child has decided they need plastic surgery, maybe not'. I think you need to break it down into individual vaccines, then you'd get a much more useful idea of people's opinions on arguments for or against.