Singles vaccines, is it true there are no mumps available?

[mummytowillow]

Hi

The time has come for DD to have the MMR and I'm really not happy giving to her, hubby has agreed we will do the singles but on DH2000 website I noticed that the mumps is not coming in until 2009??

So if this is true, any ideas where I can get it? We live in Kent but willing to travel to London etc?

50 of who weren't vaccinated, 47.5 who were.

of whom

Ignore that last post, it's gibberish.

Not the correction of who/m but the one before that.

I am a pedant, you should be worried

I think they do add up, do you think they do or don't, I am interested but confused

That was what I saying, that the same numbers of non vaccinated and vaccinated are not immune

herd immunity was developed with livestock in mind (hence herd). It is a description of the way that disease progresses through a population, and simply describes the numbers of susceptible individuals required for a disease to spread. It's used for outbreaks of all sorts of disease to predict spread. As such is isn't a theory in the sense that it is a guess, more a theory in the way that many scientific concepts are described. ie evolution, or gravity.

Where most of the group have no immunity then disease can spread very rapidly (the reasons why most of the population of America was wiped out by European diseases they hadn't yet encountered). The fewer people susceptible the more restricted the spread, and the less likely an outbreak (although scattered cases may still occur).

That is natural immunity, not immunity in a vaccinated population.

The message that is given is this: I need to get my child vaccinated in order for the vaccine in your child to work.

Well that doesn't make sense to me at all.

Slightly off topic (I think) here. But are people aware that Wakefield's research was based upon just 12 children.

I am no researcher but even I know you cannot take the results from such a small sample and extrapolate the findings to an entire population in the way Wakefield seemed to be suggesting in advising single vaccines for all.

When I was looking at single vaccines vs MMR I decided to look at the original research which started it all. TBH I was shocked that it was so small - and not even based upon so called "normal" children but a small group of children with specific problems.

Even if the theory is right all Wakefield should have said was "I need to do more research" and NOT gone public in the way he did.

DS had the MMR.

He did say he needed to do more research. More research has been refused. The medical establishment steadfastly rejected offers from the parents for their children's cases to be looked at.

Don't forget the research was conducted on 12 children. The legal case was brought by about 1800. Adverse events have been reported by many more.

Was the legal case after the research or before? Just interested.

"If there is 95 pc take up, then out of 1000 children in a school, about 900 will be non immune."
I do get what your saying about you not needing to vaccinate your child to protect my vaccinated child. But what you said above is not right. If a vaccine is 90% effective and there is 95% take up the surely there wouldn't be 900 who were non immune?

Shouldn't that read 900 who would be immune?

I assumed "herd immunity" helped to protect those who were too young to be vaccinated and those too unwell by lessening the risk of an epidemic.

Surely they are those most at risk of complications if there were an epidemic

Not read entire thread but we have just completed the course of 3 individual injections at Breakspeare Hospital in Hemel Hempstead, we have had no problem getting the Mumps vaccine.

The legal case was after the research. Butthe interestingthing about his research wasthat he was followingthe symptoms and that led to the MMR ratherthan the other way around.
He was approached by mothers who feltthat their children had developed bowel problems and regressed after their MMR.
Once a child has autism it used to be very difficult to get anyone to investigate bowel issues. It is slightly less so now.He was one of the few in his field who was prepared to look at those children

When my son regressed I had no idea that bowel problems like he had ( drastic change in food choices and flitting between constipation and dirrhea) were common amongst children who regressed as he did.Frankly in my case thank god for Wakefield or I never would have relised that by helping my sons dmaged gut I could reduce his ASD symptoms. The gfcf diet that so many ASD children use is directly linked to his work on gut damage and autism.

The interestingthing aboutthe legal case is that it could have been completed for the sake of £10,000,000 which, when you think that this was all about proving the vaccine was safe or not, seems to me to be a good public interest investment - especially too when we are talking about some ofthe most vulnerable and 'damaged' children inthe country.
But no. It was decided that after all the millions laready spent the £10,000,000 could not be funded.

The massively financed legal teams then tried to blackmail the litigants by asking them to confirm that they would withdraw their childs right to make future or they would be held liable for the many many millions spent by the pharmaceutical companys legal team.
Absoloutely shameful. I can't remember the exact words the judge used but it was along soimilar lines. But then he had spoken several times in in open court about the behaviour of their clients...

Good old British justice

Thanks for that i9nfo pagwatch as it's interesting stuff. Have seen lots of news items about the legal case and legal aid being denied etc. Dreadful I think.

we used healthchoice uk for dd and ds1, had no problems.
There was a shortage of the mumps vaccine for dd1 at the time so we had the other 2 first (i think as a rule they generally try to give measles first anyway) and by the time she was due the mumps they were in stock or thereabouts.

A couple of months really can't matter that much so long as you get it if it's important to you.

Incidentally, ds2 has not been vaccinated at all yet and is 21 mo. We completely disagree with the 5in1 vaccine and have so far refuse to give him it. We are looking at it now he's older. He hasn't yet had the singles but we will likely go that route, but after he has developed speech and some form of toilet training, so that we have an idea he is developing perfectly normally.

I would rather like it made clear to mums that vaccination cannot start any earlier than 8 weeks, but it is very acceptable to begin way after this. Noone gets told that though do they?

You're all absolutely right, it was a literal. Out of 1000 children, just over 90 per cent immune, just under 10 per cent not immune, made up of 5pc unvaccinated and just under 5pc vaccinated.

Sorry for that but it doesn't affect the thing.

You would still use the same theory to predict possible outbreaks in immunised populations. Just that the pool of susceptible individuals will be smaller. This should mean that outbreaks are smaller too, which in practice is what has happened in the areas where MMR uptake has dropped.

I think the sad thing about the Wakefield research is that because he made unsubstantiated claims about MMR vs single vaccines at the press conference after the study (and why was there a press conference in any case for a study that simply raised a hypothesis) it caused such a huge panic and diverted research funds that might have gone towards the very small group of individuals with gut problems where measles might be a factor (although this is still tenuous as further research has not contributed much to knowledge in this area). All the subsequent research shows that the MMR is safe for the population, if there is a small group for whom the jab is a significant risk the studies were too crude to show it.

Of course given his patients were an invisible group prior to the research they may not ever have been noticed, however I suspect that subsequent events have not favoured any greater understanding of their plight. I do think a more measured approach would have been a better way to go.

Nooka -- all further research was squashed, totally squashed. It is highly disingenuous to suggest that this is because of Wakefield's press conference. Do you think if he'd had a quiet word it might have had more impact? The possibility that MMR could trigger autism is potentially financially catastrophic for the pharmaceutical world and governments who have included it in the immunisation programme, and so accepted liability for adverse events.

"greater understanding of their plight" -- sorry but that's a joke. Do you know there are paediatricians out there who refuse to accept bowel and gut patients if there is any suggestion of autism spectrum or vaccine link? They won't even look at them, never mind treat them or research them. Because they believe what happened to Wakefield could happen to them.

This is not a world of poor old pharmaceutical companies who can't research these problems because one paediatrician carried out a spoiler. This is a systematic refusal to engage with the realities of what children are suffering.

Sorry bleurgh, but that's my point. Wakefield stepped well over the line in his press conference. His study didn't have any evidence that single vaccines would be less likely to cause autism and bowel disease. It wasn't about that, so how could it? and yet he still made this huge claim (and I think he was aware of the impact it would have, given the history of conflict around vaccination in the UK). I really think he did his patients a huge disservice in making that claim.

nooka
have to say I disagree with you here too.
My sense is that, whilstthe press conference was a big media scrum, the science would always have been squashed anyway.
His approach may have made it happen quicker and with more flurry but I was instantly pounced on and had things written all over my notes when i queried my sons regression re his vaccine.
People in the mediacal establishment rarely discuss but become hostile and aggressive when this is raised( although I have had several quietly agree with me as long as I don't quote them ).
It is too emotive. It is too much of a sacred cow. And the numbers of cases of ASD wererising noticably at the time so people were worried.
i do not think Wakefiled is an angel but i do feel he is a convenient scapegaot.
And I will always be grateful as the diet has made a HUGE difference to my son. Had I not been able to investigate that connection my son would be in residential care now and not the happy healthy boy he is at home with us.
That information was literally life changing for my son.

He didn't make the claim.

He said that more research was needed and until then it might be wiser to vaccinate singly.

Find a single parent of one of his patients who will complain.

You cannot seriously believe that research into MMR possibly causing autism would have been carried out if he had not raised the issue publicly.

No I don't. But I do think that particular research was a total waste of resources (especially as although fairly conclusive, it has not actually helped with any understanding of the very small numbers of children who present with the symptoms he was seeing). I don't think he should have held a press conference on what was a very small study, which raised a hypothesis only (as many small research studies do). Much more substantive follow up research should have been done before making public announcements of that nature. I don't think he should have talked about single vaccines at all, as this was outside the range of his research. I agree that research undertaken by pharmaceutical companies is going to be limited in this sort of field, but research is carried out by other bodies too.

I can't comment on his clinical expertise (because I know nothing about it), but it is a pity that it has been lost as a result of the furore caused by the press conference. I'm not sure how his findings would have been taken up under a different scenario. It is very difficult when you have a disorder that the scientific community does not show interest in though, and I appreciate that many parents feel and felt unlistened to and unsupported, both then and now.

Thanks Nooka. I still disagree with you, but it's getting to the point where I can't remember things of the top of my head, like the chronology of the press conference and the nature of the study (for example, I thought it arose from patient care which became a study, rather than starting off as research, but I can't say that for sure without doing a lot of re-reading and checking.) So if you don't mind, I will just say thanks for debate, and agree to disagree .