BCG for a 4 month old?

[ScaredOfEverything]

Hello everyone
I live in Westminster and our local HV is trying to get me to give my DD1 the BCG. Any views on if this is wise? Im not very comfortable with it to be honest.
Thanks
Scared

The BCG is given at birth in most hospitals in Ireland. I strongly believe in vaccinating-I accept that there are other views on this, but my cousin, whose mum relied on herd immunity from other children, is deaf in one ear after contracting mumps so it is the one issue I'm a bit evangelical about.

Is it vaccination you are worried about or the BCG in particular? My three children have had it before the age of six and there were no side-effects at all.

BCG vaccination is now only offered to " at risk " groups it is no longer given to all teenagers as it once was. At Risk means children of families where parents or grandparents come form areas with high incidence of TB ie; Indian subcontinent, Far East or if you live in in area with high incidence, most London boroughs are considered to have high incidence.
The vaccine is usually well tolerated in infants and has less scarring than in adults.

If you are not comfortable with it then don't do it.

The BCG vaccine has recently been withdrawn from the French schedule due to its low efficacy and they don't give it in the US for the same reason. They just love giving vaccines in the US yet they don't bother with this one.

Ask your HV what the risks are for your DD and ask her what the real measured efficacy rate is for this vaccine, aske her why they don't bother with it in certain countries. If she gives you comprehensive answers that satisfy you then you might want to think again. I kind of doubt that is what will happen though. You might want to ask her if she has a quota to fill too.

Beachcomber, they don't do it in the U.S. because there is nowhere near the level of TB that there is here, particularly in London.

London is also the epicentre of a drug resistant TB outbreak that's been going on for years.

TB is one of those things where vaccinating the entire UK population isn't really useful. It's a disease that is generally quite hard to catch (requires close and prolonged contact), which is why they now focus on vaccinating children who are the most likely to come into contact. As has been said, that is those that have family from parts of the world where TB is extremely common.

Agree it's not a particularly effective vaccine, but it isn't completely useless either and does give protection for many children (but wears off in adulthood in many cases).

Westminster isn't the worst of the London boroughs for TB, but it certainly isn't one of the best either.

oh....we are from belgium...assume this is not high risk

i am pro vaccines....but remember this one really hurt as a teenager

Scaredofeverything - I think it is a different jab now and really seems much less painful. It's the only one my DD had where she didn't cry. We gave it at 7 months, and a good thing too because a month later one of the nursery staff was found to have TB (we're in London).

Then would assume the HV's concern is your living in a high incidence area.

Maybe this high profile incident is what's behind her pushing:

www.24dash.com/news/Health/2008-10-14-Thirty-three-children-treated-for-TB-at-Westminster-nursery

YanknCock I have always read that the US refuses the BCG because the science behind it is not good enough and the efficacy rates are known to be very low. TB has been on the rise in London since the 1980s and there has been a rise in New York during this period too, but they still don't use the vaccine.

Evidence suggests that the rise in incidence in drug resistant TB is a direct consequence of vaccination and mismanagement of drugs used to treat TB. This mutating of a strain of a disease in resistance to a vaccine has happened with Men C/B also. It is the nature of biology that this happens.

The science behind the TB vaccine is out of date.

www.physorg.com/news157915085.html

Vaccination is causing drug-resistant TB? Sorry, but NEVER heard anything like that in all the meetings/conferences/etc I went to when working in TB surveillance.

The problem of drug resistance is normally attributed to people not taking medication as directed for the recommended period of time. You can hardly blame them though. There are some rotten side effects and treatment is six months or more.

Agree though, that more research needs to be done and new drugs are needed.

There are a lot of people in London advocating some of the methods used in curbing the TB in New York, many studies out there asking why London's rates have continued to soar while New York's dropped. Can't remember off the top of my head, but I think they may have had a more radical approach and locked people up to finish their medication. In theory, it's possible to do this in London (sectioning under the public health act), but no appropriate facilities.

I think I recall reading the TB vaccine was about 70% effective, but that that was a pretty poor efficacy rate when compared with other vaccines.

Not sure what I'd do myself in the OP's situation. Normally in favour of vaccination, but agree this one has a less clear cut case than the others.