Help me make sense of MMR - hype or theory

[felicity10]

OK, so I've been through a few pages of previous posts, I must be missing something because I can't make sense of it!

DD is 1 and I've had a letter about the vacs from the GP. I've heard about the MMR in the news few years ago and about the link to autism, but I just would really value your views.

Single vacs with no mumps or the MMR? Can anyone point me in the direction of key MMR issues?

I just don't want to get to the gp's and then feel like I am getting bullied into having the mmr - it is normally very no nonsense nurses who barely speak english, so will be unlikely to give me a clear answer as to any risks.

I am amazed that we have this lack of clarity in the UK.

Many thanks in advance!

Quite right 'starlight'. But he's always dragged in to it as evidence of a conspiracy to 'supress the truth about vaccines'. As I've said before, those who really are interested in improving vaccine safety need to realise that he's a liability as did 'thoughtful house'. No one can take you seriously when you start banging on about him or bringing his 'research' forward as evidence.

I most certainly am not representative of the scientific community, I'm only a part of it. Did I say I was representative? But the arguments here are counter to what the vast majority of the scientific community believe in, be it doctors, epidemiolgists, immunologists, you name your specialism. Surely you realise that?

Hmm, i've generally find it's used as an example of the big pharma conspiracy and as solid evidence of good science showing the problems with vaccines.

I think Starlight you will find that Stata is very much representative of the scientific community. But hey, if you, personally, know better than the world health organisation?..

And if you want to try and undermine the credibility of the international scientific community by arguing that it is not objective because it takes place within a cultural and political context, then at least agree that by your same argument, that anecdotal observation taking place within a subjective emotional context by untrained observers is the weakest "evidence" of all.

just a reminder, 164000 deaths a year, still, now, from measles. That's 18 children an hour. Dead. Not injured. Not disabled (those numbers are more horrific again) Thats just the deaths.

We were on target to eradicate this disease worldwide. Sadly that is not now going to happen, because of reduced vaccination uptake.

It's not actually starlight. It is true that there are sometimes contradictions in research. It is also true that as we learn more and gather more evidence that things will change.

However, if there's one area that really isn't any conflict in scientific community it's the link between autism and vaccines. Again, search on google scholar. what do you see?

screening for what exactly? With what markers? And based on what evidence?

Since we don't know what we're screening for exactly and the true number, if it exists at all, is so low, you'd get such a ridiculous number of false positives that you can forget about increasing the numbers vaccinated.

And who is going to pay for the vaccination alternatives? And what about the fact that single vaccinations would be less effective because more children would be lost to follow-up? And there would be gaps in between vaccinations where children would be left vulnerable to infection thereby continuing to act as a reservoir for the virus?

How about instead of the government having to bend over backwards and use MY tax money to engage scared parents, that the people raising doubts (which they cannot back up with statistically significant scientific data) just stop scaremongering in the first place? That would be my preference.

BTW original WHO target for eradication was 2010. They are now hoping to set a new one, probably for 2020. Hopefully with Wakefield formally discredited there might be a chance of hitting this one.

Is there anyone on the thread who doesn't want to see it eradicated? 164, 000 deaths, remember.

No starlight. You have lots of evidence that wild viruses and bacteria cause damage. Lots and lots. Far more than any that vaccines have been even tangentially implicated in. They don't 'interfere' with the immune system any more than being exposed to the wild virus does. What they do do is stop you getting the dz.

A child with a crazy immune system may be extra sensitive to getting measles, mumps or whatever.

Encephalitis if you have a predisposition to whatever may be devastating.

It's not a logical step therefore to base a decision not to vax when the evidence is that being exposed to the dz could be far far worse. Given how few children get the wild dz, do you think that maybe the reason why we don't know is because the numbers are so small? It's seem far more plausible to me.

If, on the other hand, a parent with a child who possibly may be at risk, said 'I don't want my child exposed to any virus and with herd immunity they're not likely to be so that's where I'll take my chances', well, that seems for more logical to me.

To reject something on the basis of its naturalness isn't an argument for me at all btw.

all mine have had all their vacs

Felicity - my partners mam refused to give him the whooping cough and were both extremely ill

sorry meant hima nd sister