err my son's not sick, he's autistic, but anyway.
The reason I get fed up with this "good of society" rubbish is that it doesn't stand up to analysis as an argument anyway.
Take the vaccinations one by one. Diptheria and polio need to be excluded as they are non-existent in the UK now. Tetanus needs to be excluded as it is not transmitted from person to person. Whooping cough is a tricky one. tere were lots of cases of whooping cough last year, one research group found that the whooping cough bacteria had mutated and the vaccine no longer protected against it, other studies found that the reservoir for infection was form vaccinated adults who's protection had worn off (whooping cough in an adult is quite hard to spot). Hib is a nother tricky one as the likelihood of someone catching hib depends on all sorts of factors such as whether or not they attend daycare, how lng they were breastfed for. Even meningitis C isn't a straightforward relationship as one suggestion is that reducing cases of meningitis C will just increasr the number of cases of men B. There is a nationwide study underway to look at that.
So that leaves us with measles, mumps and rubella. Rubella is a good case in point as the only reason to vaccinated a boy with rubella is for the good of society. My son had rubella last year - he caught it from an unvaccinated child. My friend told me as soon as she realised her child had rubella and we were able to quarantine him effectively. My friend's child had caught rubella from a vaccinated child- it wasn't recognised (the child had been vaccinated so it couldn't possibly be rubella it must just be another virus). So the person who spread rubella round the community was the "responsible" mother whilst us irresponsible mums sat inside with our infected children. (not having a go at the mum here btw- I would have thought ds1 had heat rash if I hadn't known he'd been in contact with rubella).
And the whole good of society thing assumes that vaccinations carry no risk. Well all vaccinations carry a risk and some children will be more at risk than others. I didn't decide not to vaccinate ds2 just becuase of autism, in fact I was more interested in the whole range of autoimmune conditions displayed by dh's family. There is a fairly strong body of evidence that if you have a predisposition to autoimmunity then vaccinations further increase that risk. Funnily enough we talked about things like diabetes as well, and a few months ago (ie over a year after ds2 should have receievd his baby jabs) SIL was diagnosed with type I diabetes.
There is a lot of rubbish written about vaccinations, but a lot of it comes from the department of health. One book I've recommended a lot on here is "the vaccination bib;e" from what doctors don't tell you as it is referenced throughout. I have now discovered an even better book (well referenced, a little more balanced) The vaccine guide- risks and benefits for children and adults by Randall Neustaedter- it has endorsements on the back from paediatricians. It is very goo, available from Amazon and I'd recommmend it to anyone wondering what to do.
This is a quote from the book- taken from an article in Lancet (Moxon 1990)
"There is much to be learned about how best to use vaccines for maximum benefit to the community as well as to the individual. For a pathogenic microbe to persist within a population the density of susceptible individuals needs to exceed a critical value such that, on average, each primary case of infection generates at least one secondary. Thus, it may be to the benefit of society as a whole for an individual to be immunised but in that individual's interests not to be! As with other matters of altruism in society, the promotion of vaccination to secure herd immunity raises complex issues."
Everyone will reach their own decision based on their analysis of the risk/benefit ratio (and in many cases this will be a gut feeling). And everyone is perfectly entitled to choose whichever route they want for their child. However whatever decision someone makes it is not simple choice.