GP unfriendly due to non vaccinated child

[Elf]

Our GP is a bit of a git anyway but the last time I went to him about a slight problem I had, he asked me about DD's lack of vaccinations. She hasn't had any because we are in that camp of thinking they are not a good idea. Anyway, he wasn't aggressive but it was the first time I had been challenged by a professional like that. ( DD has never been to see him as we see a homeopath if she as teething probs or whatever). When we get back to England I would like another GP because he is horrible but I wondered if it is possible to find a GP who is sympathetic to the non vaccinating parent as presumably they are all pro. Do any of you have an understanding GP?

I have never read Trevor Weston's research, but I recently came across a piece of Dutch research looking at the measles epidemics in The Netherlands in 1999-2000. 3292 people cases of measles were reported. )4% of all people had not been vaccinated. 3 died and 16% (527 people) had complications caused by measles.The research do conclude that measles is not such an innocent disease in the west as many argue today.
(Source:J Infect Dis 2002 Nov 15;186(10):1483-6
Measles epidemic in the Netherlands, 1999-2000.
van den Hof S, Conyn-van Spaendonck MA, van Steenbergen JE.
National Institute of Public Health and the Environment, Department of Infectious Diseases Epidemiology, Bilthoven, The Netherlands.)

In the US, 3 out of 1000 people contracting measles after 1989 have died (American adademy of Pediatrics, redbook 1994)

Jimjams, to be blunt I think you are very misleading. Have you ever seen a baby with wooping cough ? Wooping cause breathing problems, lack of oxygen, epileptic fits etc. Babies have to be hospitalised and it can be very serious indeed!

I still we have a social responsibility to vaccinate.We need 85-90% vaccinated to avoid epidemics of for example measles. Yes, my children are strong and healthy and would probably survive measles. However, it would have more serious effects on children who are too weak to be vaccinated, children with cancer, lowered immunsystem etc......

I can understand some of your concernes against the MMR. I was also naturally worried as you cannot help but be affected by some of what you read. However, the more I read I felt that very often the people arguing against the vaccine came across as somewhat prone to conspiracy theories (ie. GP vaccinating to reach targets/earn money and dragging in weapons of mass destruction in this debate seems a little odd to me).

Sorry, that should be 94% of the people in Netherlands who contracted measles had not been vaccinated.

I'm sceptical about vaccination. My dh more so. Ds is having single jabs. But I did ring Sense (the deafblind charity) to ask about Rubella, to ask why they support vaccination for babies as I too thought the old system of girls only vaccination was better. They gave me some convincing statistics about the drop in numbers of deafblind babies since the decision was made to introduce vaccination for boy and girl babies, instead of vaccination for girls at puberty. Can't remember the figures, but they were much better afterwards. The problem is that most pregnancies aren't planned at all. Women don't know their rubella status, and if the vaccine didn't work for them, and there is rubella around, then the results can be utterly catastrophic and heartbreaking. I was completely convinced and decided to have ds vaccinated. And of course, it isn't just an issue for girls. For every woman having a deafblind baby, there is a man having a deafblind baby. My son could grow up to father one. That is why I now believe it's equally important to vaccinate boys as well as girls.

FairyMum - I would like to know what the complications were. Complications in measles are common, but usually completely treatable. Would also like to know if they were treated with vitamin A - as that reduces complications.

The research saying the whooping cough has mutated so that vaccination no longer protects was reported in the New Scientist. Of course whooping cough is a serious disease in young babies, but there's absolutely no point in vaccinating them against whooping cough is the bacteria has mutated and vaccination is no longer protecting them. An example of where more research is needed- especially as the pertussis vaccination has a pretty poior safety record.

Aloha- yes I agree this generation will be better served (as there will be less rubella around). Most of our generation (ie currently having babies) will have had the teen vaccination, and so the mojority of us should have protections. What worries me is when the MMR generation grows up- if girls haven't had rubella protection apart from the MMR as a baby and at pre-school- are they going to still be protected? The obvious way round this is to introduce an MMR booster and teens and late twenties (I think the americans are thinking of introducing this or maybe already have)- but when does it become a jab too many?

FairyMum - I don't think its fair to call me misleading. I am cynical about vaccinations as I live with a child I believe was vaccine damaged. However my information is from original sources and research articles. At the moment there is not enough knowledge and the government is refusing to sponsor the research that needs to be done. When someone looks at the damaged children then I'll start to have more confidence.

I am not anti protecting children from disease - that would be ludicrous- but there are enough unknowns about vaccination to mean that proper safety trials need to be done if any parent is to have any confidence in them.

FairyMum- "In the US, 3 out of 1000 people contracting measles after 1989 have died (American adademy of Pediatrics, redbook 1994)"

Is this because infants are now catching measles as they are not getting antibodies from their mothers?

Probably not. Measles deaths usually occur in those who have immue deficiencies or who are on immune supressing drugs. Healthy children have lttle to fear from measles (although complications are more common in infants- but that can be used as an arguement for not vaccinating). You could have an arguement for vaccinating to protect against the suscpetible - which is fine providing the vaccination is safe. Given the current controversy surely the safest way to protect against measles is single vaccines? BTW the measles death rate in the States declined by 97% before the introduction of a vaccine.

I am not anti vaccination. I am anti vaccinations being used without proper safety studies or anyone even considering that there may be a problem. What do they do when an Andy Wakefield comes along with a potential problem - they sack him- for god's sake! If the vaccination programme is as safe as they say it is then they just need to do some studies to show that. I wouldn't suggest stopping vaccination at the moment. If I was in charge I would reschedule the vaccinations so that the DTP hib polio men C combination was given over the course of the first year (thimerosil free naturally- if manufacturers made their vaccines in sterile environments they wouldn't need thimerosil anyway). I would schedule measles vaccination for 18 months and rubella I would target teenage girls (baring in mind alohas comments) and mumps I would bin. I would possibly bin whooping cough as well, at the very least an urgent study is needed to see if the thing it protects against actually still exists.

In the meantime I would ensure that proper independent studies were carried out. Ones which examined all the unthinkable questions to find out how safe these things are. Also need to ask whether giving combinations is safe- especially combinations of live viruses.

i don't really think any of that is too wacky- just sensible- surely?

i'm protected against rubella as i caught it when i was around the age of 10/11. does this means my kids have some kind of immunity to it?

When they are babies, but its passive immunity so it wears off. Should last for around a yearish.

I'm quite interested in rubella protection as one of the consequences of maternal rubella can be...... autism.

'I'm quite interested in rubella protection as one of the consequences of maternal rubella can be...... autism'

how do u mean? i'm having a bad day and cant work that last bit out.

If a woman contracts rubella during pregnancy the baby can actually be born autistic. I think (actually this is a guess) that this happens if rubella is caught very early in pregnancy.

jimjams a bit of thread but I know you worked in genetics but just wanted to know... why is my family soo alergic??? should realistically we been told not to vaccinate? (against mmr espicially) My sister has CF, as you know, we have eczema, hayfever, astmha (sp?), I have lichen sclorosis, my dh has psoriasis, we both have diabetis(sp? again and I got an A in english!!!) in the family, heart disease etc.... should we hae been warned not to?

I feel guilty about the vacs thing but if you are sooo allergic shouldnt they tell you. I am also allergic to penicilin. PLEASE tell me if I am being stupid...or you dont understand me

My sister was immuno-supressed that she caught anything going- thats why I know what you mean about the picking things up even if you are vaccinated.

I am not in a panic BTW just was curious

The men C thing - I just meant that if you have a didgy immune system then if meningitis C is removed you'll still be susceptible to men- you'll just be suscpetible to B strain because there'll be more of that around iyswim.

As for should you vaccinate? god knows! (sorry!) I would read everything you can lay your hands on and make your decision from there. Pros and cons either way- its just weighing up the risk thats difficult!

This link has a bit about autoimmunity:

www.redflagsweekly.com/conferences/vaccines/sept15_Fisher.html

otherwise I'd recommend the vaccine guide by Randall Neustaedter and following up the references in there.

Oh fio2- CF isn't autoimmune/allergic and nor is heart disease so ignore those. Diabetes is autoimmune if its type I, but not if its type II. HTH

ooo no we have type I diabetes and type II, plus as a complication of CF! wasnt being rude BTW just was interested Will read your refs, thanks

It's ok I didn't think you were being rude! I have just come across a page full of links- will post later but now I have to go and play with trains (ds2) and do BIBIC stuff (ds1).

I need a glass of wine........

me too!

Jinjams - I always love your posts - so clear and well argued. Your knowledge so impresses me. However, I should say that I nearly died of a rare complication of measles when I was two, so it is not entirely true to say healthy children have nothing to fear from meales as I was not a child with any known immune deficiency. I developed surgical emphysema, burst my lungs and ended up in an oxygen tent fot six days. Of course I know I don't want my ds to get measles because of my experience but I am also worried that a measles jab (combined or single) may affect him badly too.

Jimjams - clumsy finger syndrome. Sorry I spelt your name wrong!

ow ow ow bluecow!! Sounds nasty. I would be all for a jab for measles that had been well tested and shown to be very safe. Just need more research. It may be that giving too many jabs at once is the problem, or it may be that the actual jabs are the problem, or it may be the additives, or there may not be a problem at all. It's just that at the moment whilst infectious disease rates have gone down chronic disease rates have gone up. And these include of course real pains like autism and diabetes and ME.

It's a difficult one isn' it as children who are more susceptible to the diseases are going to be more at risk from the vaccines (live vaccines anyway). My friend's child was very ill after her MMR, but then she was also very ill from chickenpox. I guess at that stage the only thing is to ask how likely you are to get the disease. If likely take your chances with vaccination, if unlikely take the risk and hope you don't get it. Never sure about the risk/benefit ratio on that one though. Really tricky.

Jimjams - the MMR scares the living daylights out of me but like Elf who started this thread I am also worried about the reaction of my starchy GP. I'm sure she'd boot me off her books if we went for single jabs (yes I am an extreme coward!). But then I know I don't know enough about the subject (apart from the Daily Mail articles in March). Is it the measles part of the MMR that is the problem - if so, would the measles jab be equally risky (though I do agree with what you say about it possibly being giving the three different things at the same time)

bluecow- your GP may well be fine- I've never had any problems (and ds2 now 20 months hasn't had any vaccinations).

TBH no one really knows. The strains used in the MMR are the same as used in the single vaccines. Of the 3 measles vaccine is the dodgiest. Rubella seems pretty safe in children. Mumps has a bit of a chequered past but is generally safe. It's not really surprising that measles has the worst record as its the most serious of the 3 diseases and these are live vaccines iyswim.

Personally I think that giving single vaccines is safer. However in terms of causing autism I don't think there is a huge risk from the MMR (only 10% of autism cases are believed to be be due to the MMR so numbers aren't huge- I'm more suspicious of thimerosil and that isn't in the MMR). One thing that came up in conversation with Paul Shattock is that a lot of the MMR damaged children have had chickenpox within a few weeks of receiving their MMR (and i think catching mumps and chickenpox in the same year of life increases the risk of autism). So if you do go for MMR I would tend to postpone it if there is chickenpox around.

There isn't a right or wrong answer and at the end of the day you have to choose the decision that is right for you. dammed if you do and dammed if you don't!

by the way jimjams (or anyone else!) - you know loads about the vaccines so maybe you can help me with something. DD seems to have had a bit of a bad reaction to her vaccines this time round (never said I thought they were perfect, just for me they're worth the risk). Took her to Casualty the night after she had them because she got a little rash on one arm (still no idea what it is, still there!). Anyway, the full story is on another thread somewhere but the thing that worried me is that when we were there, one of the nurses said they'd had a lot of strange rashes, fevers etc after vaccination coming in recently, and they're currently consulting with the GP's to try and find out why.

Now am I just going OTT, but I think we should have been warned about this before we had the jabs. Maybe not given a scare story, but at least told to watch more carefully for certain signs. Because of this, tommorrow I'm cancelling the next jabs we've got booked and making an appointment to talk to the GP instead. I'm planning to rearrange her jabs for about 7/8 months old instead, as by then she should be more able to cope with a reaction, and it will be more spread out. What do you think?

And before you say it, I know I'm pro-vaccination but that doesn't mean GP's aren't little s**ts sometimes and there definitely isn't enough good info out there for parents.

Aaahhh, if only there were perfect vaccines out there, even if we had to pay through the nose for them!

wobblymum- I can't remember your daughter's age. There can be a problem with leaving too long a gap between dtp- basically if you have too many antibodies to tetanus then you trigger an allergic reaction (or something like that I've never looked into it), so you would need to talk to your GP first. Having said that they used (as in 1980's) to leave longer gaps between them anyway- but do ask your GP about that first.

Don't be too harsh on your GP- unless the d of h issue a warning he/she wouldn't know. I have noticed on mumsnet (so very scientific survey ) that a lot of children have had reactons to the new hib, so maybe its that.

jimjams - dd is 3 months now. Agree about GP probably not knowing everything, even though the nurse said they were talking to all the GP's about it. I just get really shirty when I feel like I'm not being told something I should be. Will definitely talk to GP ASAP about it. If I could just leave it to 5 months, it would probably help and it would mean that we wouldn't just be getting over one reaction when she might be having another one.

ok I've dug out the old schedule

during first year of life the following:

DTP (no age is given for this but I think it was around 3 or 4 months)

3 months later oral polio (OPV)

6-8 weeks later DTP and second OPV

4-6 months later DTP and second OPV

I think the states do the vaccine at 4,6, and 8 months (check the radio show on mercury aluminium thread for details it was something like that)

Another thought is that because of hib problems then have stopped giving aP and now give wP which is meant to give more reactions (although I've always thought they meant more of the seizure type reactions rather than rashes).

My 6 mos baby hasn't had all of hers yet. She started at the correct time but I wanted to separate Meningitis from the others. I was worried when we went away about her not having had anything and my GP told me it would be fine. She's due to have the last jabs in 3 or so weeks and will be 7 months.