Mumps single vaccine booster?

[merlin]

OK - went down the single vaccine routes with both DS's - eldest (10) is now due his booster but it is no longer available.

Do I pay out for a blood test to see if he has immunity or go for the MMR?

I am going to speak to our GP but just wondered if anyone else has been in this predicament?

are you kidding me? To reiterate:

if a scientist employed by an academic institution makes an invention, the institution submits it and the academic gets a fair share. Read the patent, it states I, me, mine across the board. Ok, here we go:

page 1, line 1 of Wakefield's patent application:

the present invention relates to a new vaccine

page 2, line 8

What is needed therefore is a safer vaccine which does not give rise to these problems, and a treatment for those with existing IBD. I have now discovered a combined vaccine/therapeutic agent which is not only most probably safter to administer to neonates and others by way of vaccination...

and so on. Yes, he claims treatment of vaccine-induced IBD with his transfer factor but first he claims a safer vaccine.

Merlin, just get the MMR.

growingstrawberries, I was claiming that for measles. Mumps immunity indeed seems to wane. Mumps complications to my knowledge are NOT more common in older kids.

Bubbleymummy we are not trying to make you feel guilty. We are disputing facts. Your emotions are your own responsibility. Just don't expect your assertions to go unchallenged.
I, for one, think it sad that parents have been put through all this anxiety by Wakefield and his supporters who persist in spreading doubt about vaccines despite the jury returning and giving their anonymous verdict.
Lets look at some parallel cases.
If you choose not to strap your child into a car seat because you are firmly of the belief that the dangers of being hurt by a safety belt are greater than the dangers of of being unrestrained, then that is your choice. It is unlikely to affect others. However if you were to start posting on this site and suggesting that other people should do likewise, then you could reasonably expect some voices to be raised in disagreement.
If you were of the confirmed opinion that it is better to drive on the right (assuming you are in the UK) then your decision might have an impact, a literal one, on other motorists. Even more reason why, if you should argue for the freedom to drive on the right or the left, people would challenge your ideas.
I and millions of others - the overwhelming majority of doctors, public health officials, epidemiologists and immunologists among them - are persuaded by the argument that the best chance we have of minimising the risks to some very vulnerable groups is to have high rates of vaccination in the population. These groups include newborns, those born with immunodeficiencies and children on chemo.
I fail to understand why you are determined to dispute this. The fact that not all vaccines give 100% lifetime protection does not undermine the key point that the more immune people there are in the population, the less successfully an outbreak can take hold and spread. The fact that outbreaks do sometimes occur means that unvaccinated children will be one of the vulnerable groups.

imadgeine, you won't make me feel the slightest bit guilty. :) I don't buy into this whole 'for the greater good' argument. I do think it is unfair to try to guilt others into it though, especially when reaching those targets doesn't make the disease magically disappear - there are still outbreaks. Some quite large ones. So those vulnerable people who can't be vaccinated are still vulnerable. Catherina, I wasn't wrong about the outbreak in Saudi Arabia, there was one despite 96% vaccination rate. Also look at current outbreaks in Germany,Spain and iirc Belgium which all have above 95% vaccinated.

Also Caterina, it looks like you just read the bits of the patent application that Brian Deer highlighted for you otherwise you would know that it wasn't a vaccine to be used to prevent measles - it was to encourage an immune response in IBD patients that would eliminate MMR and measles virus from the gut. That is what the first line says if you read it in full rather than just taking a snippet from it. Read the whole application in full and take note of the date it was filed - June 1997. There was still a single measles vaccine available then, there was still a single measles vaccine when the Lancet paper was published in 1998 and there was still a single measles vaccine available when the press conference was held and Wakefield expressed his opinion that until further research was done, the single may be safer than the MMR. How and why on earth could someone file a patent for a vaccine when an existing one that has been around for 30 years is still available? Answer: he didn't. It was not a 'rival vaccine' to the MMR.

"The patent was held by the Royal Free. It was not intended for use as a vaccine, but as a transfer factor. Wakefield would not have gained anything personally even if it had been launched as a single vaccine." Any source for this claim? Apologies if this is posted earlier and I have have missed it, could you please repost?

Well in this particular debate i would be inclined to side with the General Medical Council who ruled that Wakefield's failure to notify the editor of the Lancet of his involvement in MMR litigation, his receipt of legal aid funding for the study, and his filing of a patent for a single measles vaccine, "constituted a disclosable interest which included matters which could legitimately give rise to a perception of a conflict of interest."

Here is a link to the report: briandeer.com/solved/gmc-charge-sheet.pdf

Also thankfully mumps is rarely life threatening in children but read further on the NHS link you recommended and it states that " The outlook for teenagers and adults with mumps is slightly less positive because they have a higher risk of developing complications, some of which can be serious.
Complications of mumps include:painful swelling of the testicles (in boys and men),secondary infection of the membranes of the brain (meningitis), or the brain itself (encephalitis), hearing loss." These are all serious complications and therefore warrant vaccination.

Life is all about risk/benefit. We take risks every day in everything that we do, be it walking our kids to school, getting on a bike or in a car, (even chatting in an online forum about a contentious issue), or choosing to have our children vaccinated. The bottom line is no vaccine is 100 percent safe, but then nothing in life is. We all have to calculate the risk to benefit in situations. And the benefits of all vaccines currently available in the western world FAR outweigh any proven risks.

This anti MMR sentiment began with the publishing of Wakefield's research, and now that he, and all of the research has been discredited and has proven unreplicable by the vast majority of those who have attempted to do so, then in my opinion, this sentiment should end.

p.s sorry for repeating the same arguments made by some others here on the forum. By the time if finished my reply, many others had already posted.

jesus, if all you are going by is the Brian Der stuff, well - all I can say is you need to actually get informed on this issue.

Look up the patent, properly (not just the Brian Deer highlighted page or two).

Wakefield did notify the Lancet of his involvement with his other work. This was discovered at the GMC trial, and funnily enough, not reported

so, here was a witness who said "no, this did not happen. it really didn't. I have no recollection of it at all" (in reference to Wakefield saying he had sent memos, and had meetings re: discussing a potential conflict). the memo was then produced, signed by the person who says it did not exist. the comeback? - "oh, yes, I remember now"

NO mention of the perjury, the attempt to pervert the course of justice. NO mention of the fact that this actually meant that half the case was a nonsense (because the potential conflict HAD been discussed, and it was decided it was not necessary to disclose further under the rules at the time). NO mention that actually, this showed that the liar was not Wakefield, but the prosecuting team and witnesses.

Why no mention of this? (all a matter of public record - go read the transcripts from the trial. read anything except Goldacre and Deer, really - you'll get a balanced picture that way). Because it was not acceptable that actually, the trial was a farce.

Deer lies were also exposed. But again, no mention in the popular press of this, as to do so would also mean that people might begin to question why he felt the need to make up this stuff in the first place.

oh, and the anti-MMR sentiment began before the 1998 paper.

look it up.

uptake of the MMR was in freefall already by 1997.

why?

because it was (in its early days) a dangerous vaccine with a known problematic health record. there were unacceptably high numbers of reactions. the Urabe strain should never have been introduced to the Uk in the first place (it had already been withdrawn elsewhere globally, on safety grounds - this was discussed prior to the introduction, and the decision was taken to forge ahead anyway, and screw the consequences)

public confidence had already begun to drop, because the MMR was not the wonderful vaccine it was promised to be. It made people ill - very ill, ad had to be hastily withdrawn. and then reintroduced with much fanfare, but why would people trust this new one? everyone said the old one was ok too - but look at what it did.

couple that with the fact that many people also think it is unethical to blanket vaccinate children against diseases that they would be better off (on the whole) catching naturally (boys and rubella), and do not like being forced to give unwanted vaccines in order to obtain vaccines that are wanted - well, that is why the MMR uptake was falling - long before Wakefield ever published on the matter.

Complications of mumps include:painful swelling of the testicles (in boys and men),secondary infection of the membranes of the brain (meningitis), or the brain itself (encephalitis), hearing loss."

Yes, orchitis (swelling of testicles) is more common post puberty (although will not usually have any long term effects) - surely an argument for giving your child the opportunity to catch mumps in childhood, when it is less serious, and have lifelong protection as an adult rather than vaccinating them as children and having the immunity wane when they are more at risk of complications?

Re. Meningitis - worth mentioning that this is viral meningitis which is not as serious as bacterial meningitis and does not usually have any long term effects.

Deafness is a very rare complication and in many cases is temporary.

Do you know that when the mumps vaccine was originally developed the UK said they had no need for it because mumps was such a benign childhood disease? Then it was released as part of the MMR and now everyone is scared of this 'dangerous' disease.

Deafness is a very rare complication and in many cases is temporary.

1 in 650 to 1 in 1000 cases and in most cases caused by mumps, it is permanent. Also, hearing loss happens across all ages, including kids (ask the Japanese, since they vaccinate so few kids against mumps, they are still dealing with huge outbreaks. For me, this is an argument to vaccinate kids during childhood, early enough that they don't risk to get mumps at all. And yes, I know that measles and mumps were thought of as "normal" childhood diseases, despite the deaths and disabilities they regularly entailed. I also remember how painful mumps was for me (and I had an uncomplicated course). Why would I want to let my children go through serious pain if there is a vaccine?

Bubbley - we clearly established that the outbreak in Saudi Arabia did not hit 20% of the population as you had claimed. It also did not hit a population that had 94 or 95% vaccine coverage, but a pocket of people with low and unclear vaccination coverage (Asian immigrants). So you were wrong on both counts. Sorry.

As for Wakefield and his patents. I have read both applications (what an amalgam of nonsense) in full and the use of his invention to prevent measles is repeatedly and unambiguously mentioned, yes, so the treatment of IBD, but they are clearly proposing their method for both prevention of measles as a vaccine alternative AND the treatment of IBD.

As for the claim that Wakefield would not stand to profit from an patent on which he is named as the inventor - that is rather naive.

Catherina, where are you getting your figures for permanent deafness from? I've seen 1 in 20,000. As painful as you remember it being in childhood, would you prefer your children to catch it in adulthood because their immunity has waned and to have greater risks of complications?

Re Saudi Arabia, what is this about Asians? Have I missed something? Yes, I was wrong about the percentages but the fact is that in a population with 96% vaccinated there was an outbreak affecting over 4,000 people. So does herd immunity stop outbreaks or not? How did having 96% of people vaccinated protect those who were unvaccinated?

Re Wakefield. Tbh when I read it I thought the patent mainly focussed on the transfer factor and its use to eliminate measles(wild or from MMR) from the gut of IBD sufferers. To me its use to prevent measles was mentioned in passing as a possibility that would require further development. If there is something glaringly obvious that I've missed then please point it out to me. I was disgusted by Brian Deer's selective highlighting though.

Bubbley - Japan

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19209100
www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15917168

I would prefer my children not to catch mumps at all, which is why they are vaccinated and I will advise them to titre test before ttc.

oh, I misread Grimma's Qatar numbers for Saudi Arabia, cannot get to the details of that outbreak. Can you? In all outbreaks I have looked at in detail (and those were either European or North American), herd immunity stopped the spread of measles in those communities surrounding the ones with the low coverage and the outbreaks.

oh and regarding Wakefield, the use as vaccine for the prevention of disease is mentioned all across the patent. It doesn't matter really, since the whole patent is built on artefacts and fabrications.

Lots of info re outbreaks everwhere, Measles, Mumps, whathaveyou, on the link provided by bubbleymummy on other thread:

apps.who.int/immunization_monitoring/en/globalsummary/countryprofileresult.cfm?C=%27sau%27

WHO data. They must employ a lot of statisticians that is all I can say.
Read with care.
Top table needs 3 zeros added.
Then you have a table showing annual fluctuations of cases of various diseases.
Then you have a table showing the % of TARGET population vaccinated. Which is the age group targeted for vaccination not the entire population. It tells us nothing about the adult population. Or migrant workers which I gather are common in middle east. This is not current. It is a survey done in 1995.

We have to be very careful extrapolating from such data.
I'd like to congratulate Saudi on their eradication of polio. :)Wouldn't have managed that without a vaccination programme would they.

WRT the issue of deafness, Gupta et al, Mumps and the UK epidemic 2005 in the BMJ - highlights mumps as the commonest cause of viral meningitis and one of the leading causes of hearing loss in younger children prior to the introduction of MMR. Can't link as you have to register, but you can find it easily with these details and the info is in Box 1, page 5.

Deafness in 0.5 - 5 cases in every 100,000 cases here Just because something is the 'leading cause' of something does not mean it is common. How things are worded can be deceptive.

Erm...well deafness isn't common, is it?

There are scaremongers who would suggest that there are common risks associated with MMR - but looking at the Paediatric Infectious Disease Journal 2000, Patja et al, incidence of serious adverse events with possible or indeterminate causal relation with the MMR is 3.2 per hundred thousand doses. Not common.

Bubbley - your source estimated, my source determined in a prospective study (albeit a small one), and that matches the estimates from previous large outbreaks.

Perhaps my source is taking the completely asymptomatic cases into account and the ones that don't have swelling so may have been misdiagnosed.

Bubbley, very well possible. That would push their numbers up to 1 in 1000 to 1 in 1500, still too high for my taste.