Debate on Vaccines

[Emsyboo]

I have seen a few threads where mums have an opinion pro or con vaccine and asking for more information I would like to know your reasons for being one or the other.
My MIL is very anti vaccine and told me 4 out of 30 children die from vaccinations - I don't believe this to be true think their may be a decimal point missing although I have seen some posts from people who seem to have backed up information about vaccines.

I am pro vaccine but like to see both sides before I make a decision so if anyone has any information pro or con and more importantly has info to back up I would be really interested.

Thanks

"There is no indication 2xMMR has waned up to now." Well the current MMR has only been available for 20 years so that isn't a life time yet.

not necessarily - she may very well be immune, parental/personal recollection can be unreliable. She could get her titers tested to be sure she needs the MMR. It would be highly unlikely for someone older than about 50 not to have had measles. If she is non immune to measles, she could still get the MMR.

I am telling you that she has not had measles. Please believe me.
I'll tell her to go for her MMR. She's very pro-vaccine so I'm sure she'll be delighted.

Catherina - some people are carriers, my Grandma is 84 and not had a single childhood illness ever and no vaccines, not even flu jab. It is not always so easy to get your immunity checked at all - not all doctors are happy to just randomly do this.

oh and measles vaccine was first introduced in UK in 1968 and had 33% uptake

At some stage in the past Christian theologians got their knickers in a twist, debating how many angels could dance on the head of a pin. As if it mattered. Unfortunately this issue does matter. But some people on this site regularly introduce unsubstantiated doubts about vaccines and vague arguments which have no scientific basis.

On the other hand the overwhelming majority of doctors, immunologists, epidemiologists and public health officials believe vaccination is an excellent thing and take their children to have all their recommended vaccinations.
If you talk to people now in their 70s and 80s they will tell you what life was like for the generation that grew up before mass vaccinations were introduced in the 1950s. Every town had a "fever hospital" (or "isolation hospital") where sick children used to get taken with the diseases which have, as a result of vaccination, become almost unknown. This was the only available public health measure - take the kids into isolation and no visitors at all. Many died in these institutions without their parents with them. I have talked to someone who remembers being taken in with one illness and then catching another one while she was there and not understanding why her mother never came to see her. By the 1960s these hospitals were closed.
People did not benefit from having a long succession of childhood illnesses - far from it.

imadgeine. If the hospitals were closed by the 60s you can't attribute it to vaccines. They weren't widely used by that stage. Better nutrition, sanitation, availability of antibiotics all made a huge difference so it's not really a valid argument to say that we're all surviving those diseases because vaccines were introduced as if they were the only thing that changed. What do you attribute the decline in scarlet fever to seeing as there is no vaccine for it? It was a major cause of death in the early part of the last century.

Maxi - your grandma will have had all childhood diseases. She grew up and raised her kids before vaccines. She'll have had them.

well so glad you know my grandma better than she knows herself - she's been checked out actually but glad you are the all knowing expert anyway

Oh and thanks for her own History that i had no idea of I know he grew upbefore vaccines etc - she is still against them, still wouldn't even have the flu jab - it's not just the modern world you know that doesn't agree.

she grew up not he obviously

she has been "checked out" and is not immune to measles, mumps, rubella, chicken pox, scarlet fever, fifth disease? She should donate her body to science, because unless she has multiple mutations in particular receptors, that is absolutely not possible in a 84 year old.

My mother is 78 and refuses vaccines on the same basis as me - unless there is a high probability of catching the illness and a high probability that it will have serious consequences.

She had smallpox vaccine which made her extremely ill and left a huge raised scar on her arm.

We often weigh personal experience when we make these kind of decisions don't we? I think handing every aspect of your life over to those regarded as specialists only feels like the obvious thing to do if nothing in your experience causes you to question that.
I have cause to question. Being shouted at about what other strangers think is right isn't going to impact me enormously.

Oh she already has catherina, she already has

Fifth disease?
By the way, *Catherina8, when you said somewhere that you'd had your immunity checked, did you have to pay? If you had needed the MMR, is it free for adults where you live? Some years ago, we had to pay the price of a prescription fee for all holiday jabs. I can't find that info on the NHS website, but I expect it's there somewhere.

slapped cheek Tabitha!

I'm not against vaccinations to protect health but what bugs me is that when you want information about vaccines your children have had for instance, batch numbers, manufacturers, expiry dates the GP are less helpful. They seem to be more than happy to push you into having these vaccines but when it comes to YOU wanting info there seems to be a brickwall, why is this? And does anyone know what rights the patient have to this information?

There was a study done in Germany by the highest German health authority, the Robert Koch Institut. Data of 18.000 children and young people between the age of 0 and 17 have been investigated and put together including a lot of medical data like vaccination but also a lot of questions had to be answered. The children had been watched over a period of 3 years. 1.500 bits of information per child had been collected.

The result of all of these data brought to light that the overall state of health of children who had not been vaccinated was in a much better condition than those being vaccinated.

I do not know about the amount of information available in Britain concerning the dangers of vaccination - but certainly in Germany there is a huge amount of books mostly written by mums who started researching into the field after their child had been damaged through a vaccination or doctors who started doubting.

This is from the Robert Koch institute and it contradicts what you say Rosi

here is the link to a film which informs about the results of the Robert Koch institute. The lady talking there came to the conclusion looking at all the data herself. So I will get in touch with her to clarify how it is possible that the institute spreads a different truth. www.alpenparlament.tv/playlist/323-ungeimpfte-kinder-sind-gesuender-jetzt-ist-es-amtlich

Unfortunately you probably will not be able to follow as it is all in German.

But I will come back to you as soon as I have an answer from her.

the insurance paid the titre, as my doctor put it in as needed for differential diagnosis of a cough (she did pertussis at the same time)

saggemal Rosi, willst Du uns hopp nehmen? Angelika Kögel-Schauz als Expertin darzustellen ist doch etwas vermessen und "offizielle" Aussagen kann sie sicher nicht fürs RKI machen.

Translation: Rosi is taking the mickey, linking to a movie clip of an interview with one of Germany's resident anti-vaccine activists, whose qualifications are, wait, umm, it'll come to me, errr, none. Certainly, she is in no position to state what is "official". Meanwhile, the RKI has published the results of their TOKEN study, which compared health status of vaccinated and entirely unvaccinated children and found that they are roughly of the same health, but the unvaccinated children have vaccine preventable diseases more often (well, d'uh).

www.aerzteblatt.de/v4/archiv/pdf.asp?id=80869

Background: Whether unvaccinated children and adolescents differ from those
vaccinated in terms of health is subject to some discussion.
Method: We evaluated data on diseases that are preventable by vaccination,
infectious and atopic diseases, and vaccinations received that had been collected
between 2003 and 2006 in a representative sample of 17 641 subjects
aged 0 to 17 years in the framework of the German Health Interview and Examination
Survey for Children and Adolescents (Kinder- und Jugendgesundheitssurvey,
KiGGS).
Results: Evaluable data on vaccinations were available for 13 453 subjects
aged 1?17 years from non-immigrant families. 0.7% of them (95% confidence
interval: 0.5%?0.9%) were not vaccinated. The lifetime prevalence of diseases
preventable by vaccination was markedly higher in unvaccinated than in vaccinated
subjects. Unvaccinated children aged 1?5 years had a median number of
3.3 (2.1?4.6) infectious diseases in the past year, compared to 4.2 (4.1?4.4) in
vaccinated children. Among 11- to 17-year-olds, the corresponding figures
were 1.9 (1.0?2.8) (unvaccinated) versus 2.2 (2.1?2.3) (vaccinated). The lifetime
prevalence of at least one atopic disease among 1- to 5-year-olds was
12.6% (5.0%?28.3%) in unvaccinated children and 15.0% (13.6%?16.4%) in
vaccinated children. In older children, atopy was more common, but its prevalence
was not found to depend on vaccination status: among 6- to 10-yearolds,
the prevalence figures were 30.1% (12.9%?55.8%) for unvaccinated
children versus 24.4% (22.8%?26.0%) for vaccinated children, and the corresponding
figures for 11- to 17-year-olds were 20.3% (10.1%?36.6%) versus
29.9% (28.4%?31.5%).
Conclusion: The prevalence of allergic diseases and non-specific infections in
children and adolescents was not found to depend on vaccination status.

Of course it depends on whom you want to believe -if you think there is no reason to doubt official statements and no reason to believe statements made by a simple mum who has been digging into the field of vaccination for more than 17 years because her child has been damaged through a vaccination. If you understand German then it might be an idea to listen to what she has to contribute as well.

Well, actually, I would choose not to believe people who have no biomedical qualification, are running anti-vaccine clubs, associate with questionable elements (have you looked at the other items on that page you linked to? Paranoia rulez!), and have the hubris to "re-interpret" raw data and go out and spread their delusions to the gullible.

Trans: I don't want to hear things I feel uncomfortable with so will ignore them.