MMR at three? Or should I wait until booster age?

[SoBroken]

To cut a long story short, DS has had all his vaccinations except the MMR. After seeing mothers talk very passionately about the effects it had on their children, DH and I decided we didn't want to do it, and would get single jabs instead.

However, he lost his job and things have been very tight financially. We have never had a spare £300 to actually get it done.

Looking at DS starting nursery after xmas and I'm a bit worried about him catching measles or something while there.

The private clinic where they do the separate jabs told us there is no need to get separate boosters at five, as by then, the danger of autism has passed.

I just want to know at what age this passes? Should i go and get the MMR done now, or should I wait until he's five? Our financial situation is still too tight to get the separate jabs at the moment, at least while DH builds his business up a bit.

Blueberties you are talking nonsense again, you didn't even read the madsen study, it was obvious from your answer, just as you don't read any studies.

Yes, I read the Madsen study Why do you think I haven't? I've read much more pro-MMR than anti-MMR -- it was a pro-MMR study that first made me question the government's claims. Saw it on the TV, thought - that can't be right. Read the presser - no luck there. Had to go to the BMJ in the end. Thus it all began.

Surely this is a last resort thing from you? Why aren't you responding? Have you listened to my link?

I'm am really puzzled here. You are ignoring posts, points, comments and evidence. You just say, oh that's nonsense, look at this instead. You never actually respond to the points made. You just say oh look at this, yet another epidemiological study.

Quite a large part of this thread has been about whether or not epidemiology can disprove any possible link. Your response is to post more epidemiology?

Wait - you think I copied that paragraph from some dodgy website?

No, I couldn't find it anywhere except in the journal. It's not even in the abstract, it's definitely not in the version posted around the net. You have to go back to the journal for it. Why do you feel the need to make these claims?

bruffin - you need to enhance your googling skills.

It's true - I do judge you both and I was trying to express that without being abusive. It's a genuine assessment of mine that to repeatedly ignore posts of people's personal experiences with very dismissive comments is very callous indeed, even cruel. I don't see how it can be otherwise.

I'll ignore the comments about my reading: I don't need to justify it to you at all . I know exactly what I'm talking about. It really doesn't matter what you believe. I think you're just saying it because I'm getting to you somehow.

Did you listen to the link, by the way? Some very eminent neurophysicians there on the value of personal experience.

if it is that easy, you will be able to post a couple of links, which neither of you have done (not surprisingly) and yes, it would not be outrageous to ask one's doctor for a source for his/her claims. I have done it before. Going back to not holding my breath while you curl your lips...

www.whale.to/vaccine/wake.html

Scan down the report to read this:

MM R and Compound effects
.....It is notable that a close temporal relationship in the exposure to two of these infections during the periods of susceptibility may compound both the risk and severity of autism.

www.whale.to/vaccine/wake.html

Ooops. Sorry, forgot to do lnk.

Tabitha - google "Scopie's Law" - whale.to is not a good source unless you are looking for anti-vaccine and conspiracy theory blurbs.

oh, and the link goes to a page on Wakefield - I know that he claimed that measles and mumps exposure within a certain time frame cause Crohns and/or autism, but we also know that his claims are unsupported. I was honestly looking for a mainstream source, folk like the CDC, NHS, Cochrane...

Caterina: I have posted evidence and a link.

Basically you want the only evidence to be acceptable to be epidemiological evidence. That's all you'll have, and you dismiss everything else.

There's a reason for that: it's that there is other evidence - not epidemiological - which gives you questions which your epidemiological evidence cannot and does not answer.

My last link - did you listen? - provides interesting evidence of how eminent neurophysicians are prescribing a certain type of anti-depressants because of very limited evidence that they can have a dramatic effect on certain types of brain cancer.

Are you better than these doctors? Do you know more than they do about the value of different types of evidence?

It is up to you to disprove a link between MMR and autism. If you seek to do this through epidemiology you have to make sure your studies stand up to criticism.

You bring Cochrane. Do you want to discuss its finding that MMR safety studies were inadequate?

Oh you meant a link about mumps-measles autism.

I was just told it by "your side" - even heard it when doctors rang in to phone-ins on the whole controversy. Of all the things I questioned, I didn't question that, because both sides agreed.

Are you saying these people were lying? You are, aren't you?

Blimey Caterina you literally ignore absolutely everything until you can say

LINK PLEASE!

It's getting funny. You only come back when you can say Link Please!

It seems you have too little interest to address anything else or you have no response. You're like hiding behind bushes for the moment you can jump out and ask for a link.

well, you are ignoring my request for a link, pot kettle and all that. Apart from that, I have a really hard time following you, so I try to concentrate on one claim and settle that and then move to the next, but you seem to be unwilling to do so, so the dodging the link request and instead posting some unrelated cancer story might be programme.

In any case - where were we?

Are you saying these people were lying? You are, aren't you?

Your doctor? I don't even know him/her. What I am saying is that there is no mainstream agreement that viral diseases in close succession cause/trigger autism or Crohn's or anything else that Wakefield claimed. If your doctor claimed there is, s/he may have fallen for Wakefield, lying is such a harsh word.

Cochrane says:

No credible evidence of an involvement of MMR with either autism or Crohn's disease was found.

I googled under pubmed, google scholar and there are no results that tie in with close temporal exposure to measle mumps and chickenpox.

that!

"The design and reporting of safety outcomes in MMR vaccine studies, both pre- and post-marketing, are largely inadequate."
Cochrane

"Studies designed to evaluate the suggested link between MMR vaccination and autism do not support an association, but the evidence is weak and based on case-series, cross-sectional, and ecologic studies. No studies have had sufficient statistical power to detect an association, and none had a population-based cohort design."

Madsen et al 2002, New England Journal of Medicine

Cochrane was based on studies published up to 2004.

"Lying is such a harsh word" - why I'd agree, but then I'm being accused of it by Bruffin on no grounds whatsoever - except that she or he is trying to undermine me. It's hard to see how mainstream medics saying this can have "fallen" for Wakefield when they were poo-pooing the whole thing.

There've been links posted, including one by me - of course I could have linked to Madsen, but I pasted it instead - it's just that you only like one particular type of evidence and reject all others.

That's half, or more than half of the point. You are unable to react to the very valid challenge to your view of only one type of acceptable evidence.

Oh - and not dodging at all Caterina. It's a very clear train of thought.

Here it is.

(1) There are thousands of reports of post-MMR regression into autistic disorder.
(2) There is an explosion of autistic disorder since the upgrade of the vaccine schedule including MMR.

(3) Obviously these are worthy of consideration. Because of this (and despite Bruffin's view that (1) is meaningless, various studies have been carried out to establish whether there is any connection.

(4) No connection is established by the studies.

On this thread:

(5) The nature of the studies is challenged (in the case of Madsen, by pro-MMR researchers) and the value of this type of study in establishing disproof is challenged (see the exchange between DBennet and Tabitha).

(6) The value of (1) is challenged: my link demonstrates how senior mainstream researchers value (1).

So you see there's no dodging - it's all very clear and understandable. It all follows. I don't think you want to follow: I don't think you want to engage in debate about the value of the evidence you consider sacrosanct.

My correspondence with MNHQ leads me to believe that I am not lying.

As said before please actually provide actually evidence of what you are saying. I have yet to see anything of value.

You proved nothing in the discussion about the madsen paper other than you didn't understand it!

There have been hundreds of studies in various shapes and forms and none have ever been able to confirm there is a link between mmr and autistic regression.

The studies have looked at

Comparing unvaccinated and vaccinated

Looking to see if more children with autism have bowel problems

The time between mmr and the onset of symptons

To see if children who are diagnosed with autism consult their doctor more in the weeks after mmr than those who are not diagnosed with autism.

Comparing rates of regression in children prior to when the mmr was introduced.

Comparing rates of regression in children who have had mmr and those who haven't.

Trying to replicate wakefields findings

bias recall (you should actually google that to see why you shouldn't take parents evidence as sacrosanct)

All these studies add up to a huge body of evidence, as I said the IOM has looked at it all again and found no evidence. They have listed the known reactions to all the vaccines and autism is not one of them.

Now for once and for all put up or shut up and show at least one study that actually shows a link between mmr and autism that is not from wakefield.

How much more money do you want to see thrown at mmr which can be spent on research to find out the true causes of autism, or preventing other diseases.

Maybe you should actually show a bit of compassion for the 10s of thousands that are still dying every year from preventable disease. 18 children an hour from measles. Nobody is saying vaccination is perfect but it is far more better than doing nothing. There are those that can't be vaccinated but those are the people who are most vulnerable and need protecting from the actual diseases.