Arguing with DH over whether to vaccinate or not

[LetsGoToTheHills]

This is causing a lot of conflict and we are both really upset about it. He is for, I am against (never had them myself). Both equally passionate. This is my first time on MN and I have found a lot of useful information and interesting viewpoints, but was wondering if anyone has been in a similar situation? How did you manage to resolve it?

Just to add, there have been several outbreaks of polio attributed to the oral polio vaccine. That vaccine is a live attenuated vaccine. The cases happened because very occasionally in protected vaccinated individuals the virus can switch back to an infectious form. the vaccinated person is safe, but then sheds live vaccine that can infect unvaccinated individuals. Many people in the UK were vaccinated with the oral polio vaccine (drops on the tongue/sugar cube anyone?), so there may be live polio around in the UK from that source. Another reason to ensure chuldren are protected by vaccinating against it.

I thought Sashh's post was excellent .

Nhs gps do not make clinical decisions based on edicts from the government or even a few extra pounds from vaccinating a high % of their patients (money goes into practice pot not direct to gp's account!). We advise to vaccinate due to the overwhelming evidence in support of benefit vs harm. For example last year there was a payment for getting diabetic's average blood sugars very low....the clinical evidence that came out showed the levels on one of the targets was associated with bad outcomes for patients so we refused to comply and went without payment. We gps do this job because we care about patients not to get rich or to be a government lacky. There are easier ways to do both that wouldn't have me lying in bed at night worrying about my patients! OP I hope you come to a decision. I can see you care deeply about your child and it is terribly difficult to filter through all the information on vaccinations. Best of luck.

truththeory.com/2012/01/07/gsk-fined-over-illegal-vaccine-experiments-killing-14-babies/

truththeory.com/2012/01/08/big-bucks-big-pharma-movie/

Woolly head - the live opv vaccine is no longer used in the UK. It was replaced by the IPV in 2004. The virus can only survive outside the body for a couple of months max so there is not live polio in the UK from that source any longer.

I wasn't vaccinated and decided not to get my girls injected either. Dp went along with whatever I thought best - or couldn't care less?
My Mum told my Dad that if he wanted us vaccinated he would have to take us and nurse us through any resulting illness, whereas if we weren't vaccinated and got one of the illnesses she would nurse us. Might the same logic work for you?

I also hate these threads, very judgy and you do get shot down when others dont agree. I remember being at my 6wk appointment post birth with my ds1 and was asked about the mmr(a yr away!) I simply said I hadnt thought/decided about it yet and as it was a yr away I wouldnt give consent at that stage. About a week later I received a particulary shitty letter from the practice manager basically saying if I didnt consent my son would be taken off the surgery list and they would not provide him with healthcare. I did have him vaccinated as it turned out but resent being bulllied into it.

ds1 one had v v vbad behaviour problems from 15 months onwards, he was "off the wall". when ds2 came along I simply ignored the letters until I felt comfortable to do it and now I have dd(17m), I am doing the same, ignoring the calls for her to have the mmr, until I,as her mum, feel she and I are ready, which will probably be just before school at about 4yrs.

I rationally know that wakefield or whatever he was called was discredited but I still am very suspicious of what happended with ds1, he was a very happy smiling baby who coincidently after having the mmr turned into toddler with serieous conduct issues! he still has issues now and I still dont feel comfortable about the mmr, no facts/statisitcs etc are going to change that, as someone else said, trust your instints.

My DS is severely autistic and had signs of being so very young. Vaccinating was not a decision - it was a must. His condition is something he was born with and I would not risk losing my beautiful boy to measles or whooping cough. As 2012 is likely to see a resurgence in both these diseases that can an do kill children even in developed nations then vaccination against them is more important than ever.

bumbleymummy

I think polio is a special case, it is highly infectios and yes the main route is oral feacal, a friend's father was not allowed to change their baby's nappies for a couple of weeks because he hadn't had the vacine and baby was given live - this was a few years ago, but can be passed by coughs and sneezing.

Polio is now counted in cases world wide, it is possible within a few years to eradicate it which has two advantages

No one will ever be disabled / die from it again, ever

No one will need to be vaccinated

What are the possible side effects of the vaccine I have to confess, other than the live vaccine being able to pass on infection to others, I don't know.

As a planet we are, I think, about where we were in the 1960s with smallpox - it is only enemic in a small geographical area but we are still vaccinating.

Sashh - one of the side effects of the vaccine is that it can (albeit rarely) cause paralytic polio. I'm not sure why you consider it to be 'a special case'. My point is that it is not in the UK yet we still vaccinate against it 'just in case' it comes in from an endemic country (which it hasn't) yet other diseases, such as typhoid, DO come into the UK from other countries and cause hundreds of cases a year but yet we don't even think about/worry about them/consider vaccinating against them as part of our standard schedule. It just seems like we have been a bit brainwashed to believe which diseases are dangerous and worth vaccinating against based on what is in our current vaccine schedule rather than what diseases genuinely pose a risk. If the CP vaccine is introduced in the UK the attitude to the disease itself will change too, just as it did in the US.

I perhaps have a different perspective to UK residents but I appreciate the rationale and science behind vaccs but dislike the additional ingredients. In our case, going by what was available, we chose the 5 in 1, refusing hep B, and will have single measles and single rubella with an MMR booster later. I would prefer DS to catch mumps, would not risk measles and accept that while rubella would in all likelihood be mild for him it may not be for someone else's unborn baby.

In our particular case the risk (consequences multiplied by likelihood) is higher than if we were in theUK.

Mrs SP, I completely agree about statistics. I've seen for example, a graph illustrating a fall in diphtheria deaths in the UK after the vaccine was introduced which would be very compelling evidence were in not sat next to another graph showing a far more dramatic fall in deaths in the previous 50 years with no vaccine. This is why it's hard to just accept what we're told. Spidermama, you'll see I was trying to avoid any negative comments right from the start, but I appreciate you writing as it does help to not feel alone in this. I had a hard time from a nurse last month who among other things told us our children won't be allowed to play field sports at school!

Sorry, later posts, I hadn't refreshed. Harecare, he's gone back to work now, and hasn't mentioned it since so all's a bit quieter. He's asked me to look into options/visit the GP, but I'm hardly motivated to do that! I too have said that if we go ahead he will have to be responsible for all if it. Leonie and starsintheireyes, my instinct has been my main driving force in all of this. It has served me well in every other area of childrearing so far, and the thought of putting all that stuff into them makes me feel quite sick (this is the point where I'm usually told how ridiculous and irrational I am!). However, they are extremely healthy and have only seen doctors because of a couple of falls, so would probably be fine if it came to it. Of course, I think I know exactly why they're so healthy!!

LetsGoToTheHills happy to chat some time. I PMed you, message in your inbox

By the way, does anyone know if surgeries are really allowed to strike people off like they often seem to do for not following the vaccination schedule. I thought healthcare in this country was a service offered not a compulsory programme. Do they make non compliant parents feel so ashamed and confused that they don't complain? Certainly the press in the UK are very pro vaccination, so they wouldn't help.

No surgeries cannot strike patients off list for not having immunisations. Please feel free to report any colleagues giving my profession a bad name by doing this. I would be surprised if people had been off listed for this .

Thanks passthestuffing that's good to know.

Its a nightmare, we saw the head of immunisations at our local hosptial as our older son had a bad reaction to the MMR + futher illness later on. I have spend at least an hour a day looking at vaccines and related issues, have read endless books. Have read all the inserts. Frankly its constant worry. I don't envy you. However, my gut told me not to do it. I don't know how reliable that is, but like you its got me through.

You sort of feel like you are damned if you, damed if you don't. I would love to have a kid that did not have adverse reactions, then I could live it the world of 'well my kid was fine'.

Hope that you come to a consensus soon.

All the best.

*my gut proved right in other situations that I listend to it/

I have loads of sympathy for you in this issue. My DH and I were both unsure at the beginning of what to do. We read up very carefully and I was even cheeky enough to demand (politely) all the product leaflets in advance so I could be sure they were mercury free and from reputable, first world suppliers. I checked them all, read lots of stats from sources both for and against (can't remember where now after all this time except the obvious WHO). I also looked at studies, but do remember not all are of equal academic or statistical weight and some people love drama and a good conspiracy theory much more than they care about giving you accurate information to keep your kids safe.

At the age of three our DD developed cancer, one of the ten diagnosed every day in the UK (and no, cancer is not less common in areas where vaccination rates are low, it's roughly equal everywhere). She has just completed over two years of constant chemotherapy and is my absolute hero. Her immune system was kept terrifyingly low by all that chemo throughout those two years however and if she and those around her in her nursery, school and all those doctors' waiting rooms hadn't had vaccinations her story could have been very different.

There are 10,000 kids and teenagers still going through treatment for cancer in the UK right now, alongside all the thousands of others with asthma, heart disease, autoimmune disorders, cystic fibrosis and loads of other conditions which make them much less likely to survive a bout of these 'normal' childhood diseases most (although not all) healthy kids can recover well from. Please remember they're not just 'herd members' - they are real children whose parents adore them as much as you adore yours and may be fighting like hell for their lives on a daily basis with more courage and dignity than you've seen in a long time.

So please do take your time, don't be rushed into making your decision, as long as you don't mind paying for them you can have whatever vaccinations you do want done privately when you're sure and you're ready - I have no problem with anyone wanting single jabs well spaced. You'll find your GP etc. won't like that though as studies have shown that those who do that are much more likely to find it too much work and stop before the course is finished and leave the kids with half a job.

Make that pros and cons list with your DH and have a rule with your DH that the instant voices get raised you leave the discussion for another time. Please don't listen to anyone telling you to make such a big decision on 'instinct'. Every instinct rebels against letting someone intentionally hurt your kid by sticking a needle in them, no matter what the long term benefits.

Please however bear in mind three things as you decide,

1. Yes, if you are lucky and your children stay in perfect health, there is a good chance that these vaccinations will be of no benefit to them. However, you have no guarantee that you will be that lucky (I really hope you are, I wouldn't put my worst enemy through what we have been through). By the time we discovered the cancer (leukaemia, the most common kind), it was way too late as DD's immune system couldn't mount a response to vaccinations.

2. The stats of how well your kids would do unvaccinated are only as good as they are because they depend so heavily on a critical mass of kids being immunised to protect yours. I understand your need to put your kids needs first, but you only have the luxury of making that choice in relative safety because so many others choose to go ahead. You are making an (admittedly small for you as an individual) but definite increase in the risk that someone else's child might die because you think on balance it might be better for your own. Kids' lives depend on as many people being encouraged to vaccinate as is humanly possible. Be prepared for a lot of negativity here and every time people cotton on for a long time if you don't go ahead.

3. There were very good reasons people dedicated their lives to finding vaccines and that the NHS spends a fortune paying for the vaccines and incentivising healthcare professionals not to be lazy and shrug their shoulders every time someone doesn't want to. Don't fall into the trap of thinking these diseases can't cause massive damage because they can and do.

4. You mention being confused because death rates from these diseases fell long before their vaccinations were introduced. The main reasons for this as I understand it were better hygiene to prevent infection, better nutrition and antibiotics and other medical interventions to manage the complications and secondary infections. Also, just because deaths fell doesn't mean a lot of people weren't suffering or being permanently harmed by these diseases.

Good luck in navigating your way through this decision. Obviously you know what I chose and why I firmly believe everyone who is not in a special risk group for why they shouldn't or can't vaccinate really should do so.

Farlo, I hope everyone making this decision reads your post. Says it all.

DDs primary school had a little boy who was immune compromised - his health depended on everyone else being responsible (vaccinations and not sending kids in if they might have been exposed to chickenpox etc).

Farlo - hugs! My cousin is getting a new kidney next week (a live donation, hence scheduled) and two of my friends are undergoing chemo at the moment, so yes, yes, yes, to what you post!