Very Very anxious about mmr

[ariane5]

My 3 dcs (10,5 and 2) have had all their jabs except mmr. When dd1 was little I made the decision not to have it done as read so much about it that scared me and I couldn't bear to give her something that could potentially make her ill.

I know that the mmr is now supposedly safe and the doctor who caused the initial worry struck off but I cannot get out of my head what I read.My new gp has been on and on at me for a good 18months to get dcs vaccinated with mmr and I have cancelled numerous appts-now EVERYTIME I go to gp they spend at least 15 minutes asking me to have mmr-they even said last week that any one of measles/mumps/rubella could be fatal to my children and were quite aggressive in getting this point across-not the best idea as Iam 7 months pg, terribly hormonal and worried about the jab anyway without feeling like my children could be struck down at any time and be seriously ill-it doesn't help me make a decision when they are being so pushy.

ds and dd2 have severe egg allergy too but they have said they would be fine to have it done at gp surgery and would not have a reaction.

I feel torn-if i do it I will be terrified and not sleep for a good 3 weeks untill all3 components of the jab have worked in case of a severe reaction and if i don't I will be panicking that they will catch measles/mumps/rubella.

All 3 have other health issues-a genetic disorder affecting connective tissue(eds) dd1 has a chest prob(pectus excavatum) causing reduced lung capacity and ds and dd2 severe allergies and a resulting poor diet.All 3 catch EVERYTHING going and are unwell a great deal and the gp has mentioned that their immune systems are not great and measles etc could be very bad for them.

I have tried everything to come to a decision but the more I read the more confused and upset Iam not knowing what to do and I feel so pushed by the gp and every dr i see at the surgery.

I really do not know what to do.

That is perfectly fine, Leonie, whatever suits your purpose.

Catherina - I was looking at the UK numbers (HPA) regarding deaths but can see the logic of your extrapolation regarding US numbers. It is hard however to predict consistent mortality from measles in that so many other factors come into play.

I think a point we can agree on is that Vaccinations save lives. I think we can also agree that adverse reactions happen to some people from vaccinations. This isn't mutually exclusive. The MMR was a contrivance of the HMO's who wanted to reduce visits to the doctor paid for by private health insurers in the US(a 66% reduction by using a 3 in 1 vaccine- genius!). Single vaccines may well have acheived the same outcome of lives saved from measles deaths - I believe you errantly conflate the use of the MMR with positive outcomes. If single measles vaccination had been mandated by the state we may have seen the same outcomes.

The general point I've been trying to make is that the tragedies of the families who have suffered because of adverse reactions should not be disregarded as either unimportant or mythic. Bad things happen. These parents are not hysterical. When governments don't listen or when research scientists are attacked venomously by third parties at the smae time that their patients are supportive of their work - there is a disconnect that leads to fundamental distrust.

Finally, the 'bad science" - corrupt numbers - falsified data attacks on Wakefield and the entire UCL team has to stop. It's just not true. It's destroyed the careers of people that were trying to find solutions. It was a case series about gut disease. Most of what they have found was already suspected and has been confirmed by many researchers including Imperial College and Columbia University (by Lipkin who cited the Lancet paper in his work - and in 2005 insisted that there was no link between the MMR and autism.)Many of the senior doctors who have damned Wakefield/Walker Smith/Murch forget that they used to say children with autism had gut problems because they ate sawdust or sand - they just made it up I guess because they really didn't know what else to say.

Gut involvement was accepted as true anecdotally. I took my son (who has brain injury but not Autism/ASD/Aspergers) to multiple consultants because of his vomiting when he was 2 years old. We had many varied tests....no conclusion or solutions...until we walked into one doctor's surgery who from the doorway said - he has heartburn, acid reflux and then added that in his experience 90% of children with brain injury have some form of gut problems. This was in the mid 90's. He was spot on.

What is a doctor meant to do? The first thing they learn in medical school is how to take a patient's history.The UCL doctors doing research at the Royal Free took patient histories. If they don't like what they hear should they just disregard it? And if they hear it over and over and over and over again? Not reporting the parent's temporal connection to vaccination in the Lancet paper would have been irresponsible. Reporting it is seen as irresponsible.

The conflicts of interest in this story are impossible to reconcile and somewhere lost in the middle of the very clever rhetoric are some very medically challenged children (now adults).

Blind adherence to the Vaccines are safe rhetoric makes people sound like Big Pharma shills. The all vaccines are bad Rhetoric makes people sound like they believe in Area 51.

You'd think after twenty years of this we might accept the merits and the risks without too many recriminations.

I think a point we can agree on is that Vaccinations save lives. I think we can also agree that adverse reactions happen to some people from vaccinations.

Yes, I can agree on that and on reading the VAERS reports of deaths after MMR, there are some that I would immediately accept could be causal. There are cases of encephalitis that are totally likely to have been caused by MMR (timing spot on, no other germ found after most intensive search).

I don't believe a word Wakefield says. Sorry, but I found too many exaggerations/poor research/lies in what he said over the past 10 or so years I followed the debate. The last thing I checked was his claim that there had never been an adverse event/meningitis from mumps single vaccine (made in front of the "charming" AAPS). That is wrong - one of many falseties out of his mouth.

I rather hoped we might agree on more - even leaving aside your pathological dislike of Dr. Wakefield - you and Leonie and Bumbley and me and the others including the rather brutish but amusing Pumblechook - should be trying to find some common ground. We've proved there is some - Probably quite alot if we tried harder...poor ariane5...a pandora's box.

right - and then there is the little boy who gets horrendous eczema the day after his first scheduled round of shots, except that he never got those shots, because mum had postponed them due to a trip they wanted to go on that weekend. Or the girl who has a grand mal after her first DTaP, and the gene test shows the Dravet mutation in the sodium channel. Or my husband who ran his first 40 deg fever in 20 years after a cancelled flu shot appointment.

No one is calling anyone hysterical, but a temporal association does not establish causal association, no matter how much mum wants to believe it and how believable it is to a compassionate listener.

Catherina - those are great hypotheticals...I guess...but for what I'm not sure. I understand the need for accurate reporting and I understand how important it is to avoid conflating events and reach false conclusions. I kind of assumed we would have to discount the false and the foolish. Temporal does not establish casual - of course you are right - but it is useful in building a picture of the pathology wouldn't you say? Perhaps you would suggest doctors not take histories and depend on epidemiological reports instead? How about this good idea - let's use both.

If single measles vaccination had been mandated by the state we may have seen the same outcomes.

I don't think so, because the older the child, the fewer the doctors' contacts and the lower the "compliance".

When governments don't listen or when research scientists are attacked venomously by third parties at the smae time that their patients are supportive of their work - there is a disconnect that leads to fundamental distrust.

Yes and no - parents should be listened to, but parents and patients have been known to support the worst of quacks (not speaking of Wakefield now) if they are just desperate enough. You see it with overpriced cancer "therapy", stem cell "treatments", etc. Unproven, potentially damaging treatments aimed at emptying patients' pockets, and the most loyal patients ever. What we need is less of a "knee jerk" reaction to parental worries - less of the "OMG, this may be woo, let's throw them out now, or bully them into a), b) c) by the book". Proper payment and time allocated to actually listen to patients would be good (sigh). I had a nurse hang up on me for wanting to give my kids the dTaP instead of the recommended dT/IPV - "oh, it must be one of those horrible vaccine refusers - better hang up on her". Frustrating.

Gut involvement was accepted as true anecdotally.

The autistic children I know well enough to know about food/gut issues all have some. And heck - I am grumpy when I am in pain, and I am a verbal grown up. No problem there. The problem comes with Wakefield's temporal claims (vaccine - gut - autism). I don't see research supporting that.

Blind adherence to the Vaccines are safe rhetoric makes people sound like Big Pharma shills. The all vaccines are bad Rhetoric makes people sound like they believe in Area 51.

Yupp. I totally agree, especially since I have vaccinated my kids in four different countries and what was "state of the art" in one was close to "child abuse" in the other. Just the looks I got yesterday for a teen who never had the BCG - sheesh.

And that is exactly why Catherina is, in my mind, not one of the good guys. Putting it nicely.

So to be one of the "good guys", I have to believe everything about her child a mother tells me? How about the mother well over 45 who tells me her toddler's Trisomy 21 was due to the amalgam filling she had had removed during her pregnancy (real life story that happened to me). Am I to believe that? Where do I draw the line?

Mandated was the operative word in the first point.
Understand the concern about parental/patient pressure or desperation. BiL is oncologist and expresses concern over alternative therapy but also, interestingly accepts that some types of alternative therapy - particularly when it concerns quality of life may be very beneficial.

Wakefield's claims were not in the Lancet paper. The recounting of parental temporal association was. He was asked a question. He answered it. I've spoken to many many many parents (years before this became so ubiquitously talked about) who all related a similar process or reaction to the MMR vaccination. Different countries - no way of sharing stories - it was spooky albeit not particularly scientific. Made me concerned.

YOU NEVER had the BCG!!! (No longer part of the routine childhood schedule in the UK I believe) -

I did, but DD and DS did not. DD also did not get hepB vaccine in her birth country and was immediately "caught up" when we moved to the US, ped was surprised I wanted varicella vaccine for DD in Germany, and GP shook her head at us that neither child had had meningitis jab when we moved to the UK, but was astonished at the varicella...

can I admit that all my decisions regarding chicken pox were entirely anecdote-based? I did not get DD the vaccine in the US, because I did not see the point. My own chicken pox had been subclinical. I had a high titer but had never had a pock for all I remembered. Three years later, my best friend's daughter had chicken pox from hell - pox on every visible and invisible spot of skin and I dragged my girl to get the shot. Never read a paper - all of that came much later (confirmation bias and all)...

I was extremely ill, eg. Hallucinating and delirious, with Rubella (confirmed by blood test). My DHs Mum died from Chicken Pox, and several friends kids have been hospitalised.
So I'm not sure they are quite such mild diseases.
Never mind a cousin who came very close to dying from measles.

They had both been vaccinated and not been vaccinated, they were unlucky with Chicken Pox. My kids had it mildly, as did I as an adult (and pregnant).