Apparently children who have had good nutrition would just 'shrug it off' if they contracted measles. Why don't they say that in the UK?

[bumbleymummy]

Article is here discussing the impact that poor nutrition has on children in developing countries.

Considering that the majority of children in the UK have no problem with good nutrition (fruit shoots and Greggs aside ) why aren't parents being reassured rather than terrified into having their children vaccinated with images of coffins plastered over the promotional material?

If 'what people will think' results in a continuation of insufficient uptake of the most effective means of protection against the various diseases then its a reason.

As I understand it, the main problem in Wales now is the large numbers of secondary age children who remain unvaccinated. That - I would assume - can't have much to do with the unavailability of the single measles jab since the supposed issues with MMR were in young children. So that's a bit of a red herring.

www.guardian.co.uk/science/the-lay-scientist/2013/may/01/mmr-swansea

Here are some arguments against single vaccinations.

If it hasn't been made unavailable on the NHS in the middle of the whole media scare about the MMR then they probably would have been vaccinated against measles when they were younger.

Merry, I've seen those arguments before. See responses below.

1. to protect against measles required 2 trips to the GP for the single vaccine - same as MMR.

2. As above, the measles vaccines can be spaced at the same intervals as the MMR. We're talking about protecting against measles here - not mumps and rubella.

3. The single vaccine, Rouvax is used in France and is manufactured by sanofi Pasteur - the same manufacturer that makes Pediacel. If you don't trust them to produce a safe measles vaccine why do you trust them to produce a safe 5-in-1.

4)I have expressed my views about this 'what will people think' attitude above.

5)Similar to 4 and the only reason private clinics are offering it is because there is a demand. If the NHS were offering it, they wouldn't need to.

Yep, got to love propaganda!

Also surprised by the rate of SSPE quoted there. Most sources quote a risk of 1 in 100,000 (used to be 1 in 1,000,000) but higher for under 1s.

1. Presumably you think there is no need to vaccinate against mumps and rubella and children also shrug these off? Or is your theory that its best to wait for an outbreak before you decide to vaccinate.

2. Why bother with these vaccines if the most tested and safe vaccine is MMR. Brand name does not denote safety.

3. Are people really demanding single vaccines? Seems to me most people in Wales are quite happy with MMR.

I am assuming you define propaganda as "things that don't support my world view". I have no reason to believe this journalist has any particular axe to grind.

No, merry, I think there is no place for mumps and rubella in a discussion about protecting against measles in an epidemic. However, there is an argument to be made for delaying those vaccines and there have been several threads that have discussed that.

The Rouvax vaccine has been in use for years. I'm pretty sure it was the one used in the UK before the MMR and may have been the one I had as a child (would have to check records) Why would you trust a company to safely test one vaccine but not another?

Well it doesn't seem like the clinics are short of business so there is obviously still a demand for them.

No, that's not my definition of propaganda. It's got nothing to do with my world view. I just think the arguments are poor for the reasons outlined above.

WHO:

All children in developing countries diagnosed with measles should receive two doses of vitamin A supplements, given 24 hours apart. This treatment restores low vitamin A levels during measles that occur even in well-nourished children and can help prevent eye damage and blindness. Vitamin A supplements have been shown to reduce the number of deaths from measles by 50%.

I see bumbley is getting a bit of a beating for suggesting well-nourished children fight off infectious disease more effectively. Who knew?

Isn't it true that measles actually depletes our levels of vitamin A? Hence the need to supplement even if we have enough normally?

That would tie in with the WHO comments. It's the use of the word "during" that implies that measles does somehow use up our stores of vitamin A.

Yes, exactly Tabitha. If a child has a sufficiency, or a bare sufficiency, or a mild deficiency, who will know - it probably won't manifest itself until someone gets measles. Given the problem of malnutrition in the UK it's completely reckless and irresponsible not to consider this as a possible contributing factor to reaction to the illness. So where is the harm in recommending a multivit during outbreaks? There is none. And especially given that the DoH is very happy to recommend a treatment which carries risk of severe damage, but is not necessary for, and will not benefit, 90 - 95 per cent of children at all - that is an MMR "booster".

wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/18/9/11-1701_article.htm#r7

Unhelpfully, this doesn't explain how measles depletes our stores of vitamin A, but it does make the point:

"Acute measles precipitates vitamin A deficiency by depleting vitamin A stores and increasing its utilization..."

I have friends who still call the second does MMR a "booster".

Certain people with an agenda like to push that one. They don't say it in UK because it isn't true. I had it when young and I had excellent nutrition- I can still remember how ill I was and I was only 5yrs old.

Like to push what? Vitamin A? It's the CDC saying it, not me.

Push the 'shrugging it off'. You can get complications however healthy you are.

My children are far too precious to risk someone's idea that you are fine if you are well nourished.

In my mother's generation children died- the well nourished were not immune. People have short memories.

Exotic I don't think you quite understood the quotes from who and CDC and the CDC link from Tabitha. Measles depletes Vitamin a in well nourished children. So if you had a sufficiency, when you catch measles, that's depleted. Thus the recommendation for a multivit - that's why it's irresponsible NOT to reccommend a multi-vit. In addition, it's not just now that children are malnourished!

In your mother's and previous generations a healthy recommended diet was quite different than now. A hundred years ago, when measles deaths were more common, children were considered well nourished on dumplings, bread and butter pudding, boiled beef and bread and dripping. You can check out a good housekeeping guide from a century ago.

ps I'm not suggesting your mother was a child a hundred years ago. That would be plain rude! And don't forget, you were ill because you had an illness, and it would have felt dreadful. I can remember measles. I was ill and it was horrid. Now I'm fine. So are millions of others.

And the short memories - that's the problem. They don't remember how measles was considered an illness to get, and to get over, and barely to to bother the doctor with!

In your mother's and previous generations a healthy recommended diet was quite different than now.

I'm not sure when this mother was around, but if it was in the early years of the NHS then they used to dish out Welfare Orange Juice, Cod liver oil and something else which I can't now bring to mind. Later on this was replaced by haliborange pills with vits A, C & D in them. So someone getting measles in the late 40s and 50s might well have been getting a supplement of vitamin A.

I can't see why they don't give dietary advice. Some people seem convinced that a good diet makes no difference: but at the worst a good diet won't harm anyone, but may well improve their general health.

Agreed LaVolcan but I think likewise a multivit recommendation would be very helpful in a measles outbreak. It's possible that Vit A was in supplemennts in the 50s: it was first synthesised in the late 40s. But never mind supplements - the old spoonful of cod liver oil would have done the trick - absolutely right.

it would have no impact on the level of complications in the developed world

have you got a link for this Curlew? And as for the false sense of security - I think vaccines can also do that, don't you?

If you want to believe that tosh you can, Crumbledwalnuts, my mother is elderly and my grandmother did not stuff her with 'dumplings, bread and dripping etc'! She was very fit and healthy- brought up on a farm with access to a very good diet. My FIL reached 100yrs on his diet. He also grew up in a rural area with a healthy diet. There was no difference from today- some people had lousy diets, some people had brilliant ones and there was everything in between. Measles attacked them all- those with a good supply of vit A obviously had an advantage- but not enough to protect them or make them immune from complications.
I don't think that people realise that those diseases caused real fear. Schools closed in epidemics- after a few weeks they reopened, having been disinfected, and when the children returned some were dead. (Information I found in school log books)
I got measles badly and I am the age where you got your cod liver oil and I remember my mother always stuffing supplements down us- haliborange was the best- some brown stuff with malt was the worst.
You just have to hope that these people who tell us that you don't need to get your child vaccinated don't have a child who gets the disease- and that they don't have a child who is a fussy eater or eats lots of processed food or who has a much worse diet than my mother who was born in 1920s. Or mothers who think that just because you are elderly you were brought up on stodge!

Does anyone have any information about why the vitamin A supplement isn't suggested in the developed world?

Did you have a link, curlew? Was it just a guess maybe?
Exotic: Measles attacked them all- those with a good supply of vit A obviously had an advantage- but not enough to protect them or make them immune from complications. It wouldn't protect them from illness, it would help to protect from the complications (the coffins, the severer long term disabilities), so the last half of your sentence isn't true. Not all of them, no. But if we are being terrified with coffins, would it be irresponsible not to recommend something that would reduce the number of coffins? Yes, it would, highly irresponsible. And you probably wouldn't get Vit A in a supplement, it would have been in the cod liver oil as LaVolcan notes. You just have to hope that these people who tell us that you don't need to get your child vaccinated don't have a child who gets the disease- I haven't told anyone they don't need to get a child vaccinated - are you referring to me? I do hope not. It's not for me to tell people about their own children, not knowing anything about them, or their medical history, or family history. It doesn't seem to inhibit some posters though. And I'm not afraid of disease. I wouldn't welcome it: but it doesn't terrify me, and I won't be terrified by propaganda.

By the way, a good recommended diet a hundred years ago WAS very stodgy.

I'm asking for a link! All the information I have read so far says that vitamin A supplements are only helpful if a child is vitamin A deficient, and that you have to be severely malnourished before you become Vitamin A deficient. But that sentence in the WHO document seems to suggest that measles depletes Vitamin A, so I was wondering if there was any published papers explaining why Vitamin A is not automatically recommended for children with measles everywhere.