Refusing to vaccinate your child

[Organic100]

For a while now I have been researching the dangers of vaccines and all the cases of children dying or being made sick after having a vaccine, all of which is not reported in mainstream media. How do you feel about vaccines? I've heard that the medical profession encourages pregnant women to get the flu vaccine, and that babies are vaccinated at birth. I've also researched stories where parents have been reported to social services by a spiteful doctor or nurse, simply for refusing their child a vaccine. It seems parents are losing their rights. What do you think?

Bruffin, yes it has! I gave you this link to the Guardian article about waning immunuty earlier.

Cereal I was talking about the vaccination programme as a whole, not one practitioner who clearly c*ed up.

My DD has been the victim of a major medical c*-up too but I don't assume that what that surgeon did is NHS policy.

hmm, well considering I was only in the crappy paed's office due to a bizarre NHS policy which meant I had to have dc tested for all kinds of things that were clearly not an issue , and that, given family history, it was reasonably clear which areas to investigate.

And many other NHS policies have also impacted negatively on the healthcare provided to my children, then you'll forgive me if I don't agree with you on that one.

NHS policy would have had me vaccinate my child well before the moment where it became clear that to do so would be very unwise. NHS policy would then have ignored any vaccine damage which occurred, and NHS policy would also have meant that should damage have occurred, healthcare provision would have been sketchy at best

I still think there's been enough discussion about vaccination policies to be reassured that the NHS wouldn't be paying for vaccination programmes that weren't felt to be cost effective. Any programme which induced thousands of cases of auto-immune disease, brain damage, Autism, etc would cost far more than it saved and would be pulled very quickly.

Yes, there are crap practitioners and people who interpret policy badly. Yes, there are patients who are served badly by NHS policies which are in place for the good of a much greater number.

I'm quite sure that, if there were an epidemic of a preventable disease, a great number of those skeptical about vaccination would suddenly have a change of heart when the risk became more real, as was seen in the South Wales area recently.

In the meantime I fully support the right of parents to refuse vaccinations for their own child but feel that it's a shame that so much effort is put into twisting fact and trying to build a case that doesn't exist.

" I dont believe there are any benefits to a 13 month old or 4 year old from a mumps or rubella vaccine so the reason for doing so is to protect someone else. That's my moral and ethical objection."

I don't understand why you find it immoral and unethical to vaccinate your child in order to reduce the risks for the more vulnerable members of the community, given that the risks from vaccination are lower than the risks from catching the diseases we vaccinate against.

Bunbaker: you know it doesn't answer my question fully. My question was, do you think doctors are always right?

Catherina: Of course severe damage, sometimes death, occur due to vaccines. The risk is minute. You don't know this. It is 1000x lower than the risk of complicated and severe courses of measles alone. You don't know this. I was asked for my opinion, that is mine and that of 99.99999 of any doctor, especially of those who have seen measles. You don't know this.

Re: infecting a vulnerable patient. Do you have a flu vaccine every year? Do you get your immunity checked regularly? Do you avoid going out if you have a cold? These are serious questions which I am, actually, asking you.

I find it ironic that vaccine refusers ride on herd immunity while "objecting" to it on moral grounds. You make an assumption that that's what they're doing. In my case it's wrong.

"We also do not know if there are any long term problems to these vaccines."

And you're never going to find out if every time someone reports a vaccine reaction you dismiss it. Some of us have a pretty good idea of what a long term problem might look like. Robert Fletcher's mother certainly does.

"I don't understand why you find it immoral and unethical to vaccinate your child in order to reduce the risks for the more vulnerable members of the community, given that the risks from vaccination are lower than the risks from catching the diseases we vaccinate against."

Because
1 it's an unnecessary risk
2 for some children the risks from vaccination are higher than the risks of catching the disease
3 those children cannot be identified

I don't see rubella or mumps as risky diseases for the children that are being vaccinated, as for measles, yes, there are risks but even then it is worse for babies younger than one, and the first vaccine is given at 13 months, by that time much of the danger has passed. This really is a vaccine given to one person for the benefit of another and for this reason the risk of the vaccine is not acceptable to me.

If measles was comined with a vaccine for say hib and menC and given at a couple of months old then I would do it. Don't worry, no one has to go into the specifics of why this isn't possible, I'm just making a point of what would be acceptable to me.

Even whooping cough is most dangerous for babies under two months, babies that can't be vaccinated. Again without going into specifics about whether vaccinating pregnant women works or not, at least a women is doing something to protect her own child, that sounds like an acceptable risk to me.

It really is an area of huge moral and ethical issues.

Cereal and toast you seem to have had a torrid time. All the best.

"All I meant is that we haven't got news stories about over 50 yr olds suddenly experiencing health problems due to childhood vaccinations."

Being as how they won't consider vaccine damage beyond a very short space of time of vaccination, and mostly don't even accept temporal association (coincidence don't you know, and thousands of them) it's hard to see how this would happen. But then of course the inadequate safety testing of for example MMR only followed through for I think (do correct me) three weeks?

"My question was, do you think doctors are always right?"

Goodness!
Is anyone always right? Are you always right? I certainly am not.

I can only answer from my personal experience, in which case the answer is yes. Also, I am far more likely to believe and trust someone who has undergone 7+ years of medical training than an internet forum where someone has a personal axe to grind.

personal axe - do you actually mean that? No, I wouldn't make a health decision based on mumsnet either but I don't suppose many non-vaccinators have done that. If you read what they post there's generally quite a sound awareness of disease complications and epidemiology. I don't understand why you think your own personal experience ("I always
believe my doctor") should establish a general rule for everyone. After all it's clear that some doctors shouldn't be believed, some doctors are wrong, lots of doctors disagree with each other, lots of doctors haven't seen certain diseases or presentations of certain complications, scientific papers are available on the internet. We have moved on a lot from the days of "just take the blue medicine dear and you'll be fine". Thank goodness.

And you're never going to find out if every time someone reports a vaccine reaction you dismiss it. Some of us have a pretty good idea of what a long term problem might look like. Robert Fletcher's mother certainly does.

That is not what was being asked. The question was about problems that may occur 10 or 20 years later , it was one of those vaccines may cause cancer type statements

1 it's an unnecessary risk
2 for some children the risks from vaccination are higher than the risks of catching the disease
3 those children cannot be identified

1. why unnecessary - you seem to completely ignore the thousands that were affected by these diseases before vaccination.and for the thousandth time these may be rare but they are far less rare than any reaction to the actual disease.

There would be far more children around like Robert Fletcher without vaccination. Look at websites of respectable charities like SENSE, Encephalitis.org to see why vaccination is necessary and maybe have a bit of compassion for the familie of the children that died from measles in the last european outbreak just a few years ago.

1. who are these children? I keep asking but nobody will tell me?

Any child that has a problem with vaccines causing a fever will certainly not be able to tolerate the onslaught of the proper disease which is why it is still recommended to vaccinate children who have diseases like Dravet,and mitochondrial, and children like my ds because the risk of the FC from a fever. There are contraindications easily available nowadays. I also suggest you read the medical records in the wakefield court case or the US omnibus to see these were not fully NT with no medical problem children who changed overnight from mmr

1. see above list of contraindications are known

Bm,cote and lavolcan

You can only work out from statistics if a vaccine is waning or failing if you know both who did and didnt get the disease. I would also point out that titres are not always a good indication of immunity

another explantion
"Example: Let?s say that an outbreak occurs among 1,000 people and that 950 of these 1,000 people have received 2 doses of the vaccine and 50 are unvaccinated (i.e., vaccine coverage = 95%). If there is a 30% attack rate among people who haven?t been vaccinated, 15 unvaccinated people would get the disease. Among the 950 vaccinated people, the attack rate would be 3%, so 29 vaccinated people would get the disease. Therefore, of the 44 people who got sick during the outbreak, the majority (29, or 66%) would have been vaccinated. This doesn?t imply that the vaccine didn?t work?in fact, the people who hadn?t been vaccinated were 10 times more likely to get sick as those who had been vaccinated, it?s just that there were a lot fewer unvaccinated people at risk. Furthermore, if none of the 1,000 people had been vaccinated, the outbreak would have resulted in 300 cases rather than only 44. In this scenario, we would say that the vaccine is 90% effective in preventing the disease after 2 doses, which is the same as saying that the attack rate in the unvaccinated group is 10 times higher than the attack rate among people who have received 2 doses of vaccine. The formula to calculate vaccine effectiveness is (attack rate in unvaccinated group minus attack rate in vaccinated group) divided by attack rate in unvaccinated group, or (ARU-ARV)/ARU.)"
and if you actually read the guardian article it says may not is
and from the study quoted

" analysis suggests that the adjusted odds of being hospitalized with mumps are reduced ≈50% in those with a history of at least 1 mumps vaccination. We observed an even lower rate of hospitalization in those who had received 2 doses than in those who had received 1 dose of vaccine, although this difference was not significant"

and
"The lower rates of complications in vaccinated teenagers and young adults are consistent with secondary vaccine failure, which suggests that the primed person is able to mount an immune response to prevent more serious complications."

"Our analysis, however, suggests that vaccination provides higher levels of protection against hospitalization and risk for orchitis and meningitis in those diagnosed with mumps"
Note this study only looked at orchitis and menengitis, not other complications.

"I don't understand why you find it immoral and unethical to vaccinate your child in order to reduce the risks for the more vulnerable members of the community"

Because:

(1) There is a small but real risk with every vaccine

and

(2) There is a real benefit to actually having the disease rather than messing with vaccines when we are talking about a very benign childhood disease like rubella. Which boys don't need to be vaccinated for, at all.

I responded to the question about problems in later life. You missed that response.

1 It's unnecessary for babies. They don't benefit from rubella vaccination
2 children who are damaged by vaccination - people do keep telling you but you keep dismissing it as coincidence. Any child that has a problem with vaccines causing a fever will certainly not be able to tolerate the onslaught of the proper disease - how do you know it's only the fever causing a problem? how do you know any of this is true? you don't. You're presuming guessing.

If you dismiss all reported vaccine reactions, and say - Look no vaccine reactions - some people might not take you seriously.

They don't benefit from rubella vaccination

a prevention of 1 in 5000 risk of encephalitis is not a benefit then? a baby usually grows up to be a mother or father, the age of the child is irrelevant to the reaction.

where have i dismissed all vaccine reactions?

how do you know it's only the fever causing a problem? how do you know any of this is true? you don't. You're presuming guessing.
I again suggest you read the IOM book i linked to above.

bruffin - Are you still claiming that vaccine immunity doesn't wane or that we haven't actually shown you that it wanes?

"You can only work out from statistics if a vaccine is waning or failing if you know both who did and didnt get the disease."

Again, here is the study I posted yesterday. They know who got the disease. They also know who had how many MMRs.

Clearly, clicking on the link was too much trouble for you, so here is the abstract, for your education information:

The United Kingdom and United States have recently experienced large outbreaks of mumps, which raises concerns about vaccine effectiveness. The effectiveness of the mumps component of the measles, mumps, rubella (MMR) vaccine was estimated using the screening method. In England from January 2004 through March 2005, 312 cases of mumps were reported in children eligible to have received 2 doses of MMR vaccine. Of these children, 52 (16.7%) had received 1 dose of MMR vaccine, and 97 (31.1%) had received 2 doses. Vaccine effectiveness was 88% (95% confidence interval [CI] 83%?91%) for 1 dose and 95% (95% CI 93%?96%) for 2 doses. The effectiveness of 1 dose declined from 96% (95% CI 81%?99%) in 2-year-olds to 66% (95% CI 30%?83%) in 11- to 12-year-olds , and the effectiveness of 2 doses declined from 99% (95% CI 97%?99.5%) in 5- to 6-year-olds to 86% (95% CI 74%?93%) in 11- to 12-year-olds (p

You and Catherina are even dismissive about Robert Fletcher's vaccine reaction. The only one's you're happy to acknowledge are the "one in a million" cited by NHS publicity. There've been a number of reports on this thread for example. Vaccine reactions, not reported or acknowledged. You don't have to believe them word for word .But when there are thousands of them it should make you think. It doesn't make you think. You still believe "one in a million". That's dismissive.

You'll have to copy and paste the IoM book again, I can't find it. Febrile seizures are linked to MMR (increased risk anyway ( plus having rubella has a benefit - ie immunity generally for life. Yes they grow up to be mothers and fathers and that's wehn the vaccine may start to wane. Why not vaccinate them later? Makes perfect sense.

Crumbled - That's Cognitive Dissonance

Accepting the evidence that vaccine immunity wanes (absolute fact that nobody in the field disputes, by the way) or acknowledging examples of vaccine damage would conflict with their deeply-held beliefs so they have to ignore it.

Thanks Cote. I don't mind them ignoring it for themselves and their own families but to ignore it and use that ignorance to bully and scorn others isn't fair.

COte, all that says is that it is a theorectical problem and the study i quoted says that even if it wanes or fails, those that get mumps who have been vaccinated, get it milder and with less risk of complications . The conclusion of the study you quote is not change the present vaccination programme which is what you and Lavolcan want to do but
To minimize the risk of future outbreaks, MMR vaccine coverage with both doses must be improved and maintained.

CW why are obsessed with Robert Fletcher. Neither Catherina or I have have dismissed him, just pointed out that there may have been other underlying medical factors involved of which the vaccine reaction may have been a symptom not a cause.
Look what look what measles actually does

Crumbledwalnuts you are back to your old ways of shouting bully when someone doesnt agree with them

iom adverse effect of vaccine, evidence and causality It has looked at all the research on vaccine reactions and also good for information on the diseases themselves
I havent ignored anything. I read the research in books like the IOM and dont rely on annecdote on the internet.