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 - The study is about actual live people with actual Mumps infections who have had very real MMR vaccines. There is nothing "theoretical" there. It's not like those scientists have stuck a finger up in the air and made wild guesses about which way the wind blows.

You don't seem to understand that some statistics are used to make population-wide inferences from such studies, notably confidence intervals. That doesn't mean that the study is "theoretical".

And it clearly shows that vaccine immunity wanes.

"my old ways?"

Earlier someone called people like me and my children social parasites - I mean what's that about? You can disagree all you like, I don't mind that, but to be fair there has been quite a bit of scorn cast around by the very very pro people on here, I think you yourself were making digs about bumbly mum's maths for soem reason? that kind of thing. Why?

"I dont rely on anecdote on the internet" that's what I mean by dismissing

It's called dismissing all reports of vaccine reactions and saying - Look, no vaccine reactions. I don't take that seriously. Millions might. More discerning people might see a flaw.

bruffin - Here is Public Health England saying the same thing:

Rise in mumps cases linked to waning immunity given by MMR vaccine - Guardian, 4 July 2013

"Government advisers on vaccination have been monitoring the mumps part of the vaccine for some time. In January last year they noted that "a significant proportion" of infections were occurring in young people who had had jabs and that "it may be reasonable to assume that protection from infection falls to around 60% after 10-15-years ." A subcommittee of the Joint Committee on Vaccination and Immunisation looked at a number of options. But moving the second MMR dose from three-year-olds to an older age would leave young children unprotected against measles and rubella, they concluded, while a third dose of MMR during adolescence might not be cost-effective since the effectiveness of another jab for those already with immunity was uncertain.

There would also be "very little added protection" against measles and rubella and it might only shift the burden of the disease due to "waning vaccine-induced" immunity to older age groups ."

Basically, your government knows that vaccine immunity wanes specifically in the case of mumps. They haven't done anything about it yet because it is not "cost-effective" and will end up pushing the disease to older age groups when that booster vaccine wanes, anyway.

I don't expect you to comprehend this and start understanding what everybody is talking about but hey ho.

Crumbled:

Re: infecting a vulnerable patient. Do you have a flu vaccine every year?

Yes.

Do you get your immunity checked regularly?

Oddly, yes. The last time wasn't planned, but I had measles and pertussis checked 8 years ago before moving to the UK (and pertussis boosted then) and I had everything tested about 18 months ago, including my immunity to hepatitis and even rarer bugs. Rubella and varicella were tested before my pregnancies.

Do you avoid going out if you have a cold?

I do my best (e.g. I did not visit my postdoc's fresh baby, because I had an ever so slight sniffle which I did not want to drag into the neonatal care unit).

These are serious questions which I am, actually, asking you.

Of course those are serious questions, which is why I have given them great consideration. I minimize my risk to others as much as I can. You don't. (have to take my high horse to the market now for my weekend shopping...)

You were forced to test for immunity and do the boosters necessary while immigrating into the UK. I don't see the high horse you are talking about.

I'm sure nobody else visits neonatal units with a cold, either. I certainly wouldn't. But the question was whether you stay indoors with a cold so you don't come in contact with anyone whose immunity might be compromised. So you don't? Again, no high horse anywhere to be seen.

But moving the second MMR dose from three-year-olds to an older age would leave young children unprotected against measles and rubella, they concluded, while a third dose of MMR during adolescence might not be cost-effective since the effectiveness of another jab for those already with immunity was uncertain.

So logically you might ask, why not take mumps out of the equation/vaccine and offer it later?

Then again you can ask, what exactly are you offering with the rubella part of the vaccination? Are you trying to protect against what the NHS refers to as rare cases of encephalitis - I haven't formed that impression that is the main aim. Are you trying to protect against CRS? Yes, most definitely. Why are you injecting pre-pubescent children who can't be affected by this? Because you are trying to eliminate the circulation of the disease and they have found that this is one way trying to achieve that aim. A perfectly valid aim in my opinion, but why not explain this?

Catherina what Cote says. I'm afraid you have to recommend that every vaccinated person and their children should do all those things for the sake of others too, and you have to consider them socially irresponsible if they don't. You're the only person who has responded, perhaps Bruffin and Bunbaker and the person who called me a social parasite will promise they do the same.

"Because you are trying to eliminate the circulation of the disease and they have found that this is one way trying to achieve that aim. A perfectly valid aim in my opinion, but why not explain this?"

Eliminate the circulation for what purpose? It would be in everyone's advantage if small children could have rubella and be done with it. Circulating virus would make sure immunity wouldn't wane.

And girls can still be tested as teenagers and vaccinated then if found to be not immune.

thanks for the link bruffin - which page?

You are dismissing Robert Fletcher by the way. You don't count it as an MMR reaction because of these hypothetical circumstances you describe. You do that because the idea of this damage being done unnecessarily is too difficult to process.

Eliminate the circulation for what purpose? It would be in everyone's advantage if small children could have rubella and be done with it

It wasnt happening before when rubella was allowed to circulate hence so many CRS babies, why do think its going to happen now.

Before anything else, do you now accept that vaccine immunity to mumps wanes?

Do you mean this?

"The literature supporting several of the causality conclusions discussed in the previous section indicates that individuals with certain characteristics are more likely to suffer adverse effects from particular immunizations. Individuals with an acquired or genetic immunodeficiency are clearly recognized as at increased risk for specific adverse reactions to live viral vaccines such as MMR and varicella vaccine. Age is also a risk factor; seizures after immunization, for example, are more likely to occur in young children. Thus, the committee was able at times to reach more limited conclusions that did not generalize to the entire population."

Yes, some children are more vulnerable. This is what I've said. This is what most people say who want a more discriminating vaccine schedule and research into potential screening. What's your point?

Can you copy and paste the part which says children who have vaccine reactions would react worse to the disease? Or a link to a study?

Bruffin: times have changed. There is now immense social pressure, medical contact, massive potential for health campaigning. All these are used wrt MMR, HPV vaccine and so on. A rubella vaccine campaign aimed at teenagers (there already is one, remember) would be vastly different to anything we've seen before. To save unnecessary damage to toddlers with the MMR don't you think it would be worth it? I do.

Sorry I mean - there isn't already an R campaign at teenagers, there is an HPV campaign at teenagers. I meant there's already a vaccine (in general) campaign at teenagers.

Of course the bonkers thing with mumps is that the disease is more serious in older groups with more serious side effects and more risk of long term damage (asymptomatic in a third of cases in children). So waning mumps immunity is something that should be paid attention to, given that you have a potential to effectively make the effects of a mild disease (if caught in childhood) more dangerous (if caught in adulthood).

I did do some reading once on why mumps vaccine was introduced. Eventually I found a paper which discussed the pros and cons of mumps vaccination. (Written by a pro-vaccination groups- it was basically ' what to think about if considering introducing mumps vaccination into a community'). Anyway it identified that waning immunity could be an issue & the increased problems of mumps caught in older age groups. But it also gave the pros of mumps vaccination - economics apparently. Same as chickenpox - to save parents taking days off work to nurse sick children. Again, written by a pro-vaccination group, this was being presented as the reason for public health authorities to consider mumps vaccination.

If you search you might find it (cba to do more than a 5 min search now, if I find it I'll post the link).

bruffin - It doesn't matter how long you wait to come back to this thread. I will still ask you if you now accept that vaccine immunity to mumps wanes over time

CW if you are as interested in vaccine damage as you claim to be then you would have found the book and read it a long time ago. I am not going to spoon feed you.

Quote from Professor Lingam who was one of the panal at the case. The panal was made up of two doctors and one lawyers

"genetically predisposed to epilepsy and that the vaccination triggered it rather than caused it. Robert would have developed epilepsy in any event, even if he had not had the vaccination.?
He found against Roberts family, the other two over rode him, so there was obviously some evidence that he had underlying genetic problems. But as usual you are only interested in the sob story headline not the actual details of the case.
I am not dismissing what happened to RF but as usual when you start digging deeper it's never a straight forward case. As a parent i can think of nothing worse,but we evaluate risks every day and even if it was completely caused by the vaccine what happened to RF was extremely rare.
My cousin died in a boating accident mainly due to the shock of the cold. I let my ds enter kayak competitions in the snow because i know what happened to my cousin was a fairly freak accident, it was a risk i was prepared to take because the benefits outweighed the miniscule risk.

I have said that there is a theoretical problem with waning which is what all the links have shown. Do you accept vaccinating will decrease the risk of complications even if mumps immunity does wane?

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2941041/#!po=80.3571 This isn't the paper I read which detailed mumps decision making. But it's interesting nonetheless. Go to page 16 for a discussion on mumps. Their economic argument is slightly different from the one I read (which took into account parent days off work as well) but nonetheless it's an economic argument.

When the Health Council?s CBI committee began to consider the possibility of mumps vaccination, in 1980, disagreement emerged regarding what evidence was most relevant (Gezondheidsraad, inventory 1509). One member, a microbiologist, attached particular weight to what was known of the disease. Mumps in children was relatively innocuous, and mumps-related mortality was minimal. Moreover, little was known of the duration of protection that vaccination would provide. There was the risk of circulation being shifted to older age groups.

and

Though mumps-related mortality was minimal many general practitioners were offering mumps vaccination to parents and import of mumps vaccine was rising. Crucially, economic considerations were becoming more significant in the committee?s deliberations. Looking at the numbers admitted to hospital with mumps, and the lengths of stay, the Health Inspectorate had estimated that in 1979 these hospital costs had been twice what had been spent on measles vaccine (Gezondheidsraad, inventory 1510). When the Minister formally requested the Health Council to advise on the desirability of mumps vaccination, it was agreed that the committee looking into rubella would consider mumps too. When it met for the first time in April 1983 it appeared that one of the arguments for considering mumps vaccination had lost some of its force. The number of doses imported annually had fallen for two years in succession. Nor was the seriousness of the condition a major concern, since prevailing medical opinion was still that serious complications were rare. The duration of protection provided and the consequent risk of enhanced virus circulation among older age groups remained a source of uncertainty. Available data were inadequate for mathematical modelling to be of much value.

Anyway have to work now so I don't have the time to find the original paper, but it does perhaps highlight the differences and clash between thinking about public health and individual health. Of course for those of us with children likely to be more susceptible than the average then that gap is even wider.

Bruffin, I'll be generous and hope you are joking. Perhaps as a cover for your own ignorance on waning immunity being exposed at the moment?

"sob story" - uh huh, I'm getting you, I'm getting you loud and clear, and yes I think this counts as dismissal? If you don't dismiss it, as you claim, do you think this level of vaccine damage is acceptable when it's an unnecessary risk?

Don't come back with more equivocation about predisposition. If you don't dismiss it as a vaccine reaction - do you think this is an acceptable level of damage for an unnecessary risk? You have never answered this question.

Of course children who react to vaccines are disposed to react to vaccines. It doesn't mean they didn't react to vaccines. What a completely empty point you make. Your kayak analogy is insulting. But then so is sob story headline, and my "claim" to be interested in vaccine damage, and I think you intended it that way, didn't you? I'm sure cote will deal with your "theoretical" comment again.

btw you could have just said page 102. How hard is that?

Eliminate the circulation for what purpose? It would be in everyone's advantage if small children could have rubella and be done with it. Circulating virus would make sure immunity wouldn't wane.

Cote - I agree with you as it happens, but I am trying to put a logical argument forward for injecting babies and small children against a disease which is mild or goes unnoticed in the vast majority of cases. That is the only reason I can think of.

That is not the argument being put forward for the rubella component of MMR. The argument being put forward is along the lines of 'measles is nasty, therefore you must have a vaccination against a couple of other diseases whilst we are about it.' Because we are too pig-headed to allow single vaccines, and because it's inconvenient to have to nurse sick children.

I know I said that it was a valid aim to try to eliminate a disease - as I have said earlier it would have to be done on a global scale and as far as I know there are no plans to do so.

For those who argue that if you react to the vaccine, you would have reacted to the disease, I am sure that could be true, but you are not forced to catch the disease in the first place.

The other thing is, I highly doubt it's a provable claim (reacting worse to the disease than the vaccine). It's another thing people have just made up, they just assume it. And for another thing, you don't generally have to manage rubella at the same time as you're managing mumps, measles, and generally growing up and developing an immune system.

the thing that no one factors in to these ridiculous black and white discussions is the human emotion behind the decisions.

I have a child who is vaccine damaged.

I have another child who is unvacccinated.

I know perfectly well that my unvaccinated child may react badly to a vaccine-preventable disease.

I also know perfectly well, and live with the outcome daily, that said vaccine may damage my child.

Really, truly, in the deepest corner of your mind (because I doubt very much that the honest answer will be given here) - what would you do?

Vaccinate and end up with 2 children as disabled as Robert Fletcher? (given that one has already had that happen to them).

Not vaccinate the second child, and worry about the implications?

Live happily with people telling you are wrong, evil, your child doesn't deserve a school place, your family is the equivalent of Typhoid Mary. That you are stupid, ignorant, going against all medical advice, and so on.

Factor in that to get any help with my disabled child has cost the family about £250k+ (conservative estimate). The right to a school place and education doesn;t actually stretch to anything more that a physical place in a school - no understanding of issues, no actual education going on. Just institutional childcare in a lot of cases.

No medical assistance, as the symptoms are dismissed or ignored a lot of the time, until you can fight to prove otherwise. No help with communication, unless you fund it yourself. No help with any physical issues or equipment, unless you fund it yourselves.

And I am supposed to sign up for a second round of this? Why the hell would I? (moral and ethical issues of deliberately doing something to a child which is widely believed would actually harm them aside). Tell me again, why would I?