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?

Not to mention that if their own child has been vaccinated then why are they worrying about them catching anything from an unvaccinated child? Unless of course they think their child may fall into the group that vaccination hasn't worked for - bit in that case, shouldn't they be excluded from school too?

Bumbley this is a wonderful piece of logic and clear thinking.

Jo - what do you not agree about? Do you think BM's personal use of vaccines is relevant to vaccine safety? Of course you are wrong about that. Of course I'm right. It's ludicrous to suggest otherwise.

No, I'm not the sole arbiter, but you are indeed trying to derail by making it personal. It's a useful tool when you're struggling to deal with the detail of the argument, but don't moan when someone spots it.

It has been alleged that bumble and crumble intentionally restrict their posts to smears (unsubstantiated dangers of vaccines) and new age woo (diseases don't effect the healthy and holistic). They don't want to admit they have refused or would refuse vaccines without actually tackling the real question of whether the vaccine is more dangerous than the disease.

What utter and cowardly guff JotheHot. You'll have to do better than that.

You have specifically mentioned me in your last post. Who has made the allegations that you mentioned if it wasn't you?

No. Even when I decided not to give my DD1 the MMR. In fact I've not come across anyone who professes to having had those things said to them.

There is a picture painted of evil medical practitioners pushing vaccination without considering the benefits/risks and bullying parents into going against their better judgement left right and centre.

I don't know anyone who has experienced this and I certainly haven't myself.

It's as if people believe that all doctors and all nurses lose sight of all sense and medical ethics as soon as the subject of vaccination comes up.

Of course there are poor practitioners in the medical profession, as in all professions, but the view that they're all out to get anyone who hesitates to vaccinate their child, predicting death and disaster is grossly exaggerated.

It is clear that vaccination programmes reduce death and serious illness. There is no logical argument with that fact. The irrefutable evidence surrounds us every day.

Actually I said that for some children the vaccines are more of a risk than contracting the disease and yes, some people are happy to trust their own immune system and healthy lifestyle rather than vaccines. Would it matter if I was one of them or not? Both are statement of fact. Unlike your 'some have alleged' nonsense.

Who's painting that picture Goldmandra? Can you copy and paste the evil picture? TIA.

Vaccines also cause death and serious illness. There's no argument about that either.

The argument (as I'm sure you know) is the levels of both, how those levels relate to each other and how they relate to an individual child and its circumstances.

Which bring us to a healthy conclusion of parental choice.

some have alleged is just stooped

or stoopid

Gold, there are usually a few examples of the 'it cant be that, s/he's been vaccinated on children's health.

I certainly experienced bullying when I started asking questions about vaccines. I know others who have as well. Of course not all doctors/medical practitioners are like that, I don't think anyone has said that - they're just saying that it's not acceptable for anyone to be doing it. I think that is perfectly reasonable - no one should be pressured/bullied into making a decision that they are not comfortable with. Present all the information and let people make an informed choice.

I think a lot of it is well intentioned "bullying", do you BM? I certainly think health visitors and those lower down the medical food chain are more likely to accept the line they're spoon fed from GCSE upwards, and genuinely believe they're doing the right thing and that parents are just being silly because their brains leaked out as soon as they gave birth

GPs - may be more likely to challenge or quietly aquiesce with a parent but basically would like all the boxes ticked and the jabs done for the purposes of community health and an easy life. Specialists - much more likely to accept the problems with vaccines but always on the QT with the parent, not openly with colleagues.

don't know where the "challenge" came from

Sorry BM it sounds like I'm trying to tell you what your experience was like. I'm not. Your experience is your experience and I can believe there was bullying. I just didn't have those conversations because of avoidance. I didn't bother asking. I would be advised to make appointments, make them, cancel because of a temperature, things just drifted on, so I haven't really faced the wrath of a doctor spluttering because a mother doesn't say yes sir no sir three bags full. There was a bit of eye-rolling but from a very early stage I went down the nod, smile, agree, ignore route.

temperature should be "temperature" ie any old excuse
I really am talking to myself now

Did the GP tell you that it is neglectful/cruel/irresponsible to not give your child her meds? Did s/he suggest that you should keep her out of school? Did s/he tell you that if she didn't have the meds she would die?

yes this is bullying and emotional blackmail

Goldmandra

I was advised to vaccinate my child against contemporary medical thinking.

My (unvaccinated) child (sibling to a child who was damaged by vaccines) was under a paediatrician, and had a series of tests. the paed could not believe the results of one test, so repeated it (twice). He refused to tell me what the results were, despite my persistant asking. He told me if I knew the results I would only google and worry .

He told me in no uncertain terms that not vaccinating was irresponsible, and that I should go ahead and do it, as it was the right thing to do. And that any fears I may have (especially considering my elder child and how they reacted, and the outcomes of that) were unfounded.

I told him what I thought the test results were (ridiculous bloody situation where a parent has to play 'guess the diagnosis'), and he confirmed it. the results meant that it would be unwise indeed to vaccinate my child, especially considering family history.

The whole farce played out over several appointments, over the course of months. I was pressured each time, and ridiculed for not vaccinating my child. My views on my child's health were also belittled (eg, I was accused of keeping my (low weight) child on a low fat diet because I was avoiding cow's milk (since my child reacted badly to it), and told I new nothing about nutrition at all)

Sometimes, this type of shit really does happen. And it shouldn't. Ever.

I think things lie polio, diphtheria, tetanus, in a country like Britain in2013 are so unlikely to occur that I'm not consenting to the booster doses for my teenager, or the pre school boosters. I think these vaccines are more dangerous than the diseases.

I don't see how you could make vaccines mandatory for school, in Britain attending school is mandatory, how could you put a condition on that.

Sorry I haven't read full thread but thought I would offer my opinion.... I believe vaccines are really important and valuable but there are more ways to do it than the standard programme, knowing what I know now any subsequent dcs will be vaccincated differently to how ds was, I had a book by Richard halvorsen which I found very useful,
in short what I would do differently is split as many of the vaccines as possible, e.g rather than having two or three injections on one day have just one and the next one a month later, ds had eczema which started after his third set of jabs and although we can never be certain there is a link in this case there is research which links early jabs to eczema and asthma.

Attending school isn't mandatory in the UK. Plenty of people home educate. I still don't think they should/will make vaccination compulsory for school.

Don't worry crumbled, I wasn't taking it like that at all. Tbh it was mainly HVs and nurses that have been bullying. The doctors weren't too bad. Although there was one... it was DS1s HV that really ticked me off though. He was premature and I was simply asking about whether his schedule needed to be adjusted and that I was a bit concerned about the fact that the same dose would be given to him as a baby twice/three times his size. She went off on a tangent about not believing stuff on all these anti-vax websites (hadn't been near them and didn't even know they existed at that point!)

Btw, the emotional blackmail stuff above wasn't based on my own experience - just some of the things said on this thread (and other similar threads) Just goes to show that it's not just HCPs capable of emotional blackmail - other parents are guilty of it too.

Attending school isn't mandatory in the UK. Plenty of people home educate.

the Texan kids who came down with measles in their current outbreak (of you want to call 21 cases that) were all home schooled and unvaccinated. Those folk are pigeon holing themselves, really...

I would be horrified if any vaccination was mandatory. Vaccines do harm and occasionally kill a minority of children. A close friend of mine while growing up was crippled by polio from the the OPV vaccine. A family member was hospitalised after the whooping cough vaccine. Of course improvements have been made to these specific vaccines but when medical professionals give blanket responses saying they are now safe for everyone they are either misinformed or lying. A friend of mine's son has been in and out of hospital for the past 6 months as a direct result of the MMR, and another friend's son was hospitalised for 2 months after his 2 month immunisations. I don't know if I've been unusual in coming across all these bad reactions personally, but I do think that injecting something that has the potential to harm into healthy children should only done with informed consent and should always remain optional in a free democratic society.

Sorry to hear about your friends' experiences Choncolate martini.

"A friend of mine's son has been in and out of hospital for the past 6 months as a direct result of the MMR"

Was this acknowledged and recorded as a vaccine reaction, do you know, or the other poor infant?

Catherina I think those parents accepted from the off that their children might catch measles.

BM: oh good! Yes I think the HVs and nurses are less aware of things if you know what I mean. They just read from a script.

some people are happy to trust their own immune system and healthy lifestyle rather than vaccines.... statement of fact

A statement of fact, yes, but a statement as near to being empty as is possible. An irrefutable, but trivial statement. A statement which intimates such opinions are sensible, but without the courage of a conviction to actually say as much. Some people think drinking bleach is a safer treatment for measles than MMR.

Here's a statement of fact with some substance. Neither bumble nor crumble have ever formally analysed whether any vaccine is more dangerous than the disease it reduces.

I went down the nod, smile, agree, ignore route.

Some people might describe this as bloody-minded and dogmatic.

Some people think drinking bleach is a safer treatment for measles than MMR

do they? where have you come across this?

Jo, it was actually said in response to a poster (exotic maybe?) who said that she wasn't happy to go down that particular route because she personally thought it was too risky. I was pretty much saying - that's fine, that's your opinion, others disagree and are happy to go down that route. Not sure why you are taking such issue with that statement. Sounds like you just want to have a go about something tbh.

Catherina, I think someone mentioned it earlier as a treatment for chickenpox. I'd never heard of it before.