MMR Jabs

[Qd]

An osteopath told me last week she had heard there was a homeopathic alternative to the MMR, but didn't have any info. Does anyone know anything about it?

If anyone's interested, Radio 2 are doing a special feature on the MMR vaccine tommorow on the Jimmy Young show, from 12 midday onwards. You need to ask questions in advance and can email them at [email protected] (I think) or you on the bbc website - www.bbc.co.uk/radio2. May be worth a listen, they have 2 'experts' in the studio but didn't say what there criteria were.
Callie, maybe you could put your fears into an email and see if they give you a response?

Can someone in a position to listen to this broadcast give the rest of us the low-down later? That would be great.

In today's Daily Mail there is a list of surgeries with addresses that offer the MMR vaccine separately. R

I haven't got a point to make one way or the other, but I thought it was interesting that the subject has been discussed on at least 2 daytime progs, and on both (This Morning and Gloria Hunniford), the presenters got very vehement, and seemed to be taking the issue personally. This is something you don't usually see - they're usually fairly calm and objective.

emieswill, I think that is interesting: it's a very emotive subject. I mentioned at playgroup yesterday that the discussions on here were raging and interesting and unleashed torrents of feelings about MMR in general. I didn't actually mean to start a discussion at that point, but that's what I got! It seems that everyone finds it hard to stay calm on the subject...

Any advice on allowing a 9 month baby to be in contact with children who attend school where a positive measles carrier identified?

When dd's were babes my HV lent me a copy of 'the Vaccination Bible' ed. Lynne Mc Taggart. I can reccommend it as further reading around this subject. It is such an emotive issue..noone wants to feel that they are deliberately putting their child at risk, but whatever decision one makes people with differing opinions will attempt to induce feelings of anxiety or guilt. It is something I rarely discuss, for that reason. Please can someone remind me of the reasons why Wakefield's study was discredited?

...and putting other children at risk, faith.

I sometimes think that Lynne McTaggart disagrees with conventional wisdom just for the sake of it. I'm sure in a recent edition of 'What Doctor's Don't Tell You' sunbathing was advocated because the psychological benefits of lazing in the sun far outweighed the risks of skin cancer etc.

Jsmummy, totally agree, dh and myself make the decisions for ds while he is too young to do so, hoping we make the right ones and are fully aware that we are the ones you will take any blame and flak for anything that doesnt go quite right, I thought that came with being a parent.
I also agree that we are all entitled to our own points of view, I thought I was having mine and I thought that was what this site was about, sorry you dont like hearing mine.

joe1, no offence meant, sorry if any was taken. Re-reading my note I realise that I may have been a bit strident. Have no wish to start a fight

No worries jsmummy

Faith, have a look under the Leo Blair's MMR thread from before Christmas where there is a discussion as to why the Wakefield data doesn't stand up to scientific scrutiny. Basically, it is methodologically very flawed - a tiny sample size (12 patients), self-referred patients and therefore highly susceptible to bias, not all had autism, not all had even had MMR and the supposed link is that the parents felt that the sypmtoms may have appeared at around the same time as MMR / measles / ear infection and these may have been connected. There is no attempt to control this at all ie to look at incidence of autism in children who hadn't had measles / MMR etc. So, you could have suggested that the symptoms were due to eating weetabix as I bet all the children with autism had done that too.

Just to add, I'm not suggesting a link to weetabix of course!

Just a question, why would Tony Blair bully us (the general public) into having MMR?

My problem with the Wakefield research is that it has been discredited, no new research has replicated the results and yet the argument is reignited every six months or so by citing his research. Given that there have been further research papers showing no risk, what would it take for sceptics to have the jab? It often seems as though no research which the government backed would appease the anti-MMR lobby and yet we are asking the government to do exactly that.......

I had Mumps when I was 11, and looked like a Gerbil for about 10 days and then the swelling went down.

Question here, regarding German Measles, am I right in saying that the incubation period is nearly 3 weeks? It's just that my friends son has German Measles and we were in contact with him the week before the rash appeared.

emmagee, I thought in the Mail headline yesterday it said that there has been more research that does back up Wakefields findings. Sorry I didn't read it properly but I'm sure thats what it said.

It would be interesting to know statistically (someone must know out there!) what the incidence of autism/bowel disorders in vaccinated children is. After reading the thread I have been looking at the Centre for Disease Control website, the incidence of death from measles is 1 in 3000, it also give the incidences of complication from the MMR vaccine & DTP as well as the diseases themselves. The bit I read was 'six misconceptions about vaccinations' and is really interesting reading (website : www.cdc.gov/nip/publications/6mishome.htm).

I had all 3 diseases as a child in the space of 12 months. both my ds's have been vaccinated (twice!) although my eldest got a mild dose of mumps last year. At the time I read just about every website available on the possible side effects which scared me senseless - I used to think the only problem was sterility but you can still get meningitis/encephalitis/deafness/ panceatis (between 1 in 25 to 1 - 5000 depending on which one).

After that scare, plus I can remember my younger sister being hospitalised with whooping cough (in a ward full of other children the same) after the epidemic they had when vaccination rates dropped after the scare they had with that vaccine in 1974, I will definitely have dd (9mths) vaccinated as well and with incidences increasing I can't take the risk she wouldn't catch anything in the time in would take for 3 seperate vaccines to work.

PS. I read (you may guess I do that a lot) but can't remember where, that although we have only been giving MMR as one injection fairly recently other countries have been doing it much longer - are we the only ones with possible autism links or do other countries have the same problem?

Does anyone know where individual childcare experts stand in this debate? I havn't been following the media debate too closely, but I just wondered if any of them had dared to express a view.

I'm not meaning to provoke to Gina Ford followers Since by all accounts GF goes into great detail about the care of babies and toddlers, does she express any opinion on this subject, either in her books or on her website?

Just wondered.

Jessi, I didn't see the Mail yesterday, but were they referring to the study led by John O'Leary of Dublin, mentioned in the Panorama programme at the w/end and published earlier this week? This has been cited in some quarters as backing Andrew Wakefield's concerns about MMR.

However, the author of the study, and the editors of the journal where it was published, are very clear that it did NOT set out to investigate a link between MMR, a new form of inflammatory bowel disease and autistic-specturm developmental disorders, and they insist that NO such link should be made on the basis of their research.

The study does suggest that the measles virus could act as what they call an immunological trigger for the development of the conditions they were studying - but that could presumably apply to children who have been affected by the virus in the normal way, not via vaccination. The study has been published online at jcp.bmjjournals.com/cgi/content/full/55/1/DC1

Also, there is an article on teh Guardian website today including an intervciew with Andrew Wakefield, in which he says that though 'most' of the children in his original study had recieved the MMR, 'some' had had the single measles vaccine! It's at society.guardian.co.uk/publichealth/story/0,11098,646362,00.html

This is the first time I've seen this fact anywhere. Given that his sample consisted of 12 children, in only 9 of whom a possible correlation between vaccination and diagnosis of bowel disorder/autism was noted, what do 'most'and 'some' mean here? We're talking about a tiny handful of kids, this is just anecdotal evidence, surely.