Can I ask the people who are anti-vac, how do you feel about the smallpox vaccine, do you think that was right? Would you have had it?

[Kendodd]

I suppose the same (ish) question could apply to the polio vaccine, I believe there is an eradication programme for that. Hopefully it'll be successful.

WHy is it always someone else's fault? We could argue that it is the mother's fault for not ensuring she is immune to rubella herself. Why should the responsibility of protecting your child fall to someone else? That argument wouldn't hold in relation to any other aspect of parenthood. Is it someone else's job to ensure that your child is fed, clothed etc?

I have said everything I needed to say

bumbley so it is perfectly ok for me to speed and drink-drive as long as my children are not in the car. After all it is your responsibility to protect yours, not mine.

I believe it is my job to protect my child first and foremost. I believe I am doing that by not vaccinating. Vaccines do carry risks and I don't think my child needs to be protected from rubella, when she is older she can decide for herself. I'm not risking my child to protect someone else. I am a sane adult and I fully understand what I am doing.

Surely I can not be expected to make my decision based on putting someone else first. I can't believe all that many people do that. I mean, would you risk your life by running into a burning building to rescue another child, would you expect (or even stnd by and watch)your child run into a burning building to save someone else. Some will but I think most would n't.

CatherinaJTV, I just knew that you would know someone who had congenital rubella syndrome!

Well both of those things are against the law carol so no, it is not 'perfectly ok'. :)

Yes, front doorstep, I can't say I was surprised either!

"I mean, would you risk your life by running into a burning building to rescue another child"
I hope I would, yes, although I may not be brave enough. Don't you hope you would too?

And for a child in normal health, the risks of vaccination are so minute that they are barely worth thinking about. And for those very few that do suffer side effects, the overwhelming majority of them are transitory.

Maybe Catharina's experience is informing her position? In a way that those of you who are cavalier about the risks of these illnesses don't seem to be able to understand.

Catharina: I don't understand how a woman on the other side of the world chosing not only not to get vaccinated against rubella but also not to abort when she got rubella at the start of her pregnancy is my fault because I don't want my grandchild randomly vaccinated?

It isn't your fault. But the same thing happening to your grandchild's aunt might be. And what does "randomly vaccinated" mean?

I agree that most parents, in vaccinating, are acting primarily to protect their own child and not for the greater good. But the decision of non-vaccinators is made so much easier because the risk of actually catching the disease is made so much less likely by the actions of the vaccinators.

That there is a mad rush of people suddenly newly very keen to vaccinate when a measles epidemic breaks out would suggest that attitudes change when the chances of catching a potentially serious illness rises.

I know that my pregnancy and pre-vaccination baby were safer because so many people around me were vaccinated, and that in vaccinating my child I would be keeping that system going.

Martorana, no one is being 'cavalier' about it. Perhaps other parents have their position informed by their own children being vaccine damaged or by knowing someone else's child who has been damaged by a vaccine? It works both ways.

Bleached, as I said on another thread, I know very few people who choose not to vaccinate because they are relying on herd immunity. There is no way of knowing who around you in vaccinated/still immune. Those vaccinated people around you may no longer have immunity. In the case of whooping cough, they probably don't!

I think the general rule of thumb should be to evaluate each vaccine at the time it is offered, for the person who it is offered to, and in relation to the risk/prevalence of the disease at that time.

Smallpox vaccine was being routinely offered when I was born but my mum didn't have me vaccinated against it because by then it was practically eradicated.

My DC have had polio and some other essential vaccines. They have had measles single vaccine but not MMR because I didn't want them vaccinated against Rubella (DD because I want her to get it and be immune for life, and DS because there is no need for him to be vaccinated, ever).

So - case by case basis.

"Perhaps other parents have their position informed by their own children being vaccine damaged or by knowing someone else's child who has been damaged by a vaccine? "

It's very unlikely that this is the case.

Actually Martorana, there are a few parents of vaccine damaged children on this site so don't be so quick to judge.

Martorana - There are indeed quite a few parents of vaccine-damaged children on MN. Take a look at previous vaccine threads & see for yourself.

I am aware that there are posters on here who feel that their children were damaged by vaccines. I am very sorry if they are upset by anything anyone posts- but I am afraid that I am not prepared to let that stop me offering facts. There are those who think that suggesting that there alternative reasons for such children's issues is "telling their parents they are liars". This is a silencing technique that I will not be bullied by.

There are posters who refuse to acknowledge that there are children who were actually damaged by vaccines. (not just parents who feel their children were damaged) I hope you're not one of those people.

No, I'm not. Next week I am going to the funeral of a family member who was damaged by the whooping cough vaccine many years ago.

I remember several MNers (like jimjams) whose DC's vaccine damage is diagnosed by their doctors, so hardly a figment of the mums' imagination.

Are you saying you know better than their doctors, without even once seeing their DC?

No. You may have noticed that I don't say vaccine damage never happens.

"Are you saying you know better than their doctors, without even once seeing their DC?"

Another silencing technique.

I've never been anti vaccine, as I've always believed the risk of damage from the vaccine is less than the risk of damage from contracting the illness, but I was always uncomfortable about multiple vaccinations being given in one session. To me, how can an adverse reaction to something be reported if the something could be any one of up to three substances injected in one needle?

I refused to allow DTP and MMR to be given on the same day for this reason.

Why do you think I'm trying to silence you, Martorana? You seem to be suffering from a persecution complex Talk all you like, nobody is going to silence you on MN.

You said: "I am aware that there are posters on here who feel that their children were damaged by vaccines." which sounds like you think their doctors who have diagnosed those children as vaccine-damaged are wrong.

I was only wondering what your claim to authority is that you may think you know better than the doctors who have examined & followed those children.

Anyone who believes that their child is on the autism spectrum because of vaccines is wrong. Not lying. Just misled and therefore wrong.

I say that these are silencing techniques because it is very difficult to continue posting the truth on this subject when other posters try to turn it into an attack on the parents of children with disabilities.