just had a note from the gp asking me to take dd2 for her "pneumo" jag ?????????????

[nailpolish]

what IS this? dd1 never had it. dont i subject her to enough as it is

I live in Oldham

Thank god for this thread. I got a phonecall totally out of the blue re my ds having this jab as he's going to be 2 in 3 weeks and they're desperate for him to have it before then. Thing is he also has to have a men C booster as its now come to light that the men c jabs he had a his imms at 2,3 & 4 mths now don't work over 12mths so they've had to change the programme!! It worries me that they find these things out after you've had them done - what are they going to find out about this jab several years down the line? Having said that its been fine in the US and was done on a larger scale. Its just such a wrestle - do I give my son the jab and risk him getting a horrendous reaction, or do I not give him the jab and then risk him contracting pneumo men? I had exactly the same convo re the MMR - didn't help that a lot of the orig research re the mmr reactions was paid for by the companies supplying the single jabs! Its just difficult trying to recognise whos actually telling the truth sometimes.

Well done MN - I received a letter inviting my DD2 for this jab on Wednesday, I don't know much about the jab but will now check it out from one of your links.

Just for information we're in East Sussex and she will be 2yo on 21 Sep.

Not to throw a spanner in the works, but nobody has mentioned that this is a "double-dose" vaccine (for want of a better word).

You have to have a follow up jab a few months after the first jab. DS2 had his first one (been on the schedule for ages in South Africa) at 19 months in South Africa and the second one at 23 months in Australia.

Is it different on the NHS?

The standard routine will be 2m, 4m & 13m.

My DD3 has just had her first jab at 4m (with the regular ones). I was told she would have a 2nd one at 6m & a third at 13m.

Does anyone know if all children can have it, my ds had to have mmr in hospital and he can't have the flu jab??

I know the chances of catching Menigitis is low but can I add that my little girl was VERY healty and she had Phenumococcal Meningitis

The effects on her and my family have been awful
As I have said on another thread, it can happen to anyone. We were just a normal family that things like this don't happen to...

But they do

Anyone who is thinking of not letting their child have this vaccine....Come and spend a week at my house with me, then you will be running to your GP's for it asap!!!

Found this on the jabs website. Worth a look, lets hope the new meningtus vaccine also known as prevenar is not going to be like combined MMR

SUNDAY EXPRESS
3 September 2006

Report links 'super dose' to thousands of adverse reactions in US children

Fears new 7-in-1 meningitis jab endangers lives

By Lucy Johnston
Health Editor

Babies given a "super dose" vaccine due to be launched tomorrow risk serious side effects and even death, a report claims.

Prevenar, will be added to the childhood immunisation programme containing vaccines against seven strains of meningitis.

The drug is designed to combat bacteria that cause diseases such as pneumonia and blood poisoning as well as meningitis. It provokes the body's immune response to the bacteria without causing the diseases.

But a report, The Next Storm, reveals that the jab, combined with other childhood inoculations, has been linked to breathing problems, brain damage, convulsions, extreme allergic shock and death.

A similar combination of vaccines has been given to babies in the US for more than five years.

The report's author, Dr Edward Yazbak, is an American child vaccination specialist who has analysed reports of side-effects received by the American Vaccine Adverse Events Reporting System.

He discovered thousands of reactions linked with Prevenar.

Since March 2000 there has been 11,611 adverse reports following the jab including 362 deaths and 1,347 hospitalisations, although Dr Yazbak pointed out that a report does not prove the jab caused the reaction.

He said: "Such a combination of jabs has been linked with serious reactions and death in this country. The authorities in Britain should be very alert to what happens when all these
vaccines are given together."

The uk isn't giving a 7 in 1 vaccine?
you can choose to give Prevenar seperatly if you want, i did with Dd2 as i didn't want her to have 3 needles in one day but that was the only reason.

Also find this point very interesting.
Dr Yazbak pointed out that a report does not prove the jab caused the reaction. ????

I think it is entirely possible that the pneumovar does cause adverse rxns.

But the evidence is that both the chance of the reaction and the severtiy of the reaction tends to be less getting the diesese.

So it makes sense to give the vaccine.

Especially as, right now, there is no herd immunity from pneumonia to rely on.

I don't think anyone is saying that MMR, pneumovar etc, have no side effects. Its a balancing act.

I am not saying that anyone should give the vaccine, btw, just that, for me, it is a good risk. I'd bet on those odds. which is what we are all doing, really.

I would be very interested to see exact numbers of children harmed by this vaccine against numbers of cildren who get one of the pneumococcal diseases.

When all you can do is sit and watch helplessly, as a child you love, who was perfectly healthy a few days before, litterally fade to nothing before your eyes, and watch her mummy and daddys hearts break, then tell me you wouldnt take this vaccine for your child.

I had to beat down the door to get this jab for my child.

I feel really strongly that the prevenar jab is extremely important and I'm generally very pro-vax. Just saying that to set out my stall as it were.

I understand that all medical intervention carries a risk of side-effects. Almost everything that we do in life has a risk attached to it and even the things that we now think are risk free will probably be found at some time in the future to have an associated risk. It is up to every individual to decide which risks are worth taking.

I'm sure that there is a very, very tiny risk of dd having a reaction to the prevenar jab but compared with the risk of death and disability assoc with pneumococcal meningitis? Give me the jab anyday.

I really feel that risk is not properly understood by a huge swathe of the population, making many people unable to fully evaluate the headline numbers that get shouted out from studies. For example do we know where Dr Klassen gets his figures for diabetes from? Which research did he undertake or analyse? What is the system for reporting adverse reaction in the US? I strongly suspect that many of the kids would have had an illness that caused them to be admitted to hospital and that entirely by coincidence occurred within a week or two of getting the prevenar jab.

Classen analysed rates of diabetes in the military compared with the general population. His hypothesis is that it's the vaccines given to military personnel that give them a higher rate of diabetes (if they are predisposed to it - obv most people aren't).

There's a bit about it here - scroll down to "my testimony". The tone of it is a bit hysterical and it is just a hypothesis, nothing is proven.

I will be asking our HV this afternoon about this vaccine, i want my dd to have it, im sorry to say im pretty ignorant regarding the different types of meningitis and the vaccines againt them, but im starting to understand all the vaccines a little more, aside from the age old MMR 'problem' i have no problems giving my kids whatever vaccines they should have, from what i do know and have heard about meningitis - its a very nasty cruel disease and leaves the victim with little or no chance for survival, and possible survival is with lasting disabilities!

Extremely unconvinced by Classen. He sounds like a complete krank. He sounds like someone who has got a bee in his bonnet about the US military and is looking for anyway to get at them. The data he is quoting as proving a link between immunisation and diabetes does no such thing! The population who enters the military are likely to be very different to the general public in many lifestyle ways etc and these could surely offer a more convincing explanation for the increased levels of diabetes seen in servicepeople than the prevenar jab.

Ds had this. But when I went for a follow-up I had let him go past the age of 2 so even though he had not yet turned 3 they said another jab was unnecessary as he was not "high-risk". I was not particularly happy, but at least he had the one.

Just to risk rocking the boat...

In response to Lupo & AmyJade re 7 in 1.
This vaccine is actually a 7 valent vaccine (pneumovax is 23-valent). It contains extracts from 7 subtly different pneumococcal strains. Info can be found on NHS immunisations website - which was linked below, although it doesn't say much more than that.

The immune system (IMHO) would still have to work 'harder' to deal with some of the other 'whole virus' vaccines than this. I can't really explain why here - the science is a bit beyond this forum.

My DD3 has had her first of the prevenar jabs & IF I was worried about overloading her system I would have taken out 1 or more of the other jabs in preference to this one because of the devastating nature of the disease(s).

Other components (i.e.) additives discussed elsewhere are a different issue - one that I can't comment on.

IMHO the most important thing to remember is that your child can still be affected by Meningitis because a) The vaccine is only estimated to cover the strains which cause 82% of pneumococcal Meningitis cases in childhood.
b) Hib, MenC & pneumococcal are only some causes of meningitis. There are other strains of Meningitis out there which are not vaccinated against (e.g.A & B...).

LaDiDa, as I understand it, quite a few diabetes experts think that some kind of virus or viruses (or the vaccine versions of them) may be the trigger for developing type 1 diabetes, because it's an auto-immune disease.

Otoh, the higher rate of diabetes in service personnel could easily be due to them travelling a lot and being exposed to 'foreign' viruses and bacteria much more than the rest of us are.

or it could be something totally different. Who knows?

Agree with you Carolina, lots of possible causes .

Oh no! having read this thread I am now even more unsure than ever about the pros and cons of this vaccine, I really am. I am pro-vax but for various reasons went down the separate measles, mumps route for dd1 and am doing the same for dd2 at the moment. Reading the discussion here worries me. I am well aware of tragic cases like Amyjade's daughter Freya but I also worry about the severity of adverse reactions as my dd2 (16 mo) is very sensitive. I honestly don't know what to do and I feel it is pointless to discuss it with the practise nurse or HV as they will just trot out the party line.

Donnie, you are clearly struggling to make a decision on this issue and it is obvious that you want to do what you think will be best for your dd. it does however irritate me when people make comments about "part line" as if every health professional were in cahoots with the government in a campaign to immunise children with no regard for the consequences. I'm sorry if this has been your experience but it hasn't been mine at all.

Would it be possible for you to make an appointment with your gp or hv to ask if they could give you copies of some of the research pertaining to this vaccine that has been published in established peer reviewed journals? Then you and your dp/dh could read the literature for yourself and go back to gp with any questions that you still have. Your gp should be willing to do this for you, it is what they are paid for anyway, and then whatever decision you make you will feel that you did it with the best available information.

what ladida says is a good idea. I reckon.

a lot of the research is also avalible on the internet, btw, at least in synopsis form.

Of course, if you have institutional access to Athens or similar, you are laughing, you can get anything on there.

it's understanding it that's the tough bit