Dear MNHQ why does this board exist?

[TalkinPeace]

Having the board encourages people to think that not vaccinating is a valid viewpoint.

Google are currently working on their algorithm to downgrade factually incorrect sites

anti vac sites came up as the prime example of why the algorithm needs changing ....

MNHQ

Please, please, please
you do not have other boards on inflammatory misinformed issues, please merge this one (and its threads) into childrens health

I would say vaccination is one of the prime subjects with the most misinformation about it on the whole internet.

Which, considering, according to them, big pharma £££s and conspiracy is the driving force behind vaccination, is a pretty good achievement.

It surprises me that on a site like this, there are people who believe that in the case of vaccination, there is only one decision to be made. To the point of categorising people as 'anti-vax' (not a good or accurate description of those who might not say yes to any/all vaccinations offered) and making derogatory comments about people who do not hold the same opinion. There are several examples of this on this thread. On the other hand, I don't see people who choose no vaccinations or who selectively vaccinate going down the ad hominem route.

Well it is a valid choice. In the UK vaccination isn't compulsorary whether you like it or not.

MN needs the vaccination topic. Where else could the vehemently pro vaccination sector go to get off on dismissing everyone who chooses not to vaccinate for anything other than the former's definition of acceptable medical reason the "tin foil hat brigade" and conspiracy theorists?

Until British law decides that vaccination is compulsory - god help us all for that way madness lies - not vaccinating is a perfectly valid, legitimate viewpoint unless MN HQ would like to censor those that the OP doesn't agree with?

there are mn'ers whose children have been vaccine damaged. There is a vaccine damage compensation fund in the UK. To suggest that vaccination is without risk is extremely naive. no, most children will not suffer adverse effects because of vaccination, but some will, and this should not be dismissed. Conversely, most children will not suffer adverse effects of chicken pox, yet people would be quick to suggest that one death is too many and cp vaccination should be made available on the NHS. yet the same is not said of vaccine damage. Why is this?

I agree with you callmemaybe. Unfortunately the days are gone where anyone can have a balanced discussion about vaccination on mumsnet. Years ago it was not like this. At the present time, if you have any view other than 100% of the population should have 100% of the current schedule then you are insulted and called literally crazy. It's an awful shame that some people have a total lack of empathy and are so narrow minded.

So people can have somewhere to look for advice specific to vaccines?

Not sure why you have a problem with it. Most people still choose to vaccinate but, as an earlier poster pointed out, some people choose to do it on a different schedule and it make sense to have somewhere to discuss that and get advice about different clinics etc.

Not everyone who questions vaccines does so because of Wakefield. People had concerns about vaccines before that study. (Eg Whooping cough in the 70s, the first MMR vaccine that contained the Urabe strain of mumps etc)

Talkinpeace

Anyone who posts factually incorrect information usually gets challenged on it. Isn't that A Good Thing? An opportunity for 'myth busting' as such?

Vaccination is just one aspect of child health.

Is there a separate board for each other aspect of children's health or just this one which is - as MNHQ posted above - residual from the past problems.

I accept that there are children who have been damaged by vaccines, but the number of children damaged by diseases like measles, mumps, rubella, diptheria, pertussis, TB, meningitis every day outnumbers them.

FWIW my child reacted very badly to the MMR : so I read up to understand why.
Realised that the reaction showed that any of the real diseases would have been fatal and had the second dose injected.

It's probably because people do ask a lot of questions about vaccines and it would fill up the children's health board. They made a separate board when the Swine Flu thing was going on - there were just too many threads on one subject. It's best to keep them all in one place so that people know where to go (and people who aren't interested can hide the board).

(As an aside) I'm interested in what vaccine reaction would suggest that one of the diseases would have been fatal. I've never heard of that before.

Did they offer you immunity testing to see if your child needed the second one?

Well, now I've found this board I might start a thread to discuss the chicken pox vaccine! Perfect spot for asking opinions on vaccination

Who said it has to be about children?
People are vaccinated against all manner of things.
Maybe they could use the health boards instead, but why automatically jump to this conclusion.

Dear MNHQ - if being anti-vaccine is not a valid viewpoint, can we get rid of the religious boards as well, no evidence for those being a valid point of view. Oh and those boards that support those diets that have a 95%+ failure rate.

Oh and TP - mumps, rubella - 99% of the time milder than the flu and at the last serious outbreak in scotland of mumps just about everyone had been vaccinated so stop with the scare-mongering and perpetuating the myth that vaccines are 100%.

Vaccines might be right for 99% but for those who have reason for doubt they should be able to investigate, do their research and come to an informed decision.

I think it would be better for MN to have a page where there is guidance of where to look for safe information and links to the WHO page of safe websites, the IOM book adverse affects of vaccines: evidence and causality , The Oxford Vaccine Group etc, the Green Book etc

Reminders that the plural of anecdote is not data etc

Didn't this board come about so that MNers with children who have been damaged by vaccination (including, but not exclusive to, MMR) could have a convenient place to hide, so they didn't inadvertently trip over the kind of utter shite that has been spouted in this thread?

I can't believe that MNHQ would even consider removing it.

Well, actually, given the ridiculous fiasco of the Salisbury webchat, I can.

I don't have a tin foil hat. I don't live a life seeing conspiracy theories everywhere, nor do I deal in lunacy or lies and misinformation. I do, however, have a child damaged by vaccination. She exists, however much posters in threads like these would like to think she doesn't. And if course her existence, and her medical history, have influenced the way I view things like vaccination for my family. Again, no lunacy, no idiocy.

I don't belittle or ridicule anyone for their choices. My unvaccinated children do not, just by existing, threaten or contaminate anyone else. They do not make the world a more dangerous place just because it is healthier (for them) to not vaccinate.

The board exists as a separate place for much the same reasons that the ante natal tests and choices board exists as a separate entity from pregnancy/health. Because some posters have to live with the consequences of vaccination every single fucking day. And when those days are particularly groundhog like, and the future is bleak and only getting bleaker, it is ducking hard to read how other people point and laugh, and name call, all because you chose a different (valid) pathway.

Just for clarification, ^ up there I meant a place to hide as in hide the topic, rather than a place to hide as in a place to hang out.

Refusing vaccination for any reason is legal in the UK.

I see no reason why to censor free speech around this topic.

Most posters are strongly pro vax and do provide solid arguments for their opinions. I wouldn't be surprised if some undecided readers were persuaded to vaccinate after reading this board. So if anything I think deleting the board would be counter productive to those who advocate compulsory vaccination.

I've commented on a couple of the vax threads over the last few weeks.
Personally I don't class my self as pro or anti vax. My DCs have had some and not others. I will make future decisions in a case by case basis. I think this is quite a reasonable pragmatic approach but I've had to walk away from vax threads because of the abuse vehement pro vaxers have directed at anyone who hasn't followed the UK schedule to the letter.

I think these threads are quite a hostile environment for anyone who questions UK vax policy, and god forbid anyone say they/their DC has been vax damaged- they are usually accused of lying. (I've never seen 'anti-vaxers' accuse people of lying about having experienced polio/measles etc)

As for the internet being blamed for anti vax views, I first refused a vax in 1995. Before I or probably most people had ever been on the internet. I have not based any of my decisions since on blogs or internet sources other than medical journals that are available online.

Banning discussion about vax (eg comparing different country's schedules, debating the merits of cp vax etc) is more likely to lead more people to be conspiracy theorists imo. These are legitimate debates to have. Yes they can be controversial and can be very emotional for people but are they any less so than discussing abortion, bf/ff, homebirth, prostitution?

If you don't want to see it, hide the board. But I don't think anyone has the right to try to stop others expressing their opinion.

Jackieharris You sum up my own position too, and I too now feel the need to walk away from vax threads because of the abuse and snide remarks made by the pro-vaxers.

Except I first refused a vax in the 1980s, long before the world wide web came out, so Dr Google can't be blamed for my opinions.

I completely agree with OP. The existence of this board opens up the idea that this is a valid, debatable issue, and it's not, because SCIENCE.

It is dangerous, because it's a focal point for anti vaxxers and anyone asking for general vaccination advice here will get both 'sides of the argument' when in fact there aren't sides to this, just science and bullshit.

It allows people with very rare, very dangerous views to come together and look like they are actually on an equal footing, rather than a minority. Anything that needs to be asked about vaccination can be asked on a general child health board, where all different types of parents will hang out and any asker will get a more accurate spread of opinions.

My unvaccinated children do not, just by existing, threaten or contaminate anyone else. They do not make the world a more dangerous place just because it is healthier (for them) to not vaccinate.

I'm sorry, but they do. It's obvious that you love your children very much and feel you've made a valid choice, but by not being vaccinated they are a threat to babies, leukaemia patients etc who can't be vaccinated. They could actually kill them - and that I do consider to be dangerous. You are of course entitled to your choices and I'm sorry for what you suffer through, but you also need to be honest with yourself that the choice you make for your children (as you see it) does in fact represent a threat to others. That's what herd immunity and social conscience is all about. You have decided that's not a priority to you then fine, but that doesn't change it from being what it is.

No, BlueDressingGown. You are wrong.

Read my post again. My point is that, my children do not merely by existing, unvaccinated threaten anyone. They could only be a threat to anyone if they were actually carrying an illness. This does not happen just because they are not vaccinated. We, as humans, are not born carrying these diseases, and have them eradicated by vaccination.

I have children who can't be vaccinated, btw.

I have children, who cannot be vaccinated for medical reasons, who have caught notifiable diseases from their vaccinated peers. None of the other parents involved identified the symptoms for what they were. their children were a threat to everyone's health, not mine. Once mine were exposed, I kept them away from school. No one else did, and so the diseases circulated, amongst a largely vaccinated population, because those parents cold not believe their children had caught a disease (NOT from my children - they spread it to my children!) against which they had been vaccinated.

How does that sit with your snarky comments about social conscience? Which, as you well know, is a one-way street. Social conscience is never whipped up to question why my vaccine-damaged child is not treated properly, medically. Nor to question why she was not deemed valuable enough to educate decently. It won't be used to question why her quality of life does not matter, when adult services do not measure up and she is left with no quality of life at all. It isn't used as an argument when she needs extra support to access day-to-day activities, not even things as basic as access to a suitable dentist, fgs.

Don't piously quote social conscience to me. You clearly have little notion of what it actually means.

Your point is a bit bizarre. You're right, by existing they do not pose a threat. Nobody has a problem with them existing. By not being vaccinated, they do pose a threat. That's what people have a problem with. Especially as they pose a threat to the most vulnerable members of society.

Just because you can come up with some heresay story where vaccinated kids gave your unvaccinated kids a disease doesn't actually change anything. Vaccinated kids are far, far, far less likely to get these diseases than unvaccinated kids. That is just a fact and anecdotal evidence doesn't disprove that.

It is a matter of social conscience, and whipping up examples of other ways in which you think other areas of society have failed you or your child does not negate that. I don't know your story so I can't and wouldn't say whether your other children should be vaccinated or not, but the truth is that the majority of children should and there is absolutely no room for debate in that. There is not one convincing scientific argument otherwise, and the existence of this board doesn't make that truth as clear as it should be.

As sad as your story is, it's still more rare than the incidences of people dying or being damaged from the diseases that we vaccinate against. I can see why your perspective would be skewed on this though and don't blame you.

I (supposedly!) gave up arguing with anti vaxxers a long time ago, though, and really just popped in to voice support for the OP as I've always thought this board was out of place. I'm hiding this now and stepping away. Nothing you say could convince me to disbelieve what is thoroughly proven by science and the hard work of millions of medical professionals all over the world, and as far as I'm concerned there is no room for any kind of sensible debate on this.

Not vaccinating IS a valid viewpoint. It isn't one I agree with, but that doesn't make it not valid.