To ask why people don't vaccinate their DC even though we know that it doesn't cause Autism?

[TheHouseOnBellSt]

www.thespainreport.com/16953/six-year-old-boy-with-diphtheria-in-catalonia-dies/

A 6 year old boy in Catalonia has died of Diphtheria. Why are people still anti-vaccinations?

Why? My SIL has not and is not vaccinating her DS. He's 14 months now and MIL is so worried.

Chichuri - adults are rarely asked their vaccination status. Flu vaccines aside, when did you hear of a campaign promoting vaccination for adults? Or do adults not pass on measles, whooping cough, rubella? Or are we assuming that they either had the diseases in childhood - which people over 50 ish may well have done, or that they were vaccinated, so the assumption is that they are immune?

"what if the woman wanting to get pregnant can't get the vaccine? Or it didn't work?"

What if the children she comes across couldn't get the vaccine? What if their vaccines didn't work?

We can continue like this all night, with you coming up with even more improbable scenarios. It is still not going to change the madness of the current policy of vaccinating the entire population as babies for a mild disease that is only really dangerous to women during pregnancy - i.e. decades after they get the vaccine, when they face waning vaccine immunity.

Chir, what if a woman who can't be vaccinated wants to get pregnant. Well, she has a choice, she gets pregnant and hopes she doesn't get rubella or if she doesn't want to take that risk, she doesn't get pregnant.

Why should the responsibility to protect her, fall to me taking a risk with my child?

Cote, once the population reaches a critical level of vaccination, the chance of the disease existing within that population drastically decreases, as there are virtually no vectors through which it can pass on.

Cote
The vaccine causes less damage than the illness fact. Ehy do you keep ignoring the 1 in 3000 chance of encephilitis. And history is telling us waning is not a problem. In the states they have bern using mmr sincecearly 70s and uk the late 80s. That is over 40 years in US and nealy 30 in the Uk. In both countries Rubella has been virtually elimimated and the only cases of CRS are imported.

Oh, and you realise that we have essentially eradicated smallpox through vaccination, so now our little darlings don't need to be exposed to the vaccine OR potentially contracting the disease. If we only selectively vaccinated then this incredible feat could not have been achieved. Polio is (was?) going the same way, too.

I always find it fascinating that the anti vaccinators always focus on rubella. Not polio, or diphtheria or any of the illnesses that killed and disabled lots of children in the days before vaccination....

"once the population reaches a critical level of vaccination, the chance of the disease existing within that population drastically decreases"

True. I don't know why you just said this to me, though.

All over in three days. If you missed the rash behind the ears and maybe thought the red patch on the face has another explanation (banged head? itched face?) it is very easy to miss the very slightly elevated temperature. You will then be puzzled by the rash that quickly disappears.

That is the scary killer disease Rubella that every girl and boy is vaccinated for

THAT is not the issue. The issue arises when a pregnant women catches rubella because it is very dangerous for the unborn child. CRS is not just deafness. Try this for size.

It is grim. A couple I know have an adult son who is in full-time residential care as a result of CRS. He can do nothing for himself.

"I always find it fascinating that the anti vaccinators always focus on rubella"

And I always find it fascinating when people make such passive aggressive comments without reading the thread.

I'm talking about rubella because that is the vaccine DC didn't get, as explained in quite some detail below. Also because babies are given this vaccine for the benefit of others (adults) rather than their own best interests, which is an ethical minefield.

I have no problem taking the small risk of the vaccine if it is actually going to benefit my DC, as is the case with polio, etc.

"The issue arises when a pregnant women catches rubella because it is very dangerous for the unborn child."

Welcome to the thread. Hard as it may be to believe even in a thread of 286 posts, we are actually aware that rubella infection is dangerous to fetuses of non-immune pregnant women.

This has been discussed at length downthread.

Sorry, I just came in at the end, read the last few pages, and didn't see it discussed in detail.

I then assumed, from some of the deeply selfish comments on the thread, like Why should the responsibility to protect her, fall to me taking a risk with my child?
that posters didn't realise just how dangerous CRS can be.

Stupid of me, clearly.

Cote, because you said this:

What if the children she comes across couldn't get the vaccine? What if their vaccines didn't work?
If the disease has been eradicated from the population through vaccination then it doesn't matter if a few individuals are not immune.

THE IS A RISK OF ENCEPHILITIS FROM RUBELLA
Sorry for the shouting but some people want to ignore this fact
article on elimination of Rubella in US

There not the

I have a genuine puzzle with the MMR and rubella, which is this: every now and then there is a measles outbreak which we are told is due to a lack of herd immunity because the uptake of the vaccine hasn't been sufficient. I haven't heard of the same outbreaks of rubella. Do they not occur? So if the vaccine take up was deemed insufficient in the measles case, what has stopped the rubella circulating (because it was the same vaccine)?

Also, we are told that CRS has now virtually been eliminated in the UK because of the MMR policy but it was only introduced in 1988 which means that those women born before then will have been vaccinated under the old policy i.e. those women over 27. Few men of that age or older will have had rubella vaccine. So how come we are not seeing CRS in that age group? (Unless they are all having terminations if contact with CRS was suspected?)

THERE IS RISK OF ENCEPHALITIS FROM ALL BACTERIAL, VIRAL, FUNGAL, AND PARASITIC INFECTIONS.

Sorry for the shouting but bruffin thinks it's necessary

La Volcan
It has been explained in thread after thread that Rubella is not as infectious as Measles and epidemics only come a long every 5 to 7 years thats why it is easier to eliminate.
You have also seen thd SENSE leaflet which shows the figures of CRS

We are not seeing cases in the older age group because herd immunity is doing its job. The last outbreak was in 1996 4000 cases and 12 cases of crs.

Volcan- Rubella is less contagious than measles

Well you arent listening Cote. But rubella is preventable so it is of benefit to boys to have the vaccine.

"a measles outbreak which we are told is due to a lack of herd immunity because the uptake of the vaccine hasn't been sufficient. I haven't heard of the same outbreaks of rubella. Do they not occur?"

They probably do, but as mentioned earlier it is a very mild, short-lived, and often asymptomatic illness. Many parents don't even notice that their children have had it. The rash goes away in hours and 37.5 C 'fever' is very easy to miss.

"But rubella is preventable"

Sure, most things are preventable if you are willing to pay the price and if the benefit is important enough.

Vaccinating DS against rubella:

Cost: Several unnecessary injections.

Benefit: Zero, since the disease isn't dangerous to him.

often asymptomatic illness
Surely that's part of why vaccinating against it is so important? People are not aware that a child has it, the child comes into a contact with an unprotected pregnant woman, and bang, the baby gets CRS.

Personally, I think it's extremely selfish not to vaccinate your child against rubella, as well as short-sighted. But then, I spent a large chunk of my early life living in countries where most of the population enjoyed Medieval levels of health care. So I saw people with smallpox scars, living with the after-effects of polio, and suffering from active TB. The direct consequence of these object lessons is that all my DC have a full vaccination record, including the one who reacted badly to her first dose of whooping cough vaccine: she just got the alternative vaccine at a year instead, and I was nightly glad of herd immunity in the interim.

Benefit: Zero, since the disease isn't dangerous to him.
No, but it is VERY dangerous to other, unborn, people.
This was what I meant by the selfish comments which made me think people didn't understand who devastating CRS can be.

I'm off to bed now. Life's too short.

HOW devastating, not WHO devastating.
This is what comes of typing when actually quite cross.