If you decided to delay or to forgo MMR, how did health professionals react?

[usedtogotomars]

Just wondering about this (and haven’t yet decided) - do they respond in a way that respects your view or do they try to persuade you to have the vaccinations given to your child?

Very true KeepOn

I'm immunocompromised. Once again my area doesn't have herd immunity. I have never had measles. Glad the stats are so reassuring to ensure the unvaccinated put my life at risk.
Another thread. Another set of people who don't give a shit about the immunocompromised.

It’s a pity that the above statement is the only thing you’ve managed to derive from this thread.

haven't read the whole thread as these sorts of threads are usually about people being offensive and abusive to those who chose to delay vaccination.
DS was born at the height of the MMR scare and there was no solid proof either way as to whether it was damaging or not. As a toddler he had massive behavioural problems and other issues which continued on into childhood, so we were reluctant to add a chemical which had serious question marks against it into his already complicated life. Medical health people were not sympathetic and we were pressurised a lot into having him vaccinated.
it pissed me off. We weren't being irresponsible, we were trying to do the best we could for our son, with the advice we had.
He was finally vaccinated when he was 12.

quote from Professor Sundura Lingam who was on the appeal panal for Robert Fletcher

"genetically predisposed to epilepsy and that the vaccination triggered it rather than caused it. Robert would have developed epilepsy in any event, even if he had not had the vaccination

This was the neorologist on the appeal panal, the other 2 were a peadiatrician and a lawyer. They voted 2 to 1 in favour of the appeal, with the neurologist voting against

Usedto,

Can you give me an estimate of what you mean by 'far, far more'?

10x more? So 9 not reported for every 1 reported?

100x more? So 99 not reported for every 1?

1000 x more? 999 not for every one reported?

10,000 x more? 9,999 not for every 1 reported?

I did explain why even quite dramatic under-reporting / under-acknowledgement (even 1000 x more than reported) may not actually sway the argument for / against vaccination.

So if the difference between 2 different risks is e.g. 1 in 2 vs 1 in 3, under-reporting even of 1 case in 3 has a dramatic effect on the conclusion as to which risk is greater.

If Risk A is 1 in 10, and risk B is 1 in 100, risk B has to be much more under-reported for it to actually be the greater risk.

If the 'official statistics' give risk of significant harm for measles + mumps + rubella to be 1 in 50, and risk of significant harm from the MMR vaccine to be 1 in 20,000 (both figures plucked out of the air, as they are just to illustrate my point), then if every case of harm from the diseases is accurately reported, there have to be 399 unreported cases of vaccine harm for every one reported in order for the risks to be equal.

So rather than saying 'I can't do any analysis because I believe that 1 of the statistics has an error in it [this is of course not the case - all the figures will have errors - the point is that you believe one to have a much larger error than the others]', you can do the anslysis as if you believe them to have no errors, and then compare the result with what you believe the error to be.

If the magnitude of the error would have to be unfeasibly large to make vaccination the riskier option (so if you believe that under-reporting is perhaps 100 cases unreported per reported case, but the difference between the probabilities is 10,000x) then vaccinate.

If the magnitude of the error required to reverse the conclusion s sufficiently small, based on your hunch about under-reporting (so e.g. 100 cases unreported per reported case and the difference between the probabilities is 100x, or even 1000x) then it is reasonable to say that the two risks are comparable (or that not vaccinating is safer) and to decide to take the risk of not vaccinating.

OP is not concerned with abstract risk at a population level but individual risk pertaining to her baby in the light of individual risk measures.

Given that both courses of action - to vaccinate and not vaccinate - are both inherently risky, how would you propose that she should arrive at a decision between them?

Are you sure there’s no herd immunity shhhh? The published rates are for MMR - the only paper I have found that includes those having single vaccines had very high take up for measles (it was around 95% - just over I think, rubella was 93%, mump was lower but that will be because it’s difficult to get hold of a single mumps vaccine in the UK)

The risk to the individual isn’t a population risk though. The person I know who ended up in ITU after MMR has a brother who ended up in HDU after MMR. Population risks clearly fairly meaningless for that family.

Absolutely, I understand that indovidual / family risks may be much higher - and the sensibe thing to do is to ask a health care professional. However, the OP has already said that they don't trust what HCP say in this case, so I find it hard to think of an alternative way forward?

(I have been unsure whether the case of vaccine damage the OP refers to is genetically related to her own child, or not - obviously advice would differ.)

TBH a HCP is just going so say they don’t really know. That’s what happened in our case anyway. Some will say a bit more off record ime, especially if they’re very senior but it’s hard for them to stray from the party (or more accurately, political) line these days.

Even in the example above of ITU and HDU (and both of those individuals are now severely disabled) the official advice was to vaccinate younger siblings (obviously that didn’t happen).

It's just been announced by local nhs - no herd immunity again in our area.

But if somebody says "I Don't know" they lose the right to tell me what I should do because intellectually they are unable to provide me with a professional opinion.

Awwww cherry picking the easiest bits to take the mik out of.. very grown up. Love the grave stone picture did you cream that off Google or the Daily Mail?? Try reading a book sometime. You might learn something :)

Yes they certainly do err on the side of pushing you to have the vaccine

Oh the photo, just google diphtheria cemetery. One of the diseases we now vaccinate against. And which still kills if you catch it, even if you eat non-gmo organic kale only.

Jesus. You are the most patronising person. Maybe try to iron out that chip on your shoulder and get some RL people to talk to before baby is born. Merry Christmas. Good luck with your baby.

But the NHS figures only ever tell you the MMR rate (& they’re much higher now than ever before - even before the Wakefield paper). The paper I have come across that looked at monovalents as well found very high rates (it wasn’t a controversial paper or preaching an anti vaccination message - quite the opposite, it just used the correct data)

TBH I always like the ‘I don’t know’ answer - it’s honest and recognises that decisions are often complex and made without full facts.

And doesn't that tell you devilish that the communication of the facts Isn't working and needs to be reviewed.

The public no longer leaves school at 15 with only 2-3% of the population going to uni, yet the patriarchal delivery rolled out in 1947 is relatively unchanged.

I take your point sparkles but tbh I think a lot of the issues would be solved with an individual approach to vaccination (same approach as with any other medication - ‘is this vaccination in this person’s best interests?’), rather than a population based approach.

But it would need better recognition of adverse reactions (true of other meds ime as well).

We organised a measles vaccination on holiday in France, had it written into his red book, and did the same for the booster a year later. Then he had MMR at 11 in the UK. He had already had rubella (the disease, mildly but enough for the antibodies). But this was the height of the big autism scare, and it was the stage of language development, so I didn't take the chance but organised the single vaccination. The French doctor thought I was obsessive, but still...

I believe that far, far more children have been adversely affected by vaccines than officially noted

So if you're beliefs are not based on evidence no amount of logical reasoning will give you what you want.

I think what the OP wants is to be reassured that nobody using logical reasoning or professional judgement will try to talk her out of / criticise her for her choice not to vaccinate, which is based on non-evidence-based beliefs.

The difficulty - for society - is that what the OP does does not affect only her child. If it did only affect her child, then ultimately she can take responsibility and bear any blame if anything happens.

It also affects others - pregnant mothers without immunty to rubella, immunocompromised children and others who cannot be vaccinated. The question is whether health professionals - even if they allow a mother to make decisions that could harm her own child - do have a responsibility to speak to that mother about how her decisions could leave her child unharmed but disable or kill others.

Immunocompromised people like me who are directly affected by the failure to vaccinate are not important enough to take into consideration.