What were your reasons for not vaccinating your child?

[Londonmamma]

I don't think we've done this for a while and I like to keep up to date on the vaccination issue so - fire away!

My mother was a nurse in the early 60's. She saw plenty of children with what we today think are mild of benign - like measles. She convinced me very easily.

Basically, I am for vaccines, and my DD has been vaccinated (but Im still not sure about giving her the measles vaccine--no MMR in Japan). Now I may just be talking rubbish, because I know nothing about virology, but I just get the feeling that in nature, and especially with our bodies, there are no free lunches. So if we dont let our children become ill with anything, then I just cant see how that can be good in the long-run for them or for society. If diseases really do have life-cycles, then dont we want the milder diseases like measles to run their course? I mean we have medical care, and good water and food so its very unlikely that a child would die from measles. And its also likely that the bad effects of this disease are being promoted by drugs companies. ALmost everyone I know has had measles when they were a kid.

I absolutely dont want to risk my daughter with diseases like polio, tetanus, thyphoid etc. I totally agree with the argument that if a child doesnT contract a disease, its not because they have an amazing immune system through breastfeeding and organic food, or fish oils. It is because other children have been vaccinated, otherwise it would be no problem to take the same child to a polio-ridden country. So it is true that non-vaccinated children are relying on the fact that other kids are vaccinated. But I believe that most parents who choose not to vaccinate know this, and actually the first time Id heard that excuse was on this thread. I believe that there are risks to vaccinations (my "no free lunches" theory), and I believe the parents who are sure that the vaccine is related to their childs development problems. I just wish that we had clearer facts, for example, to be able to compare the percentage of children who become blind from measles compared to the percentage of children who appear to have been vaccine damaged. Then parents could way up the costs properly.
I`m still undecided about whether to have the measles jab.

Diseases change frequently?? depends on the virus. Measles is actually pretty stable. If it wasn't then producing a vaccination would be much harder.

"Vaccination was created as a money making deal, Jenner did well. Penicillin was barely viable as a treatment until one of the great robber barons, Carnegie funded it. "

this obscueres the fact that NOW vaccination is not a money spinner at all for the big pharmas

people getting ill and needing drugs, not to mention all the secondary paraphrenalia (breathing equipemnt etc) is MUCH more lucrative for them than vaccines

PLUS I'd wager vaccines need more research, there are fewer of them and evolving strains

sakura- yes that is true of things like measles- it is devastating to new populations, in western europe/Japan the US there has been such a long period of co-evolution with measles that the population itself has some resistance. scarlet fever is an example of something that has become far less of a problem.

sakura you asked for clear facts eg "to be able to compare the percentage of children who become blind from measles compared to the percentage of children who appear to have been vaccine damaged. Then parents could way up the costs properly. "

i'm sure we do have those figures, tbh, just will take some rooting around

Oh, thank you Slug and Electra for answering my questions further down

Sakura children becoming blind s vaccined damage. tbh population figures will be fairly meaningless- it's all about you individual child's susceptibility. There are fairly cheap simple tests available that could give each child and individual risk factor if you like, but the UK govt prefers to spend money that could be ploughed into setting up that sort of thing to advertisers to tell us our babies need MMR.

i agree with gess about the mercury thing. we didn't know about it until publicity in the media. i insisted on delaying ds's jabs until the new 5 in 1 came in to our surgery, got grief from two bitch nurses at the surgery, telling me they HAD to use up the old batch (i.e the mercury containing, live vaccines) before ds could have the 5 in 1. So I waited 2 extra months and then told them how crap i thought they were for insisting that i wait.

i also went and got a flu jab for myself and dh last Nov. but had to run around calling the manufacturer to find out whether the jab contained mercury. when i called they asked me loads of questions, surprised that a member of the public would be so concerned ? they asked for my phone number, name, address, called serveral hours later after double-checking my story with Boots who did the jabs. Boots didn't know what the flu jabs contained in the end the manufacturer told me that it didn't have mercury as a preservative (i have forgotten the medical term for it, it isn't actually called "mercury" on the labels), so we got the jabs done. it saved me from catching flu like the previous year when i got it 4 times and ended up with a serious chest infection and coughing for over 3 months, so was pleased it worked.

for those who are not vaccinating, are you aware that amalgam tooth fillings contain mercury and other metals that get into the blood stream ? how will you get your children's teeth filled if and when they ever need them ? will you go for the £100 a tooth white fillings ?

oh something interesting I heard recently wanted to share. There's a lot of talk about whether number sf autism cases really are rising. It's dfifficult to answer partly because AS may have been missed in the past, and also because LA's do't actually keep numbers. Plus they;re a diverse group- some fall under mental health services, some learning disability.

Anyway- once a pupil of my son's school, a;ways a pupil. He attends a school for children with severe learning difficulties and profound and multiple learning difficulties. it is the only school in the city that is really suitable for children with severe autism. Because of the whole family
atmosphere of the place people really never leave, parents of grown up children still attend the coffee mornings/get involved woith the PTA. I recently attended a meeting on residential units for adults with autism there, one of the mums attending has a grown up autistic son (in his 30's) and is now a govenor for the school. She said the school population has changed enormously. In her son's time he was one of very few autistic children- there were a handful in the school. These arte children who couldn't have been missed- they might have been misdiagnosed, but she said there''s no-one that you would think back and think they were nmisdiagnosed- they just weren't there. The school had a lot of children with DS (now antenatal testing means the numbers of children with DS being boprn has dropeed). Now the school is full of severely autistic children. My son' class of 6 children are all severely autistic. This would have been unheard of in the 70's 80's, but there really wasn't anywhere else they could hav gone. They couldn't have been missed.

We really should be asking ourselves what is causing this rise. Severely autistic children are incredibly exponsive to care for- a lifetime cost of millions. My son's class of 6 always has 4 or 5 adults in there. Fantastic but very necessary class ratios. The only adult provision I am wiulling to accept for my son (the only suitable one I';ve come across) is £100000 a year. ONe hundred thousand pounds. They guy who runs that place said the reason that it has opened is bwecause of growing numbers of severely autistic young adults- with no suitable provision currently avaialbel- he is expecting many more of these places to open.

We relaly should be asking ourselves what is happening here- economically the country should be asking themselves what is happening. I personally don't think that MMR has fuelld this rise although I do believe it has caused individual cases.

yes yr I would happily pay the 100 for white fillings- autism has cost our family thousands and thousands of pounds, 100 quid doesn't even register in our debt burden tbh. Iy justy gets added to it.

If i had know what I know now I would have 1) had as many of my amalgam fillings removed as possible before getting pregnant 2)) not allowed my cowboy dentist to fiddle with my fillings when I was pregnant with ds1.

Probably a good thread to link to autism every day again. You have to scroll to the bottom of the page to get it- a short film about the impact of severe autism on families. Including a good description of the financial impact.

What a shame, I have just dipped back in to this thread and it has a nasty tone to it now. I don't want to get drawn in, but just to say that I think it is widely recognised that proper nutrition and hygine are the reasons why life expectancy has improved so much in the west.

I think they have to give you the insert, as it lists possible side effects.

I have found if you argue for long enough with a dentist they will do a white filling, but DH doesn't seem to have the knack, and has had to pay A LOT.

yes cazee, but it is not the ONLY reason. many many children die in poor countries where they do have access to clean running water but their parents can't afford the cost of vaccines.

this seems like a civilsed debate to me, where has it gone nasty ?

I have posted this on the other vaccine thread too. It should also be remembered that for men there are very serious consequences of having mumps at puberty. I have a friend who is infertile due to this. He was not vaccinated because the vaccine was not available when he was young.

There are risks of vaccinating and of not vaccinating for any disease. You need to weigh up the concerns carefully and seek as much information as you can.

Yes normally these threads descend into a witch hunt with people calling for the execution of those parents who willfully fail to get their children vaccinated. This is the best, most balanced vaccination thread I've seen in ages. I'm heartenend.

With the exception of DC's post, but no surprises there.

yes kerry, i asked for and got the insert for my son's vaccines. i know they did not contan mercury or live vaccines because i checked them.

it was the flu jab for me at Boots i had a problem with. i didn't get the insert until just before having it done and Boots didn't know when i called to ask, so had to call the company that makes them.

i am interested in this autism debate. is there absolute 100% evidence any where that says vaccines are causing ALL autism ? i thought this was very controversial and that the evidence that had previoulsy been give was discredited ?

i am hoping ds won't have any fillings at all until well into his teens, but if he does i will get them done in white, both to avoid the mercury and because they look much nicer than my amalgam ones ! i have been brushing his teeth twice a day and generally don't allow sweets into the house, so keep fingers crossed ! also dh entire family are dentists, so can probbaly get them done free

Hatrick - the mumps vaccine was introduced in 1988. What is the research to show it doesn't protect after the teen years? If this is the case, then why are boosters not given at that time?

Yellowrose - autism does not seem to have one cause. Yes, the evidence for involvement of vaccines in autsim is controversial - see this thread for one!