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!

Hi yellowrose. Just thought I'd say that ds1 had a back molar that came through with a patch of enamel missing. I happily paid for a white filling as apart from the risk of mercury (which I think may have been discredited now) I just HATE the look of black fillings.

I dare say that MNers' children won't need fillings as they never drink Fruit Shoots

Hathor mumps, like many of these childhood diseases, can create seriuos complications in adults. That's why we're supposed to get these diseases when we're children.

In the 70s people used to have measles parties to bring togehter children in the hope they'd get measles and process it at the correct time.

I have a couple of storybooks which would have been written back then which have tales about children with measles. There's no fear or hysteria.

I was also surprised to discover that there's now a chicken pox vaccine!
It's as if our children are not allowed to be ill even though illness is an important part of building natural immunity. If they don't build this into their systems when they are youngsters - what happens when they grow into adults and become ill - how will their bodies know how to respond to viruses and bacteria if they were not primed as children?

I haven't vaccinated any of my four. Here are some of the things I read whilst making my decision.

The Informed Parent.
These.

The Vaccination Bible. by the people behind What Doctors Don't Tell You.

I also love Aviva Gill Romm and find myself so often agreeing with her healing ideas.

I've been to brilliant lectures by Trevor Gunn (he's doing them again in London and Brighton this summer) and I just keep on reading and reviewing.

The decision not to expose my kids to vaccination has not been easy. On the contrary, it's a tough path to choose and I am regularly challenged about it.

It was DC's post that I thought was nasty

DC is always nasty. He wasn't brought up properly

Best ignored.

Spidermama - no fear or hysteria about measles back then because most children get over it without problems - my brother & I had it when we were 5 & 2 and we were fine. However - some are blinded and some die. So that's all right then.

Spidermama - I never respond to his posts - he's too unpleasant. Don't know what he gets out of it.

fortyplus I never met or heard about anyone who was blinded or who died. I'm not saying they didn't but I never heard about it, people in those days didn't fear it because it was outside their experience. Here in this well nourished, clean country we didn't fear measles. The death rate was tiny and usually, if you dig deeper, you'll find anyone who did die was already ill or else died from complications NOT measles itself.

Take for example the boy who died a couple of years ago. He was the first to die of measles in this country for, I think it was, fourteen years. Immediately the press had a field day blaming falling vaccination rates.

Actually this boy had a very serious chest condition and was on strong immuno supressants which meant he couldn't fight off the infection as he should have done.

Far more complicated beneath the shock headlines as usual.

fortyplus - by the same token some children are vaccine damaged and that isn't ok either. So we need the government to have a vaccination policy that is ethically sound.

I agree electra and I don't think it's ethically sound for GPs to be given financial incentives to get a certain percentage of their patients vaccinated. This doesn't inspire me with trust.

I was always told I was short sighted because I'd had measles, which is a complete myth - it's an inherited condition.

Unicef & Oxfam work in the field with children dying of these diseases - clearly the situation is far worse in 3rd world countries because of malnutrition & poor sanitation causing the children to be far weaker in the 1st place.

But I do think that falling vaccination rates are a ticking time bomb. The % has already fallen below that needed to guarantee herd immunity and so many young children are placed in day nurseries while mum goes to work. An outbreak would spread very quickly.

Spidermama I'm right with you on that one - financial incentives are wrong.

electra - you're quite right, but the problem is that if a child is damaged by the vaccine you know about it. Whereas if your child has the jab you will never know whether they have come into contact with the disease and what the outcome would be.

I know that planes crash and hundreds of people die. I still happily get on one to go on holiday. We all have to weigh up the risks. Aren't we lucky to have these choices?

Did anyone else find is SHOCKING that the media didn't report the fact that the poor child who died of measles was on immuno suppressents? I had to google it at the time, and I could only see one paper report that part of the story.

Spidermamma. That may be so, but of course there is a risk of death from measles that shouldn't be ignored when making the choice whether to vaccinate.
The death rate from measles for healthy people in developed countries is approximately 1 death per 1000 cases.

Measles is especially a big concern in developing countries and in people with poor immune systems. In countries with high rates of malnutrition and poor healthcare, deaths rates of 1 death per 100 cases are common.That is horrific to my mind.
In those with compromised immune systems the death rate is approximately 3 per 100 cases.

An interesting debate. There is no black and white answer, as with most healthcare questions.

Absolutely shocking Cazee. I know. I remember phoning Womans Hour at the time to complain about their reporting of it, but it's almost like it's willfully covered up.

It's just one of a whole host of cover ups and dodgy behaviour which have eroded my confidence in the medical establishment as regards the sacred cow of mass immunisation.

hatrick - I hope you get to the bottom of the medical notes problem.

They love to whip up a reaction. There was a headline in the Telegraph yesterday saying something like 'Pensioners lose half their income'.

Bloody hell, I thought - that's terrible...

...but when I read it they were saying that when people retire their income is often only half what it is when they're working...

...like that's a surprise

Hathor, where do you get the 1 in 1000 figure from? I have tried and tried to get any figures and can't.

It is a fact that the number of cases of measles and mumps in the UK are rising:

in 1996 there were 112 cases of measles, in 2006 there were 736. This is getting close to the number where 1 death is statistically likely to occur per year from measles in otherwise healthy persons.

1196 there were 94 cases of mumps, in 2006 there were 4408.

cazee - that was on wikipedia - don't know the original source - check the references on there.
The case number stats were from the health protection agency - stats for notifiable diseases.

Hathor, i still don't understand where the 1 in 1000 figure comes from. What is your source?

x posts! I really, really, really doubt that the figures are anything like that. I have never been able to get numbers for healthy people who die from measles.