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!

Doesn't anyone like my pretty graphs?

x post again, I didn't mean to be flippant about theshrimp's post

Very good graphs. Extememely compelling.

Sorry shrimp to hear about your experience. I don't know the details or what other factors were involved in the death (as other factors are invariably at play).

I also know a woman who's deaf and has other problems because her mum had rubella in pregnancy. She's one of the most successful and inspiring women I know and I wouldn't have her any other way. She is who she is and she has never complained or known any different. She's actually slightly famous so you may have seen her.

Perhaps there is a case for vaccinating women of childbearing age against rubella. But all children. Boys and girls. Babies!! What's that about? It's a very mild illness which lasts a couple of days.

The boy who died definately(sp) died as a result of complications due to the measles infection.

That I know.

I think for me it makes little difference whether a child is left brain damaged by a disease or a vaccination. I know children in both sitiuations, the end result is the same. Ditto death from vax vs disease. No difference. The pain that families go through is the same. Attempting to reduce incidences of serious diseases is obviously worthwhile and save families heartache. And it has been successful (along with better water supplies, diet etc). But ethically if vaccinations are to be given they should always be given in the safest way possible. Attempts should be made to identify children at risk. When a child ends up in ICU following a vaccination mother should not be told they're nutters if they link the 2 events. Cases should be investigated. This really doesn't happen yet. Questions should be asked as to why SLD schools are now full of autistic children when they weren't 20 years ago. Saying "they were missed" doesn't really work with the SLD population, non-verbal children in nappies have never been in mainstream schools until now.

Thanks gess and Cazee,
Im in the south of Japan (Kyushu). I just checked her little book and it says <strong>ORAL</strong> <strong>POLIO</strong> <strong>VACCINE</strong> in big black letters. So thats not good, is it. Then again, the jab might have its own side effects, mightnt it. And I just read that the risk is one in 2.4 million, so very small. Ill talk to her doctor about it, and if he has no opinion on it, or wont discuss it, then I may get the jab when Im in the UK (I kind of trust him though, and I like his manner- I went through other doctors before settling for him). AS for Japanese Encephelitis- who knows? I think Ill ask the doctor when the latest possible time is to have that one, or if its necessary at all.
No measles though, definitely not. She can have the Rubella when she`s about 14 or so.
(SOrry, I put DPT as Diptheris, Pertussis and Thyphoid below, but its Tetanus (obviously)

Spidermama, I couldn't agree more about the timing of these vaccines. there may be a case for a woman to have the rubella vaccination when she reaches childbearing age if she has not caught German Measels before that, but there is no need for a baby to have it, or for a boy to have it. Similarly if a boy doesn't catch mumps there may be a case for him to have the vaccination when he reaches pubity, but not babies and not girls.

And gess your point about individual risk is important. My neighbours son was (she is convinced) seriously harmed by vaccines. He displays autistic symptoms if he eats certain foods, including wheat, dairy, soya...in fact the list of foods he can eat is only about 20. He lacks the enzymes to digest them. He is very small for his age. His mum wishes she knew then what she knows now. There are food intollerances in her family that she now realises made him more suseptible (I can't spell, will admit that freely!). She believes he suffered mercury poisioning. She has had NO SUPPORT at all from the medical profession

Gess - Back from GP (went for the herpes issue again... think you were helping me with that last time), and he couldn't give a sh*t. "Babies react differently" and something about vaccines now having more concentrated and smaller amounts of something or other (he was mumbling) so reactions were less severe.

Woohoo for thems kids having less severe reactions. DS'll be happy to know that.

i think it is a very serious error to mix up food allergies with the danger of vaccinations. there are things one can do with a child's diet to radically reduce the risk of allergies from the minute they are born. i don't buy the "we have more allergies now because there are vaccinations".

there are a 101 reasons why a child has an allergic reaction to something, where is the evidence that vaccines are the SOLE cause ? can any one link please if they have read something i have missed ?

but if you read below yellowrose, specifically one of spidermamas links i think, you'll see that there isn't a 'mix up', what is posited is that the two are linked.\

i'll find the exact link hang on.

ahhhh, here we are....can't remember if it was spidey, i think it was:

this

thanks sophable, but this is a very controversial list given out as fact. where is the ref. to medical evidence for these assertions ?

it is absurd for anyone to claim that vaccines are the MAIN cause of an allergy, if you introduced known allergens into a baby/infant's diet very early on (i.e did not bf excl. for at least 6 months or gave say nuts to a 4 month old), you can't then say with any CERTAINTY that it is the vaccines that have caused the allergy. it is just not medically logical.

also the medical evidence says that allergies are often hereditry, so if both parents suffer from a nut allergy, a child's chances of getting it are very very high esp. if you introduce nuts into their diet very early on.

yellowrose, my neighbour's son doesn't have any food allergies, he has a digestive problem and doesn't produce enzymes to digest many, many foods. If he consumes even a trace (eg playdough on his hands - gluten) than he reverts to autistic behaviour. She has researched his condition extensively and now believes it was linked to the mercury in a vaccine he received as a baby.

Very recent research published at the end of last year in a high quality journal proposed that the rise in autoimmune conditions was due to people have a compromised gut barrier. It didn;t mention autism (which is many cases is probably an autoimmune comdition). I read it with great interest as the proposed model was exactly the model that we had come up with for what happened to ds1. It was particuallry interesting as it mentioned MS and type 1 diabetes- both found in a number of members of dh's family.

The research is at a fairly early stage, but I suspect it will prove interesting in answering why autoimmune conditions have rapidly risen. The model is very similar to Wakefields (will differ in the details but is broadly similar). It's also very similar to models proposed by people working on autism. As to why the gut is leaky-0 then it gets complicated, but amongst the various potential reasons for that are models that would also explain why these children are vulnerable to vaccinations. Just as one example sulphation problems are believed to be a factor in a potentially large number of autistic children (this is Rosemary Waring's work at Birmingham Uni). Theoretically this could lead to an inability to handle virus infections as well as someone with a fully functioning sytem would. If your gut is permeable other membranes may be permeable as well- hence you get a much bigger dose of thimerosal arriving at the brain than for someone whose gut isn't leaky. Autistic children often have abnormally low levels of mercury in their hair. Where is it? It should be excreted in hair. ie it's sitting somewhere in the body.

All of this rapidly becomes speculative, but there are all sorts of models out there - now its a case of needing to plough through them.

cazee- that's the same as my son. He headbangs when he has had forbidden foods; enough to leave very big bruises- gluten is a big one, and peanuts are another. He was headbanging concrete on peanuts.

Sometimes digestive problems can play a role as well (I'm beginning to think that's more of an issue as well) and again can be tied up with sulphation.

Oh Flamesparrow- that doesn't sound good. Do you have another GP?

I'll try and see my normal GP next time... he is a bit young and easily scarable, but might be more helpful seeing as he has a baby about the same age himself.

cazee - how can she be so certain ? there is no concrete evidence on the link between allergies, lack of enzymes, etc and vacs.

i can't really see why everything seems to be directly linked to vacs. when it could be any number of other factors, incl. the lack of exclusive bf ?

any way, i will get off this thread now. thanks for the discussion everyone.

Yellowrose there is research that looks at the link between vaccination and gut problems/allergies. I just did a long post to explain the basics of this and my blinkin' computer has just gone crazy and my post has been deleted. Can't find the energy to rewrite it right now (bedtime) but will have another bash tomorrow.
There is a perfectly logical link between vaccination, gut permeability, immune response, multiple allergies etc.

Beachcomber, I'd be really interested in that! Would be great if you could recreate the message.

Ok here goes. This is a basic summary of the research as I understand it.

Natural infection with measles, mumps and pertussis are all known to provoke temporary gut problems including increased gut permeability. Mumps and measles infection (especially close together in young children) are both known to be factors in the development of Crohn's disease and ulcerative colitis. Therefore we know these diseases affect the gut.

To understand how vaccines can affect the body we have to look at other components included in the vaccine. Vaccines contain adjuvants, some of which work as preservatives, some attenuate the virus/bacteria and some are there to provoke a response from the immune system (aluminium salts for example). Because vaccines contain attenuated forms of the disease the presence of adjuvants is neccesary in order to stimulate in the body enough of a immune response for the vaccine to have effect.
Unfortunately some of these adjuvants (particularly aliminium and thimerosol) can cause damage to the human gut (among other types of damage).
Vaccines also contain antibiotics which are known to interfere with the balance in gut flora.

So if you take the combination of; a disease which creates gut damage, adjuvants which cause gut damage, antibiotics which cause gut damage and add an ingredient which is designed to provoke an immune response (antibody creation) then you shouldn't be surprised if the end result is gut damage and antibody creation (the allergy). The development of allergies happens when food molecules pass through the damaged gut lining, and are identified by the immune system as foreign bodies, remember that this is occuring whilst the immune system is being stimulated by the adjuvant to react vigorously. The body cannot 'know' that it is only supposed to react to the vaccine and therefore reactions to harmless substances can occur.

Add to all this the immaturity of the immune system and the gut in infants plus general health, diet and an unknown number of genetic predispositions and suseptibilities. Also vaccines are injected directly into the body bypassing the mucus membranes which are a vital part of the normal, measured response of a healthy immune system in normal circumstances.

Vaccine manufacturers themselves say that an allergic disposition can be a contraindication to vaccination. Generally the vaccine schedule starts at 2 months (!!!). How many parents will be aware by this age whether their child has any allergies?

Vaccines are not tested by the manufacturers on anything other than the healthiest of children. For example low birth weight and a family history of allergy would exclude a child from being included in tests. However the vaccine is then given to all children regardless of any of these factors. Did the person who vaccinated your child ask about their birth weight? The doctor who happily injected my atopic, low birth weight child certainly did not.

Thanks anybody who has got to the end of this very long post! Long though it is, it is a very simplistic summary of huge amounts of complicated information and therefore only the most basic of outlines.

There is an increasing body of evidence (and number of vaccine damaged people) that suggests that vaccination is not all it is cracked up to be. Surely this merits serious (impartial) investigation from those who assure us that vaccines are safe.

Thanks Beachcomber. That is very helpful and very interesting. Will look more into this.

well done for making the effort to rewrite all of that beachcomber.....thank you.

A very informative post Beachcomber, thank you. My neighbour's son, whom I refered to in my earlier post, had been given a course of antibiotics before his vaccination, but the doctors assured her that didn't matter. There are also food intollerances in his family. She believes these factors left him succeptible to harm from the vaccine.