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!

am bad mum
never htought twice

and gess pls explain wakefield's arguement to me

i've read a great deal surrounding it in recent years and i do think he's talking crap, though there was a bit of a witchhunt, inlc the book by the editor of the lancet

but willing to be convinced otherwise

If I knew it would cause damage, or if my child was at a high risk for some reason I wouldn't do it. I would then rely on society to have a high enough collective immunity to reasonably protect my child, and I think that is right. But if my kids are healthy and at normal miniscule risk
(far less than the risk of the actual disease), then yes, I am prepared to take that risk.

To me, its a little like saying "There is a risk my child may be injured by her seatbelt if we were in a car accident, but there is a far greater risk in injury whilst not wearing a seatbelt, so it is a risk i am willing to take.

bloody hell, well put there astro

The thing is like I have said before, we are very different in our views but we are also much the same in the way that we care very much for our children their health and safety, we want the best for them and we dont want any harm to come to them.

That I'm sure we can agree on.

that;s your risk fillyjonk - that was mine with ds1 - and like cod I didn;t really think about it, just vaccinated him, it was the right thing ooh and I had the added extra of doing my bit for society . Then everything that happened to ds1 happened to him; and so with ds2 I didn't skip quite so gaily down to the doctors. I didn't with ds3 either.

The risks are different for different people though aren't they (and currently the government refuses to admit this). And deciding to vaccinate means you take the option of deciding your child is low risk. Who can really know that?

i personally think you should be annoed with parents who don't vaccinate their children, but you should be annoyed with the government. if they offered single vaccinations much more people would probably get their children vaccinated.

Wearing a seatbelt isn't at all like vaccinating a child. For a start, it isn't invasive.

single vaccines do have their own problems though, don't they?

they are not just the same vaccine in 3 separate doses

they are also much less rigourously tested

bear in mind that the MMR is the safest vaccine known, in terms of long term testing.

"Wearing a seatbelt isn't at all like vaccinating a child. For a start, it isn't invasive. "

astro is talking about analagous risks

please explain why you object to it being invasive

hills, it is onvious you are a very caring parent.
Gess, I wont speak for Filly, but you are one of those who I think has a reasonable basis for not vaccinating, and I sincerely hope your children will be protected by the collective immunity of our society.
Filly - aw shucks

eh? "wild measles"? "natural immunity"

is there any actual evidence for this?

I don't object to invasive procedures, where necessary. What I do object to is having to decide that my child should have one when the main reason isn't for her benefit and when risks are involved.

Fillyjonk. Wakefiled's argument is that a subgroup of children with autism have been damaged by the MMR. It is farily easy to spot some "almost certain" casdes. By which I mean children (like my friend's son) who had the MMR, had massive seizures following it, spent some time in ICU, then as they came round were found to have lost a lot of previously aquired skills. (even the paed has said off record in this case that he thinks MMR triggered her sons's now very severe difficulties).

The media translates this as "MMR has caused rise in autism", and the papers they spout (danish study, Brent Taylors stuff for example) test this hypothesis. BUt that is not Wakefield's hypothesis. Wakefield won't be drawn on the size of the sunbgroup- but others have said around 7% of autistic children which is an effect too small to measure easily.

Wakefield has described a condition caused autistic enterocolitis. This is a novel gut disease found in some autistic children. No-one has ever disputed the existence of this. Wakefiled thinks MMR is involved in the condition, others don't- that's the disputed bit. It in incredibly difficult to get treatment for his painful bowel condition, because many of the chidlren with it are severely autistic, and the one person who had a lot of experience at treating this very difficult group is now working in the States. So children with this condition are left to get on with it. They can't communicate very well, so hey ho easy to pretend it doesn't exist. It's a disgrace.

Extensive tests were carried out in Japan involved hundreds and thousands of children who had been injected with the MMR triple vaccine. The results conclusively and scientifically proved that it was not responsible for autism in children, but that autism is a recurring syndrome in all children of all ethnicity throughout the ages.

The sad fact is that signs of autism in children generally begin to manifest at about the same time that the jab is due. This is a coincidence of timing, but not unnaturally, parents and some (but only some) doctors have laid the blame firmly at its door.

Whilst I understand the emotive issues surrounding the triple vaccine, I personally think it's irresponsible to leave your children unvaccinated.

Dino- it;s actually a concern for people whose kids get wild measles as well. In the past you got the disease, got your immunity then had a little booster everytime you came into contact with someone incubating say measles. Now? Disease then no booster. Natural immunity lasts longer, but isn;t necessarily lifelong with no boosts.

My friend did ring up a radio 4 phone in and put this question to someone from the Dept of Health. He admitted it was a concern. I'd say they should be thinking about it now follwoing the hospitalisation of nurses last year with measles (presumably they had been vaccinated). At some stage they'll have to introduce a teen booster and then presumably one's throughout adulthood.

but electra - what if immunisation rates of, say polio were to fall drasticly and we had an epedemic in Britian? That would be terrible for us all, including your DD. It is for her benefit.

I thought a gene had been found to be linked to autism. I read something to that effect recently. It would make sense. I have an autistic daughter, but I can see, looking back, that she was autistic before the MMR. All mine have had it.

rabbleraiser
Problems with the Japan study. 1 they're testing the wrong hypothesis- the looked to see if it was causing every case of autism. Of course its not. They need to look at subgroups.

2. they replaced the MMR with single jabs given on the same day which is exactly the same as the MMR.

If you ever bring up a child who has a regression- believe me you notice it.

sauerkraut- personally I believe that in many cases of HFA/AS there is a strong genetic effect. I also think there is a genetic effect with some lower funcitoning cases- but often this is related to autoimmunity not autsim. Very general, but often applies (with exceptions).

Don;t make the mistake of thinking that autism is one condition though, it isn't.

"The sad fact is that signs of autism in children generally begin to manifest at about the same time that the jab is due. This is a coincidence of timing, but not unnaturally, parents and some (but only some) doctors have laid the blame firmly at its door."

This is a myth. There are different routes to autism. Also I object to your suggestion that parents are too stupid to know when their child has changed almost overnight, and regressed spectacularly.

My dd has severe autism. At 13 months we had no idea.