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!

Also agree with beachcomber re: the social responsibility argument. In any case, the argument doesn't stand up unless you can assume you will get compensation in the event of vaccine damage.

The patent was on a TREATMENT for children with autistic enterocolitis and measles in their gut. I did email Brian Deer and ask him why during his programme he accused Wakefield of being in it to cash in on a rival MMR vaccine when the patent application was clear that the primary aim of the jab was for treatments for children with autistic enterocolitis. I know I sent it to the correct address because it was from a link from his website - he never replied.

Wakefield has posted a response about the legal aid board money. Will find it later if I have time although have posted it on here often before. I've read it and think it fair enough. Certainly less biased than the average drugs company and less conflict of interest.....

I do new research would be funded independently- unfortunately its not that easy. There is a problem with the way research is funded.

Fillyjonk - re: your first point, think it's fair to say that 20+ years ago doctors did not consider measles to be a killer disease, generally.

Decisions have consequences, you let people smoke in your home who smoke then the risks to your kids shoot up. You get your health advice from GMTV then you are going to believe practically anything.
Even then, when you make good decisions, random bad stuff happens.
But that does not mean you should think about things, that when homoepathy is condemned as worthless by all every medical organisation , or that the many adverts about smoking can be ignored you shouldn't hide behind the daffy "every one is different".

gess in the papers it was saying that he had a patent on one of the single VACCINES

is this wrong?

i agree that measles in this country is not exactly life threatening. there was one boy from a travellers community who died from it not too long ago but he was taking immunosuppressive drugs, which explains why his body didn't cope with it very well. also even if you do have the vaccine you can still get it.

well in 1 in 1000 cases it causes inflammation of the brain

not something i want for my kids, tbh

most kids are now vaccinated, so we grossly underestimate the diesease

and so what if it was a kid from a traveller community? Don't get why this is relevant really.

relevant because they tend to have less to do with their health authority and therefore wasn't vaccinated against it. the first outbreak was in 2005 from the travellers and all cases reported since elsewhere have mostly been associated with the travellers.

ok so you are saying that only unvaccinated kids tend to get it?

fair enough, I think thats generally true. There have been a lot of cases among eg amish in the US.

vaccinated kids do also get the diesease, but less

Yes probably Brian Deer- who was very selective in his reading of the patent application.

I can't cut and paste easily but the first paragraph of of the application says "the present invention relates to a new vaccine for the elimination of MMR and measles virus and to a pharmaceutical or therapeutic composition for the treatment of IBD; particularly Crohn's Disease and Ulcerative Colitis and regressive behavioural disease."

It talks a lot about treatment for those with Crohn's and coilitis with measles virus as a causative agent. It does also talk about using it as a vaccine, the bulk of the application is about its therapeutic use as a treatment. When you put in a patent application it is sensible to put in every potential application surely?

Whatever you think about Wakefield - the reaosn parents of autistic children love him (except MadDrFitzpatrick) is because he treated their child when no-one else would. It's a big thing. take today. I;m just back from seeing ds1's paed who has to decide whether to give him an EEG. If she decides he does need one it will be extremely difficult. Wakefield was treating children who no-one else would/will touch. Murch is left in the UK and he does still do the same sort of work, but Wakefield has gone. If I had a child I suspected had ulcerative colitis I wouldn't even be able to get the dx now, let alone treatment for it. Knowing the sort of day in day out work that Wakefield does (which is treat children with autistic enterocolitis) and then reading the patent application it is farily clear that to translate it as him being out to make big bucks form a new vacccine is ludicrous. As he has pointed out any money arising from the treatment would have been paif to the Royal Free trust, not him anyway.

I chose not to let my dcs have the booster MMR because dc2 reacted so badly to it. His GP said he was reacting to the measles part of the vaccine. He was really unwell and smothered in the measles rash. At age 3 he was diagnosed dyspraxic and at 10 with crohn's. Despite all the evidence available I can't be persuaded that MMR had nothing to do with this, I'm sure along with other parents of children who believe they are vaccine damaged but unable to prove it.

At the time of the crohn's diagnosis I was introduced to the hospital's IBD nurse. I voiced my opinions about what I felt was responsible for his condition and she did not contradict me at all. Neither did she openly agree with me. You could interpret this any way you choose, but for me it was her agreeing with me, yet not being able to openly say so. You could argue that was how I wanted to interpret it because of wanting to have a reason for his condition.

Despite all of this, if I had to make the decision of whether to vaccinate or not, I would.

Here's another bit:

"According to the present invention there is provided a pharmaceutical composition for the treatment of MMR virus mediated disease..." etc etc.

Just an example.

Incidentally Wakefiled's theory doesn;t just relate to MMR- he talks about regression after any virus- including wild type which is why he isn't anti vaccine. Doctors nod sagely when I say that ds1 regressed following eczema herpeticum and write it in the notes. Herpes virus is recognised as a trigger for autism.

Amyjade - I started the thread because it was 'kicking off' anyway on another one and I wanted to get a proper debate going as it's a subject that really fascinates me and many others. I don't think there's any problem at all about us having such strong feelings one way or the other about vaccination. We're NOT going to get a proper debate about the issues with the G.P. or H.V., so why NOT do it on MN?

Jomist if you go to treating autism (type into google) you can download wakefield's talk from earlier this year at their conference. he usually mentions crohns in his talks- might be iteresting for you.

Londonmamma - amyjade's dd1 died following pneumoococcal meningitis, and she campaigned for the introduction of the vaccine. It is for her of course very difficult reading. Incidentally I've always thought the evidence for introducing pneumonococcal to kids far weightier than the evidence for introducing men C. My problem is really with the vaccination programme- rarther than the individual jabs as such.

Gess, can you post the link please as I can't see the talk you mentioned? I would be very interested to read this. Thanks.

here- click on Wakefield's name for his slides . Let me know if he doesn;t mention crohns in that and I'll post the link to the autism one and two conference- I know he mentionedc it there and you can also get a tape of those presentations.

DC- that's a bizarre view. So if your child gets picked up as having PKU you just carry on giving them phenylalanine?? When deciding about the safest course for an individual its about susceptibilities.

Fillyjonk I'm not blindly for MMR, so I don't accept the criticism of letting the side down. I'm against crap ways of choosing healthcare for kids, and allowing smokers into their homes.
As it happens our kids got MMR, because we thought about it, not because we saw the BBC and GMTV programmes which attempted to hide the harm done by other BBC programmes which scared parents.

Thus if your child reacts to any medical treatment of course you should think about giving it more. However, I'd be seeing my doctor about it.
The thing is that it may be just coincidence, and that it may not be the current medication causing the symptoms, but something that needs treatment.

MMR is genuinely a tricky question though.
Because I'm that sort of geek, I read the department of health guidelines for parents. They were lies, stupid ones at that.
Also as I recall doctors were given bonus payments for getting kids immunised. I don't like conflicts of interest like that, and causes me to mistrust medics.

dominiconnor. I doubt many parents base their views on gmtv stories. fgs

OK, I'm open to persuasion and reason on this.
Where do they get their info ?
Do they disregard what they see on TV ?
How do you explain the correlation between media coverage of the "risks" of MMR and the drop in it's use ?

Seems like quite a few people wait to do the MMR. Is that because there is a real benefit to the child or because they are weighing up the issues? I'm still delaying, in the hope that if he is older, he will be more able to cope with it.