Refusing to vaccinate

[popsadaisy]

I went to vaccinate my one year old yesterday and I was so surprised when the nurse told me that some parents still refuse vaccinations. I am genuinely intrigued as to why this is?

In two minds whether to risk posting this, but here goes...
To the people who say that unvaccinated children should be excluded from schools - which vaccines would you apply this to, and what reasons would you allow for children to be unvaccinated? Who would decide?
My child did not receive the rotavirus vaccine. He had been suffering badly from colic/something and had bloody poo, and after reading about the risk of gastro-intestinal side-effects, I didn't think I would cope with the anxiety. He wasn't medically ineligible though. Should he be excluded from schools now?
I'm not anti-vax, and we've had all the other vaccines, but I feel that for me and my baby I made the right decision at the time. I wouldn't have felt happy if I'd felt forced to give it so he could have an education.

There would have to be medical exemptions supported by a doctor’s letter.

Both my parents are deaf- my mum’s was caused by childhood meningitis, my dad’s was caused by rubella. They were unfortunate enough to be born before vaccinations were commonplace and they were damn sure to make sure we were vaccinated for everything as children.

I agree that people have forgotten the severe risks from these so-called childhood
illnesses.

I’d be interested to know if anti-vaxxers would let their children make the decision once they are old enough to understand- for example teen girls getting the HPV vaccine to prevent cervical cancer?

To the people who say that unvaccinated children should be excluded from schools - which vaccines would you apply this to, and what reasons would you allow for children to be unvaccinated? Who would decide?

The government, the same as many governments already do. In Ontario, not having the flu vaccine won’t make you ineligible for school, but the other pre-school-age vaccines in the Canadian schedule (including varicella) are required to attend public schools. France (11 on the list), Italy (10), Australia, many US states - this is a fairly common approach.

People live in a community. They want to avail themselves of the good things that come with being part of that community, as well as abiding by its requirements (pay taxes, wear seat belts, don’t talk on mobile phones while driving, avoid hurting other people, etc).

When there are clear and safe - as safe as possible, with the risks of harm very low indeed and many times lower than the risks of the diseases they prevent - ways of not only preventing an individual from getting ill, but also lowering incidence of disease in the community as a whole, it is reasonable for the community to consider whether some of the benefits of living in the community are contingent upon doing some of the things that are beneficial to the community in return.

My child did not receive the rotavirus vaccine. He had been suffering badly from colic/something and had bloody poo, and after reading about the risk of gastro-intestinal side-effects, I didn't think I would cope with the anxiety. He wasn't medically ineligible though. Should he be excluded from schools now?

That sounds grim - what was the doctor’s advice? Rotavirus is not on many compulsory vaccine lists (if any - I haven’t done an exhaustive check!) - I imagine because it is one of the rare ones where you can’t remedy missing the vaccine as a newborn by going through a catch up programme.

Sorry - expressed myself badly above and see I implied rotavirus was compulsory for school in Ontario as it’s on the childhood vaccine schedule. Like hib, it’s excluded from the compulsory list.

There is enough information out there for people to make an informed decision. People that choose not to aren't stupid people, they can read and evaluate research.

See I did a few terms of statistics at university. It is really hard. Like, super, really hard. I can read scientific papers (well the abstract) but I have to pause, think about it, make notes and continue. I know what a standard deviation is, what the mean is and what other kinds of average you can use. I know the difference between correlation and causation. I know about outliers and confounding variables. And I know about self-selecting cohorts and how research funding affects results.

Are the anti-vaxxers on here even as pathetically able as me? Because even the small amount of knowledge I have doesn't qualify me to do 'research'.

I will do what is right for my children, which is what I should do, as a parent. They will not be taking a risk for adult women. End of.

To answer the OP, this is really the reason for people refusing vaccinations. Absolute refusal to accept any responsibility to the community in which they live and stupidity - put under the heading of "right for my children". No foresight, no understanding of public health and how it works, no understanding of what might happen to their own children.

Mostly they get away with it - because the majority do vaccinate so they benefit from herd immunity to which they haven't contributed. And they then attribute their lack of disease to themselves and them "doing what is right for my children" because of stupidity and so we go again.

Measles is now spreading in the US. There will probably have to a serious epidemic - in the next year or so - before people cop themselves on again. Which would be fine except these are small children who are going to suffer and possibly die. Not the stupid adults deciding against vaccination.

My (vaccinated) child got whooping cough. I have no idea how anyone would wish that on a newborn or infant. It was terrifying enough in a 12 year old.

This is why I decided that my DD should have the single vaccines instead, still giving her the protection but not overloading her immune system.

That's not how it works, the aim of vaccine manufacturers is to get the right reaction from the immune system from the smallest amount of attenuated virus.

It's like saying you don't want your child to have too much sugar so instead of her drinking a can of coke you are going to give her 3 bottles of coke several weeks apart.

I'm old enough (not yet 40 though!) to remember people wearing calipers because of childhood polio.

In particular my mum's friend's DH, he'd been left very physically disabled by childhood polio and it had directly affected his life ever since.

And yy to the refusal to accept any responsibility for the community, because by compromising the health of those unable to be vaccinated they are directly causing harm.

So by all means, don't vaccinate. But don't then put your unvaccinated children in a place they could cause untold damage.

I know a 28 year old woman who got Polio because her Mum couldn’t be bothered to go into the GP and get her vaccinated - same woman’s baby then almost died because she contracted Rubella while pregnant. Needless to say woman no longer speaks to her parents.

This woman is British. Her parents didn’t give her vaccinations but liked taking her to high risk destinations like Pakistan.

I wonder if people who have the 'I'm not responsible for anyone else' attitude speed when they drive? After all they're not responsible for anyone else - pedestrians should be looking before they cross the road and if they can't cross a road safely should stay indoors.

@cantpissinpeace

Just wanted to educate you a bit.

I had rubella as a toddler and was very, very ill. Was hospitalised for a week. All illnesses have risks of complications.

I was lucky that I did not have any major complications- except hearing loss in both ears from scarring on my eustation tubes.

Here is an article on the complications from rubella in children.

www.urmc.rochester.edu/encyclopedia/content.aspx?contenttypeid=90&contentid=p02542

You probably didn’t mean to but you are being incredibly ignorant and putting your child and others at risk of these consequences.

I wonder if people who have the 'I'm not responsible for anyone else' attitude speed when they drive? After all they're not responsible for anyone else - pedestrians should be looking before they cross the road and if they can't cross a road safely should stay indoors.

No idea if it's linked to anti vaxxers or not, but that's a fantastic example of the selfish thought process of both anti vaxxers and dickhead drivers.

There are many drivers who think like that, and who are prepared to risk harming or killing other road users in order to get to where they want to go a few minutes quicker.

The link for me is that it's all about them, and what they want without consideration for anyone else.

In the 1970s there was a scare related to the vaccine for whooping cough. I can't remember all the details, but this was before the Wakefield MMR stuff.
I think most parents, like myself, give it a lot of thought. I decided that as all my children were healthy, robust, etc, they should have all the vaccines going.
However, there may be some children who have other health problems, for whom the vaccine should wait. So, my children being vaccinated will help with the herd immunisation.

However, there may be some children who have other health problems, for whom the vaccine should wait. So, my children being vaccinated will help with the herd immunisation

This is my take on it too. DS1 had delayed vaccinations for medical reasons (his immune system was wiped out by sepsis at 15 weeks). As soon as he was able (at 2) to have the rest of his immunisations he got them. DD and DS2 had them at the usual times.

I wonder if people who have the 'I'm not responsible for anyone else' attitude speed when they drive?

I made a similar point when I compared it to drunk drivers - all this talk about personal choice and I should be able to do what I want without regard for the consequences. What's the difference? We rightly stop drink drivers and prosecute them because they risk hurting other people.

Children who aren't vaccinated risk hurting other people. What is the difference?

This idea that people can evaluate scientific research... My DC were going through the vaccination schedule when the Wakefield storm broke. A friend of mine, a nurse no less, said, oh, will you be getting the baby vaccinated, I'm worried because of all this stuff about autism.

By that time I'd read the Wakefield paper. I have a limited scientific background and like MrsTerry did a couple of terms of stats, and I also knew about control groups (Wakefield didn't have one of those), sample sizes (Wakefield's was tiny) and self-selected samples (like Wakefield's). The paper struck me as totally batshit, but bearing in mind my comparatively limited scientific background, I checked with DH (who is a scientist) and he said, Yup, you're right, it's completely invalid.

But my friend, the nurse, was genuinely worried that Wakefield was right.

As for feeling guilty for pumping my DC full of toxins, er, no. I discovered that the TB vaccine is no longer routine in the UK but that my DC qualified (parent or GP born in one of a list of risky countries gives you entitlement). I was down to the doctor's like a bloody rocket and got them booked in to the vaccine clinic 20 miles away.

*10 miles. 20 mile round trip.

I agree with the person a few pages back who said (I'm paraphrasing) that it comes down to people's inability to evaluate risk: the potential consequences of actively doing something (i.e. vaccinating) seem huge and scary, whereas the risk of doing nothing (not vaccinating) seems trivial by comparison, because you're just preserving the status quo, right?

Also, I've noticed a nasty streak of ableism in a lot of anti-vaxxer materials. It's the assumption that vaccine-preventable diseases will only be dangerous for a child that "already has something wrong with it" * , whereas the stories circulated about side effects of vaccination always focus on damage to "perfect" children.

• Total bullshit, of course. My brother was a fantastically healthy baby when he had measles and it still damaged his health for years. Plus it goes without saying that children with existing health complications are as loved as any other bloody child - they're not fucking disposable.

My eldest was due to get the MMR during the Wakefield scandal and many of my friends questioned why he was still having it.

My view was that even if there was a risk from the vaccine (as there is with any drug at all) then it was tiny. We take risks every day - no one thinks twice about strapping their child into the car and yet statistically that is many, many times more dangerous than getting a vaccine.

It's quite strange to me how some people have chosen to focus on the risk from vaccines (as they see it) rather than any of the other far riskier things that they expose their children to every day.

Maybe anti-vaxxers should all go and live together into a little commune together away from those of us with herd immunity. See how it goes for them there. I’ve heard the vast improvement over the decades in child mortality rates is overrated anyway....

Just wondering if anyone knows if we had MMR as kids and when we might have had them? (I’m nearly 40)

My mother was anti vax anyway.

I did have rubella and mumps as a child, but not measles. So an epidemic means adults not immunised are at risk?

I do immunisations for my children, for myself, for others.

I admit I struggled with DS as he is nearly 17 and the Wakefield thing was hard. My mother’s influence was also awful. Kept telling me I would damage him for life. In the end I did do it, when he was older, but nurse was very sympathetic and said ‘you’re doing it now, that’s all that matters’.

Mmr never came in until the 80's. (NHS says 1988). I remember getting rubella vaccine at school but not if I had any others. I remember my sister having mumps one Christmas but don't know if any of the other kids caught it

My DD is fully vaccinated as am I.

Just 10 days ago I found out you can pay privately to get your child vaccinated against chicken pox, never heard of it before. Was talking to a pharmacist and they mentioned it.

Talked about it that with her dad and we decided to do it. We told her shes gonna have another jabby, this one to protect her from chicken pox (kids at her school have had it so she knows what it is).

Just had to wait till payday as Ive had reduced hours at work so been a bit skint. Payday is today.

But 4 days ago, She came home from school with a high temp, feeling ill and a few spots had appeared. By saturday morning she was covered.

Shes still off school (obviously - but the reason she got it was because parents sending their kids to school with open chicken pox! I only found out Saturday 😡).

I don't think she'll be back before next week, shes covered head to foot in spots, lethargic. Poor girl also has a urine infection and a cold along side it.

Ive had to take the week off work too and Ive got a fever too now.

I dont know if it would have made a difference but I feel horrible for her and I wish id booked her in the day I found out there was a vaccine.

Not vaccinating your child is selfish, moronic and the one person who will suffer is your child. You'll be full of regret when they get seriously sick or even die from something you could have helped prevent.