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?

You can't force vaccinations on everyone. Instead of judging, realise that there are genuine concerns for many people.

People who watch and believe YouTube vids than you know actual doctors/scientists

you can’t force vaccinations on everyone

That’s exactly what Matt Hancock is considering at the moment. If you want your child in state nurseries and schools anyway. Vaccinations are compulsory in some countries already, I understand.

Exceptions can always be made for people with genuine health concerns. They will be better protected if everyone else is too.

@Tolleshunt I absolutely agree. Even knowing the risk of a reaction was minimal there was still that terrible feeling of "what if".

I also think it speaks to the terrible attitudes to disability that we have. I think I'd much prefer my DD to be inoculated against something like measles, which can cause terrible illness and a horrid death, than run the perceived risk of autism (which I know doesn't actually happen, I hasten to add). As I said in my previous post, better a living child than a dead one.

I recently saw pictures on FB of a child who'd contracted measles (was too young for the vaccine). The mother posted in detail the absolute agony her child was going through (eyes sealed shut due to swelling, not knowing where her mother was and not understanding the pain). It was devastating.

Completely agree with you about the awful attitudes to disability within our society, Bishop. This must be playing into the fear.

Unless there is a valid reason like the child being ill, there is only one reason that people choose not to vaccinate- STUPIDITY.

Any parent who chooses not to vaccinate their Child because of a silly belief in risks or herd immunity is a dimwit and a terrible terrible person.

I spent my childhood in Pakistan, I saw first hand what measles and tetanus can do to people.

My son wasn’t vaccinated as his birth parents couldn’t be arsed, he contracted Men B as he wasn’t fully vaccinated, he was incredibly lucky, he ‘only’ lost some toes and suffered permanent damage to his hearing.

Bishop, someone once said on a thread like this before that they would rather a dead child than an autistic one. I will never get my head round that

Genuinely curious...
What about children who HAVE become severely ill or died as a result of vaccinations?
There ARE risks.

If people choose not to vaccinate, that's up to them.

However, I feel very strongly that those who choose not to vaccinate (as opposed to being unable to for medical reasons) shouldn't be allowed to benefit from herd immunity and bring preventable diseases around those who are unable to have vaccinations, or those whose immunity is comprised.

So feel free not to vaccinate, but also keep your children well away from other children, public places and people who are immunosuppressed.

Because whatever your medical opinion of vaccines, there is absolutely nothing that gives you the right to affect the lives of others with your opinion.

And don't even start me on the autism anti vaxxers. That is a level of stupidity I don't even know where to start unpicking.

White privilege indeed.

I wonder if @cantpissinpeace would share with us the differential risk of the MMR compared with the risk of separate measles and mumps vaccines, plus potential adult rubella vaccine?

I think most people have that "what if" feeling when it comes to vaccines. It's only natural when your baby is about to be injected with somthing. We are all trusting the vaccine is as safe as it can be.

I think people had that fear pre Internet conspiracies. But, people tend not to deflect from the norm and the majority. So everyone got the vaccines because that's what you do. Now we have a movement telling people it's ok to be scared of vaccine and to not vaccinate your child due to that fear. So people now feel not vaccinating is a reasonable choice.

I don't think they need reason or logic not to vaccinate, just being told its OK not to vaccinate, and others don't do it too, is enough.

I always ask antivaxers this question - did they educate themselfes of the symptoms of ilnesses that they kids aren't immunnised against because their kids are likely to get them anytime. It usually kills that conversation.

What about children who HAVE become severely ill or died as a result of vaccinations?
There ARE risks.

And they are tiny compared to vaccinations. It's like walking in the road in traffic because occasionally cars mount the pavement and kill people. They do, very rarely, but walking in the road makes you REALLY at risk all the time.

I think some anti vaxxers enjoy the attention, and do it just to get that attention. They can play the victim, pretend they're oppressed in some way, pretend they're the only parents who actually care about their kids blah blah blah.

Some people just feed off attention and do anything they can to be noticed.

@smallereveryday I would love it if anyone who could be proven to have been an antivaxxer and was therefore complicit in an outbreak was prosecuted for causing grievous bodily harm, just as people who knowingly pass on HIV have been. Unfortunately it's probably not going to happen, so the Japanese route of saying no school for unvaccinated kids (without a doctor's note, that is) will maybe be more effective. At least then you know that at least kids and teachers are safe if immunity wears off, and anti vaxxers can take the consequences and home school if they are that invested in it.

Figure8 what about children who HAVE become severely ill or died as a result of vaccinations?

What is the % compared to the % of children who e become seriously Ill as a result of a preventable disease? Genuinely curious.
You must know it, surely?

Stupidity mainly. Selfishness too. I'd like to take anti vaxxers to come and work with me in my previous job looking after a child who had completed their chemotherapy and didn't have cancer anymore who caught measles and died. Absolutely horrific, also I've looked after a baby who was too young to have vaccinations and they died from whooping cough because herd immunity failed when the herd isn't immunised.

I'm pro-vax but I did read into separating vaccines instead of MMR. It basically it increases risk, as there is more time your child is not vaccinated against one thing or another. Plus cost, so you may not complete the vaccines due to having to pay. Then you have more separate times of reaction, more separate times of the child being jabbed. So rather than the standard 48 hours of a temperature situation you prolong it.

I however had a big irrational fear on getting the whooping cough vaccine when pregnant with DC1. I didn't have it and luckily he was fine, but I don't think I would take this risk again in another pregnancy. I didn't think it through, and I put my baby at risk.

what do you mean that you have no responsibility to random pregnant women? What you are saying is, I don't give a shit about the rest of society as long as me and mine are okay.

Smokers are worse. Perhaps we should make that illegal or at least carry the same contempt.

There's a YouTube channel called Vaxxed TV have a look there to see what people have gone through after vaccinating their children again and again. You can't force vaccinations on everyone. Instead of judging, realise that there are genuine concerns for many people

Exactly many of these so called YouTube channels are actually run by doctors who have actually studied vaccines or researched them.

Wakefield , Crippen and Wobbly and Haddock - all doctors at one point.

Some people don't vaccinate for genuine medical reasons and they have to rely on here immunity to keep safe.

Other people don't vaccinate because they have done their research and think for themselves... and by that they think some YouTubers and facebook conspiracy theories constitute research. They simultaneously think vaccines are the work of bigpharma citing herbs and water with memory as better options, but would probably throw out their crystal healing in favour of medical treatment if their child got critically ill.

Smokers are worse. Perhaps we should make that illegal or at least carry the same contempt.

We have had laws for quite some time to mitigate the health impacts of smokers on others.

I’m in favour of similar for vaccinations.

It's not too hard to steer clear of smokers now that that have to smoke outside. Plus when they are actually smoking it's obvious (and they smell of fags anyway).

That unvaccinated person who's about to come down with measles cooing over your tiny unvaccinated baby in the park, as you push your toddler on the swing, though...

I had a child who reacted badly to the whooping cough vaccine, so badly the GP advised waiting until she was older and giving her a different version. For that period of over a year, she relied on herd immunity. Thankfully that was before Andrew Bloody Wakefield started spouting his unscientific crap (no control group, tiny sample population which was not exactly randomly selected).

We have had laws for quite some time to mitigate the health impacts of smokers on others.
But they don't eradicate the risks. Going into a hospital you have to go past smokers, if you live in flats you live with your neighbours smoke. At the bus stop more smoke, carcinogenic mutating cells. Given 50% will get cancer what % is due to smokers infecting non smokers?

That unvaccinated person who's about to come down with measles cooing over your tiny unvaccinated baby in the park, as you push your toddler on the swing, though...
You mean any person that is about to come down with measles or has been recently vaccinated and infectious. Vaccinated people also get measles and often don't know they are infectious if the symptoms are mild.

But they don't eradicate the risks.

No, and neither would eg requiring vaccination for state education. But it would reduce the risks in a similar way through using regulation. Saying ‘smoking causes harm so we shouldn’t do anything about low vaccination rates’ is a fallacious argument both on the grounds that inaction on one thing doesn’t justify inaction on another, and on the grounds that there have been steps taken to reduce the harm to others of the choice to smoke.

or has been recently vaccinated and infectious.

Please don’t spread such incorrect nonsense.