MMR - is there any well respected, well researched evidence against it?

[bohemianbint]

I'm due to get DS (16 months) jabbed around about now, and I'm just trying to get my head around the whole thing.

I'm erring on the side of just doing it - I'm aware that the fella who started the autism rumours was a bit of a religious nutter by all accounts and has been discredited.

There seems to be a lot of studies from reputable sources that it is a Good Thing. Are there any non-speculative, non-hysterical articles based in fact which support not giving it?

Even though the more I read, the more I think it's fine (and I don't let anyone jab me or mine un-necessarily, there was no syntocin or vit K jabs when I had DS!) I'm still a bit worried and want to be as informed as possible before making a decision.

Your help would be appreciated! (I can't make any decision without Mumsnet. )

Availabilityof singles is often very problematic here in Germany. When we were considering singles for ds1 (living in a rural district) we had to try and order the measles from Doc Morris and then we couldn't do it and when we finally could they said it'd take months. Lost our nerve and said oh fk it, we'll MMR him, and did and I went around with my heart in my mouth for weeks.

I've now moved to Berlin and my paed could have got hold of the measles for us if ds1 had needed it (and will do for ds2 when the time comes), but says she can't get the mumps.

I have to say I'm with CoteDAzur on the rubella. Ideally (IMO) we would go back to the system I was vaccinated under, of girls getting the rubella vax pre-puberty. Then it would be the respnsibility of the parents to ensure this was done. Unplanned pgs are a problematic issue, yes, but I don't think it's unreasonable for a woman to get her rubella immune status checked pre-ttc.

warthog- there's a really interesting paper from the end of 2006 published in Gut. It isn't about autism- but its about leaky gut (not as severe as enterocolitis- smaller holes!) being behind the rise in autoimmune conditions such as type 1 diabetes etc Autism is not mentioned at all (very wise) but the mechanism is very similar to that proposed by many people working in autism. I was struck at how it was like reading an autism paper (and it reflected what we thought had happened to ds1 - so was interesting- especially as type 1 diabetes is rife in the family).

The other stuff that is interesting is that many autistic children appear to have a problem processing vitamin A (retinol). Have a google for Megson and autism- and of course vitamin A is needed to clear measles - or at least is the best treatment for measles.

One difference between the Gut paper and some autism papers is that the autism papers suggest that all membranes in affected individuals are leaky. So leaky gut = leaky blood brain barrier etc. Of course at these stage these are models. The vulnerability comes from leaky membranes/inability to process vitamin A or whatever. And no one model will account for all autistic individuals. I think further work in this area looks promising - (especially the Gut stuff). Lets just hope it can get some funding.

very interesting that leaky gut = leaky membranes. why not? sounds very plausible.

cotedazur - you either risk your child contracting measles or you risking the side-effects of vaccines. unfortunately i don't have statistics for either, but surely you're much more likely to contract measles (esp. given there's an outbreak) than suffer from vaccine side-effects?

i don't agree that you are not responsible for other people's welfare by not vaccinating your child. we are a society, we have direct contact with people outside the family unit. if we lived in isolation, i'd agree with you.

i can see the argument that to save many, sacrifice the few and i think there is no answer to this until all the problems with vaccination have been ironed out. but we're not there yet. surely we're in a better place having these vaccines, than before?

i think most people assume that having been vaccinated, they're in the clear. there should be a programme for ensuring people's immunity throughout life, although i suspect it's somewhat far down on the nhs' list after caring for cancer / heart / smoking / obesity related patients.

i also think that society has a responsibility to make vaccinations 100% safe. it's just a long time coming.

problems with vaccinations don't tend to get 'ironed out' . they tend to be denied by the medical profession for many, many years [see thimerasol for example] until due to public pressure, just perhaps, something might get changed, and even then there is usually no acknoweldgement that there was a problem in the first place.

There is a deep flaw in the whole vaccination programme that I think will become clearer in future decades, when more and more adults, rather than children, contract vaccine preventable diseases, after vaccine immunity wears off. The recent outbreak of measles around my way affected mainly vaccinated children, and adults. I am not anti vaccine in any way, and agree they have contributed to public health. But there is simply no system in place to flag up problems with vaccine, and no research into safer vaccines possible because of the level of secrecy and denial around the issue in the medical system.

Thimerosal. Acknowledgement.

Agree with ruty - it seems that theoretically vaccinations can cause damage, but when presented with a potentially vaccine damaged child- brick wall.

I think we are in abetter place now. I'm not sure we will be if there's a mass wearing off of vaccine protection as the MMR (for example) generation will be. I'm not sure we will be if something like measles mutates (as may already have happened in SE asia).

I don't think vaccines can ever be 100% safe tbh- but I do think more could be done to tailor the schedule to the individual. It would cost more though so will never happen.

Ah thanks bero, I presume it's because their use is discouraged (IYSWIM) rather than they are used by everyone and therefore sold out.

I'm trying to remember why they switched the rubella timing will have to google and see where that leads.
It's funny how things very between countries, SIL is in OZ and all hers have been given the chicken pox job (I think she had to pay) which I wouldn't really be bothered with for mine, I am however a little unhappy that they have abondoned BCG yet restarted it here for babies therefore all mine will be unprotected.

only have BCG here for babies by request and in 'high risk' areas. Don't think it is one of the most effective vaccines, IIRC.

Been mulling. You know there is something that really ticks me off about these mmr / vaccine discussions. Is there any evidence of harm? Yes, tons and tons and tons. You don't even need Andrew Wakefield's study. There are epidemics of autism, ASD, allergies, asthma, immune system disorders all coinciding with an increased vaccine schedule and the introduction of MMR. There are at least 1500 families for a start with enough clinical and videographic evidence to take a case to court. There are people on here saying this is what happened to my child. And still people dismiss it.

It's as though there's a giant elephant in the middle of the room and people are looking round it, looking behind chairs, opening drawers, lifting up sofa cushions and saying -- nope, no elephant in here, I can't see it.

Call me reductionist but I just want to say -- wake up and smell the coffee. Behold the giant elephant!

Lucikly there are people like yurt and ruty et al here for cogent and detailed squishing of argument purposes which I am plainly not fit for.

to all those walking this difficult road -- in debate and in real life.

very good post candypandy

and I want to add one little point to it - the person I know who was seriously damaged by the MMR as a little girl - her mother is so traumatised by it, that she cannot utter the phrase "MMR" and cannot speak about anything to do with it. So in addition to the 1500 families with the evidence who have spoken out/registered their problems, there are those who are suffering in total "unregistered" silence like this girl and her mum.

Hear hear, Candypandy.

The unquestioning faith in vaccines and the utterly aggressive hostility to those questioning them scares me. It's like brainwashing.

Crokky -- that's so terrible. Those 1500 are the tip of the iceberg. And no apologies and no recognition and no compensation. It makes you sick.

candypandy- yes I agree. The Gut article from 2006 so important as it seemed a way of describing why autoimmune conditions have rocketed - it didn't include autism- but there is quite a bit of evidence that at least in some cases autism is autoimmune.

Part of the problem with autism is that there probably has been better diagnosis at the high functioning/AS end of the spectrum. However I was chatting to someone who has a son now in his ??? 30's I think - he attended ds1's school. Ds1's school is for some of the most severely affected children in the local area- most are not toilet trained, many have no speech etc- it takes children with a wide range of disabilities she said to me 'where are all these autistic children coming from? When my son was at school there were hardly any in the entire school, now I go into classes and there are whole classes'. These are not children who could have been missed or who could have pootled along at school unrecognised. If this end of the spectrum is increasing in numbers then something is going on. Personally I think looking at leaky gut in combination with a whole wide range of potential environmental triggers would be fruitful.

i think it is fair to say MMR is only a 'small' part of the problem [small in terms of statistics, devastating for those whose children are affected] It seems autism, and many auto immune disorders, can be caused by a multiple array of triggers as yurt says. It makes me laugh when doctors have absolutely no idea what actually causes auto immune problems, but then say, without equivocation, that enviromental pollutants and vaccines, etc, are in no way to blame. I had a severe form of arthritis that suddenly occured almost overnight and lasted almost a year. I still have the antibodies in my blood but only mild symptoms now. Doctors have absolutely no idea what caused it, but they are quite sure about what didn't cause it. I find that attitude, especially in light of the lack of research, rather peculiar and illogical.

I chose to get my son's MMR done privately.

Yes, I did also initially encounter hostility and then apathy. Yes, I know that research was discredited but I don't think there is anything to say no link.

I just didn't want to overload a tiny little immune system with three nasty vaccines in one go.

Doctors are not scientists and my gp tried to persuade me to have the mmr as if I was not planning to have him vaccinated at all against anything.I wasn't convinced.

I took the decision based on the overload and the fact I didn't want to be watching nervously for the next 6 or so months. That's basically it.

Good luck in reaching your decision.

Yes ruty it's about 60% I think personally I'd rather go with that than nothing, although I would prefer it at 11ish (when we had it) my lo is young enough for BCG but the calling is so crap here (it's actually non-existant) we didn't get it and now he wont.
On another level it's shocking in such an inner city 'needy' area that their call up is non existant. How do they expect to catch anyone if they don't call them? When my oldest had one of his jabs it took me about 6 goes, going between GP and HV while they both said the other one will do it!!

And as far as I know TB is mutating? Certainly becoming resistant to many antibiotics, not sure if mutating beyond vaccine cover...

what i don't understand is, if you go to the gp and tell them that your dc has had a reaction to something: a drug or a vaccine, does the gp relay this info to the drug company?

and if not, how on earth do they get feedback on whether drugs work?

i'm pretty sure that when i've reported problems with drugs to my gp, that info hasn't gone further. or am i wrong?

there is a system for reporting vaccine damage, but you try getting a doctor to admit there is a link between any reaction and a vaccine. Very, very hard and almost impossible to prove.

Having said that you do have to weigh up the advantages of vaccines, of which there are undoubtedly some. There just has to be a bit more honesty and frankness, not to mention research, about some of the [fairly infrequent] side effects.

My GP absoloutely refused to report this as an adverse reaction in spite of several heated arguements full and frank discussions.