Anyone see GMTV feature on measles, telling everyone to get the MMR? It's put me in a dither again....

[bohemianbint]

We decided a while back that we are only going to give DS the single measles jab, as I'm not so concerned about mumps and rubella for him and I still have reservations re the MMR.

We haven't yet got round to sorting it out though and getting the money together. And apparently now there's cases of measles confirmed in Manchester where we live and there are rumblings about an "epidemic". Having not got around to immunising DS yet I'm getting the fear, and wondering again whether we wouldn't be better just doing the MMR.

Don't want it it be a financial decision, don't want him to get measles, don't want to make the wrong decision and damage him.

Not even sure what my reasons are for being wary of the MMR (apart from not being convinced he needs immunising about mumps and rubella.) Have no idea what to do.

Just thinking aloud really, I've found it virtually impossible to make a decision about this and I'm not comfortable with not being able to define my reasons for not wanting the MMR.

Is there any history of problematic allergies or autoimmune disorders in your family?
You might find this information very useful in deciding whether, realistically, MMR and other immunisations pose a raised risk of serious side-effects for your ds. Amazing how the media prefers to carry on rubbernecking at the way Andrew Wakefield's career has imploded (poor man) rather than report on this excellent initiative at Sunderland.
We did single jabs for ds (he's nine now and we didn't then know that specific conditions might predispose children to suffer vaccine side-effects). We chose the MMR for dd because we felt more confident that for her, the risks of problems were low.
Our single jabs provider would not sell us the measles jab alone. We had to buy a course of the three.
We had a measles epidemic locally too, apparently. How many people do I know whose child fell prey to this plague? Zero.

Thanks for that Marina. I was wondering if I was being over-paranoid, in that DS is healthy, has had all his other jabs with no problems, and there is nothing in the family that should cause concern.

My overriding feeling is that he would probably be ok. But probably is difficult as a parent, you want definitely, don't you?

And DS is nearly 2 now, so I'm wondering if that might be a factor in deciding, as in his immune system should now be more developed?

give him the MMR FFS! It is perfectly safe!

Measles can cause serious brain damage even years after the orginal infection

Mumps can affect the testes and cause irreversible infertility in boys

Rubella is not that bad for boys but if one of your friends were to be pregnant and caught the infection off your chlid, it could cause birth defects in her baby.

The risk that your ds could catch any of these is rising esp in urban areas where stupid people choose not to vaccinate their children.

And I'll mention again that the MMR jab is perfectly safe...

rant over

We are all anxious about our DCs bohemianbint I think it's natural. I was a bit nervous with dd - and yes, we did leave it until she was two.
We have also declined to participate in the top-up frenzy for EXTRA MMR boosters in SE London. That's in addition to the pre-school one.
I found looking at the larger picture helped me finally book the appt with the nurse.

We had no underlying health concerns - like you. But we did know, and know of, people whose children, or parents, were immunocompromised due to illness or treatment for cancer, and couldn't be immunised. Not to mention baby rellies still too young for the MMR.
I felt that as we had no concrete reason NOT to vaccinate dd, we owed it to these people to eliminate the risk of it being our child who passed on one of these illnesses. That was an easy-ish decision for us to make. Anyone with lupus, MS, ASD, Crohn's, etc in our family and I know I'd have felt very differently.
Try not to be swayed by the TV reporting. The DoH's line on measles is very extreme IMO, and almost alarmist. Do what you feel comfortable with

sally - you will probably get a bit of flak for that post - but i wanted to say that I totally agree with your view

its a really hard decision to make, one i am still nervous about.

ds4 will have single jabs, whatever the non-emapthic dr hilary says.

ds3 regressed after mmr. i have no reason to assume a link as ds1 is also asd, but i think someone would have to be very hard not to understand the worry in my heart over this.

ds3's booster is our main worry i guess, its needed for school as there is a child there with cancer. i havent been able to arrange it yet and dread it fully.

Well, Peachy, situations like yours are a revealing example of why the MMR, or indeed any other vaccine, is not perfectly safe for everyone. I think you are completely justified in hesitating and I just wish that there was better acknowledgement in the medical profession that in particular cases, vaccine safety is a major concern.
If they were more transparent about this, then people like me and bohemianbint would probably feel more confident about proceeding with immunisation.
As long as they refuse to acknowledge and investigate cases like yurt's ds1 and your ds3, then parents will be bound to have generalised anxiety on the matter.

Bohemian, I sympathise with your slightly non definable concerns. I am starting to fret about this one as well. Ds will be due these in around months. I believe passionately in vaccinating children and believe that I have a responsibility to make sure he is vaccinated but there's something about MMR that just niggles me. I read an article in the Telegraph I think at the weekend that indicated that vaccines and MMR is particular seem to act as triggers if there is already a genetic predisposition to autism - something to do with mitochondria?

Obviously I haven't a clue if ds is at risk or not but to me I am inclining towards not risking it and going for single jabs. I just need to find somewhere that does them because my local private hospital doesn't.

bohemian, just to add to your post (i did try earlier but didn't post as it wasn't very helpful!)

I too live in manchester. there has been a confirmed case of whooping cough at DS1s school because of not vaccinating and an unconfirmed case of measles. Thats ds1's school alone out of however many there are inmanchester as a whole.

Please get your cildren vaccinated. whether you go for the single jabs or the MMR please protect them.

I am sure everything is classed as an epidemic of there have been no cases in years and years and suddenly 2 pop up in 1 area!

It was Monday's Telegraph wasabi, I saw it as well. Linked here - maybe bohemianbint will find it interesting too.

sally and northern -- here comes some of that flak!

MMR is not perfectly safe.

MMR can cause serious brain damage even years after the orginal injection.

Mumps can affect the testes and cause irreversible infertility in boys, especially if they catch it when teenagers or young adults after their vaccination immunity has worn off.

Pregnant women should check their own immunity and not rely on other children to take risk to protect their unborn.

There are always rumblings of an epidemic, it helps to increase the vaccination rate.

"Stupid people" -- there's no need for that.

Thank you for the link Marina - my memory still isn't quite what it was....

I do think the DoH is very extreme on the MMR - it's like their policy is 'do not question, do not question, do not question, this vaccine IS 100% safe and effective'.

I was a bit alarmed at the nurses at our excellent GP practice when ds2 had his MMR. He had been very grumpy after his 2,3,4 month imms, so for his MMR I asked that they didn't give the extra meningitis jab at the same time (it just felt like it would be too much for his immune system, and he is also quite small for his age, so low weight). The receptionist said this would be fine, but the nurse took the line 'That's not an option, he has to have both.' I argued that he didn't, I had to give consent for both, and her reply was that if he only had the MMR then he wouldn't be allowed another appointment for the other one . She said there simply 'weren't enough appointment times for everyone to have the extra jab separately from the MMR'. At which point she said 'why don't you want them both anyway?' so I said that after the previous jabs he'd been unwell, highish temperature, and her response was 'well that is different, you have a reason, it's a good reason, no problem.' It's almost like they have been told to refuse unless you can argue your point.

As far as measles goes, I'm fairly sure ds2 has just had a mild dose of measles, or something very like it. But reading up about measles, I have discovered that the doctors WILL NOT diagnose measles if the child is vaccinated. They will call it a 'non-specific virus' or a 'measles-like virus'. And this ties in with ds2 - when I went into the room, the GP immediately commented on his rash, and said 'has he had his MMR? Are you SURE he is vaccinated against measles?' When I said he had had MMR, she said 'non-specific virus, very contagious, keep him away from other children, playgroups, nursery etc.' Retrospectively I think I should have asked her to test for measles, so I knew, but he recovered quickly, and it was very mild - high temp for 2 days, runny eyes, (which he always gets with any bug), cough then rash on face which spread down his neck to cover him!

I feel sorry for Andrew Wakefield too - I think he is very hard done by, as the way I understand the problem with MMR is that for most children it IS 100% safe. But for a very small subset of children it is a disaster, and instead of proving statistically that it is safe (which wouldn't bring up the corner cases in any case) they could perhaps concentrate on identifying which children will be adversely affected by it BEFORE they have it. I think of it as being like air-travel - most aeroplanes are safe. But every so often there is an aeroplane that WILL crash. And if you could identify that aeroplane before it took off, no-one would get on board. Likewise if children could be screened prior to the MMR, then those children who would suffer effects/regressions could be given single jabs, and safe children could have the MMR jab confidently.

Oh, that is interesting torty. Funnily enough, a little pal of ds' at nursery had a textbook case of rubella after his MMR.
His GP did the same. About-faced after checking the vaccination records
And then they wonder why we have doubts about the whole picture re vaccine safety and efficacy.
BlueDragonfly mentioned whooping cough. I am sure I heard that this "epidemic" is a new strain against which the current vaccine is not as effective, hence the large numbers of cases.

Oh I hadn't read the whooping cough bit - funnily enough, dd saw a GP about 3 months ago with a really bad cough, GP very quietly said 'well, I'll just give her some 'big' ABs, just in case it's whooping cough' - which I took to be 'she has whooping cough!.

Yeah ok I apologise for saying "stupid people" in my rant. I do not really mean that people who do not vaccinate are stupid, in fact most are highly educated, middle class mothers who "just have that niggling doubt"

My point is, if you weigh up the anti MMR arguments (niggling doubts, anecdotal cases with no proven link to the vaccine, and Wakefield's discredited paper) against the pro MMR arguments (the vacc is proven to protect against awful diseases, which have been proven to cause death or profound disability) it seems to me to be a no-brainer of a decision.

My DH had rubella and was extremely unwell, due to the timing it nearly wrecked his career forever. And as I said, for a man that is the most benign of the 3 diseases.

(i mean DH had rubella the disease, not rubella the jab)

After seeing this I was going to do a thread titled " AIBU to think that parents who don't get their children immunised are irresponsible and NOT thinking about the childs welfare." decided against it though, but it is my opinion.

bohmeianbint, do you have a supportive HV who you can talk this through with?

It doesn't matter how anyone decides to go about doing it, but children should be immunised, these are VERY dangerous diseases that have become undercontrol due to immunisation. Choosing not to immunise your children is going to cause unnecessary serious illness out breaks in the future.