MMR single vaccines just a bit of info please.

[leander]

I feel a bit nervous posting this as i dont want to start anymore arguments,but we got our app through for ds's mmr.We would prefer to give him the single vaccines but people keep saying they are not licensed and some say they are.I will go and talk to my hv about it but I thought the combined wisdom of mumsnet may be able to tell me more.

You have to prove your child has had MMR to travel to th US?

Gilll-this is exactly why the single jabs should be availbale on the NHS. Even if they're not availbale for everyone they should be available for "at risk" families. It's easy to find those- a simple look at family history would give that. Again follow the link I posted earlier to the autism research unit and you'll find the sort of things that make a child fall into the at risk category.

No you don't gill- you have to prove your child has had vaccinations to go to school in some states in the US.

CAM- good point about giving when the child has had the diseases- this is excatly the sort of thing that has to change with vaccination policy. All vaccinations carry as risk of some sort. Every single one. Children should not be given vacciantions they do not need. Simple. End of story.

tomps- I agree with you totally. I'd recommend homeopathy before and after any vaccination. Of course the problem with this is that wiaiting lists for NHS homeopathy are pretty long so you might have to wait a long time! Unless of course you can afford to see a practitioner.

You also need to prove it if you want to make use of any childcare facilities while you're there. We ski in North America quite regualarly, and I don't know of any resort childcare which doesn't ask for certificates of vaccination.

The US policy is quite comforting to me about MMR - they have been using it for a lot longer than we have, and they are the most litigious country in the world, they also have a larger number of children - surely they would have spotted any potential risks, and be making a big deal out of it!!!

You also need to prove it if you want to make use of any childcare facilities while you're there. We ski in North America quite regualarly, and I don't know of any resort childcare which doesn't ask for certificates of vaccination.

Jimjams - my point wasn't whether or not the single vaccines should be available on the NHS, it was that publicity along the lines of "go for single vaccines if you want to avoid your child becoming autistic", whether you believe MMR is implicated in that or not, is a gross exageration of the probability that there will be a problem. I'm sure many people, like my friend, now believe that there is a very high chance of problems if they go ahead with the MMR.

GillW - If you friend wants single vaccines Desumo do single vaccines and assist with costs if you can't afford it.

georgina- I see the problem with getting the vaccination! 6 months!

musica- a group of US parents are taking the manufacturers to court at the moment over the MMR and their child's autism. As are a group of parents in this country.

Gill. The anti MMR lobby don't say "your child will become autistic if they have the MMR" they say "the MMR may be a problem for a minority of children". Autism is a pretty big inconvenience imo, and therefore it is worth knowing about possible causes. I have already posted links to the research showing that there may be a problem for some children, and links to the warning signs that would put your child in the at risk group.

I've said it before unless your family history shows a lot of allergies and autoimmune disease then the risk from the MMR and indeed any vaccination is probably negligible. If however you do have a family history of this type then it's probably worth doing extra reading before making your decision, just so that you can make an accurate risk benefit ratio. There are potential risks and benefits with whichever route you take. And to allow all parents the free choice to make thei decision single vaccines should be available- then there wouldn't be a guilt factor.

If there is a possibility that children are being damaged by the MMR (and there is -see earlier links) this should not be ignored. A child regressing into autism is a tragedy for those affected families. The children with autistic enterocolitis (these are the ones supposedly MMR damaged) have all sorts of physical problems (often painful as well), and these deserve to be looked at.

Oh well won't go skiing in north america then- couldn't leave ds2 at childcare. Thinking about it couldn't leave ds1 either-he's fully vaccinated but he's autistic.

I have just spent ages reading through all the information on this thread and it has been very interesting. I have recenly discovered that my dd has an immune deficiency - IgA and IgM, does this mean that she is more likely to develop autism if she has the mmr vaccine.

Information I have received from the Primary Immune Association says that they don't recommend live vaccines if you have a deficiency. I was assuming that this is because their immune systems couldn't cope with the vaccination. If I have understood what you have said though JimJams, my dd is more likely to develop autism if she had the mmr because of the immune deficiency.

Sorry if that all sounds confusing, I know what I was trying to say.

Just wondered if anyone knew what the likelihood of catching measles is, if you don't have any vaccinations at all.

Angiel- I'd have to reread some of my files- (which I will do). The problem comes with autoimmune diseases and vaccination if the immune system is havily loaded towards a th2 type response. I will look it up as soon as I get a chance- and post more.

I don't know whether she's more ikely to develop autism- but it may be that there are other risks (maybe she's more likely to develop meningitis from the mumps part for example)

Measles is very infectious. If you come into contact with it - it's fairly certain that you will develop it. With an immune system problem that could be serious (I would assume it is if they say avoid live vaccines). Most of the figures for measles deaths are relevant to the third world where children/adults are vitamin A deficient. Most pre 90's health books in the UK describe measles as "usually mild". However they do of course assume a fully funtioning immune system. The best treatment for measles infection is high dose vitamin A (I seem to remember intravenous is best. It reduces the number of complications and reduces the length of time to recovery. You could give homeopathic morbillinum at times of measles outbreaks. I'm not saying it would work and I'm not saying it's an alternative to vaccination, but if you couldn;t vaccinate it wouldn't do any harm- and if it worked it would have cost you 4 quid for the remedy.

The scientific analaysis may not be saying that they will get autism - but I've seen at least one leaflet about this which actually used the words "significant risk". And a lot of the media reporting has been guilty on that front too. I think if you were to do a survey and ask people what percentage of children given MMR would be likely to develop autism afterwards, you'd find that public perception and scientific analysis are wildly different.

Sorry I know I'm probably being really dense but can somebody tell me if the mmr is a live vaccine?

TIA

CAM because she'd had the Measles before she was 1 years old and a mild case of Rubella it was considered safer to make sure she had the immunisation still in case she went down with it again. I know her mum was very concerned when she had measles as one spot was right in her eye and there was some question as to whether her eyesight would be affected (although I believe that it wasn't in the end).

angiel- yes it is.

GillW- who one earth published that leaflet. Very few children will be at "significant risk", although some (very very few) may be.

I think general public opinion on risk is always wrong though. How many smokers do you know?
The risk form measles for a well nourished western child is often overplayed. For example this is an extract from "First Aid and Family Health" edited by Dr Trevor Weston MD MRCGP published in 1981 "In most communities of the western world (where measles has been established for centuries) the condition is mild, and hardly every dangerous" You won't find that on any leaflets in your GP's these days! This is not to underplay the complications of measles- my mother was left deaf in one ear following measles, but the risk needs to be understood. For most people measles will pass without incidence (unpleasant- sure I remember having it), likewise the MMR would pass without incidence. However if a certain group of children are at risk of developing autism following MMR then attempts should be made to identify them. They could then receive single vaccines, or non whatsoever- whatever was deemed the best route. But it is absolutelty no good saying "oh it's only a few kiddies anyway" when it's your child that's then affected. This is why all the facts should be available for people. It's no good saying "oh vaccinations have no side effects" when of course they do. I suspect if all the information was made freely available that most people would choose (probably quite rightly) to give their child the MMR. But they should at least be allowed to make an informed choice- pretending half the research doesn't exist (see previous link to Paul Shattock's stuff) isn't doing that.

georgina- just interested measles before the age of one is usually very serious, and babies don't usually get it as they have maternal antibodies from the mother. Do you know whether the mother had had measles as a child, or had she been vaccinated (this is my personal worry about vaccinating against measles- it could lead to babies being more at risk if the vaqccine antibodies wear off). Genuinely very interested (not stirring!)

Jimjams - I don't have the leaflet - it was sent to my friend not to me, and I don't know if she'd have kept it, but I do remember it also advising "don't trust anything your doctor may tell you" which is another off message in my book. To be fair, although it was pushing single vaccines, I got the impression it was something that had been done by a person or group lobbying on this, rather than by one of the single vaccine suppliers. I suppose as individuals there are a lot less controls on what can be said/printed than there would be on a company - and when people become so evangelical about something, then balance and accuracy do tend to be the losers, and mis-information can often be the result, even if it wasn't the original intention.

Basically we're of much the same opinion - when you say "I suspect if all the information was made freely available that most people would choose (probably quite rightly) to give their child the MMR" I'd have to agree with that. Unfortunately both sides of the argument seem intent on ensuring this isn't the case, and I'm not sure that all the scare stories are really halping anyone. The more hysteria gets whipped up about this, the more denial there is that there might be a case for investigating the rare circumstances in which it might not be advisable, and the more denial that takes place the more evangelical the anti-MMR lobby gets. And at the end of the day no-one wins except the single vaccine providers who're turning a tidy profit, often at the un-neccesary expense of parents who can ill afford it.

I doubt that the single vaccine producers could have put out a leaflet aimed that the general public in that way. It is against the pharmaceutical industries' code of practice to promote prescription medicines to the general public. This is why you don't get ads for antibiotics, but you do get them for pain killers. If they put out a leaflet saying, 'don't trust anything your GP tells you', they would risk a very large fine, and a censure from the ABPI. In the same way MMR producers do not produce leaflets that are aimed at getting a member of pulic to ask for them from their GP. Promoting prescription only medicines to the general public is a big no-no. It is far more likely to be an anti MMR pressure group producing them.

Gill- when has the anti MMR campaign been evanglical? I'm genuinely interested to see something that has come from the anti MMR campaign that says anything other than "the MMR may be a problem for some children". The most evangelical stuff I've seen has come from the dept of healh.

Actually it's interesting I did a survey for a while on the reporting of the MMR story in the press. Almost all the press reports were pro MMR (which did suprise me). Private Eye has an anti MMR campaign and the Daily Mail had a kind of "tell us about leo" campaign but most of the stuff was very pro MMR. Recently there has been stuff in the papers as the claim against the vaccine manufacturers is heading towards court, and vaccine strain measles has been found in the brain of some autistic childre, but it's been fairly restrained.

The absolute worse case of misreporting I saw concerned the single mumps vaccine. It was a report in the BMJ (I think - if I remember correctly) which said that single vaccines put patients at risk as single mumps vaccine caused many cases of meningitis. The thing is there is a strain of single mumps vaccine that does indeed cause meningitis (the urabe strain) which is why the mumps single vaccine used by all clinics is jeryl lyn (spelling?) which is the same as the mumps component of the MMR (this had been checked by the autism research unit- as I raised this point with them at the time of the BMJ report). At best the authors of this report were ignorant, at worse they were deliberately misleading.