Decided against vaccinations for dd...... thoughts please

[bogie]

We had full intentions of vaccinating dd (ds-3 had his baby vaccines but no mmr) but our helth visitor left we haven't had a health visitor since dd was 2 weeks old, our gp practice is rubbish and even though I registered dd after the birth they lost the slip and had no record of it.
So we didn't hear anything about her jabs and when they needed to see her, nor did I have a postnatal 10 week check.
I phoned a few weeks ago when they said they didn't know we had a new baby and that someone must of misplaced the forms dd is now 4 months(18 weeks) and they said we need to get her in asap for her jabs but they have no appointments untill the 16th of Jan, We fly to USA on the 16th so we can't do that day she said well thats al we hae so it will have to be when you get back in feburary.

So I decided to reserch the vaccines and came across lots of anti-vaccine sites including this one
www.vaclib.org/
articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2008/11/11/some-parents-are-home-schooling-their-kids-to -avoid-vaccinations.aspx and we have decided not to vaccinate her based on the many sites we have come across, also the fact that we have alot of autisum in our family including my younger brother who had the mmr whereas I didn't have the mmr.

So I am interested to hear other peoples poins of veiw

PMSL that a parent shouldn't decide not to vaccinate without talking to a health professional too.

Any idea how hard it is to find one to talk to who is willing ot listen to what you are saying, rather than just trotting out the current gov advise?

My dd1 is autistic. She had a number of jabs as a tiny newborn (we lived abroad at the time, so she had a huge cocktail of stuff, including some we expressly asked not to be given to her, at just 3 days old. She had difficulty feeding for the next 3 days (had been fine until that point) and literally slept for a week. We will never know how much this affected her).

dd2 has a suspected mitochondrial disorder. she, thankfully, has not had a single jab (yes, i really AM that irresponsible) but we have just received yet another reminder from our gp that she is due her mmr.

This despite me sitting in his office just 6 weeks ago and asking him who I could see about dd2, as her current general paed is not being very helpful.

and before anyone suggests that both my gp and dd2's paed might be right - try googling Hannah Poling, and you might see just why I am so thankful dd2 has never had a single jab. And still doctors dismiss my concerns over dd2...

"Infection in adults is associated with greater morbidity and mortality due to pneumonia, hepatitis, and encephalitis. In particular, up to 10% of pregnant women with chickenpox develop pneumonia, the severity of which increases with onset later in gestation. In England and Wales, 75% of deaths due to chickenpox are in adults. [6] Inflammation of the brain, or encephalitis, can occur in immunocompromised individuals, although the risk is higher with herpes zoster.[15] Necrotizing fasciitis[16] is also a rare complication."
From Wikipedia

It seems generally accepted that vaccination in developing countries is always A Good Thing.

It may be worth thinking about the value of mass immunisation campaigns against polio using OPV (the cheap version as opposed to IPV the inactivated version) in slums without any sanitation, when it is known that children shed the live virus in faeces after vaccination.

This is a tremendously successful way to spread live virus in a vulnerable, malnourished population.

Not saying that I would vaccinate against chickenpox .... just that it can kill. Wikipedia doesn't mention anything about common colds causing fatalities (although it does state that those with impaired lung function may develop pneumonia) which would suggest that the fatality rate is rather lower than that for chicken pox ... plus there is no known treatment/cure/vaccination for the cold.

Inflammation of the brain, or encephalitis, can occur in immunocompromised individuals," and there is the flaw in the argument. because most parents of immunocompromised children would not have them vaccinated.

How many people die each year from chicken pox? Out of the population of approximately 60 million? hundreds of thousands? tens of thousands? thousands? hundreds?

no, it's approximately

25

A bit of perspective me thinks.

robinia the whole point of the research you refer to is that is it important to get chickenpox as a child, which most children do at prestent. If you vaccinate against it, you then run a huge risk of vaccine immunity wearing off, and then contracting it as an adult, when the disease is far more dangerous. The same thing is happening with mumps and measles at present. For measles, it can be serious for children too, so the vaccine is warranted, but for chickenpox, it really is, and the DOH has stated this clearly, about preventing adults taking more time off work when their children are ill.

slug does that mean if one of you [parents] had an auto immune illness your dh would not vaccinate your children? genuine question.

that's awful herbietea your poor DS. But a severe complication is very rare. I guess that is the thing - severe complications from vaccines are very rare too but they do happen - one has to weigh up which risk is higher for each individual child.

yes but the difference is that there is an immunisation campaign against those other illnesses, whereas there is currently no immunisation against chicken pox so nowhere near the same amount of people get mumps/measles/rubella etc as contract chicken pox.

"but he could have died and so I think people should be aware of how serious it can be". But the parents of children who have regressed following vaccination have that exact same argument. Why can people not see that?

but for most people it is a mild illness. so it is wrong to say that chicken pox is a serious illness - it isn't. For a neglidgable amount of people it can have serious repercussions, and I'm sorry that your ds was one of those, but 25 deaths a year does not, IMO, warrant a nationwide vaccination campaign. In fact, what happens if those children who are vaccinated lose their immunity by the time they reach adulthood? Will the number of deaths increase then? given that 75% of deaths from chicken pox are in adults?

Where are we going to draw the line at iradicating illnesses?

amen to that. think of the good it would do for the environment!

have not read all the thread but can I suggest to OP (and anyone else) that they read Ben Goldacre's book Bad Science. He deals very extensively and convincingly with the MMR 'debate'
www.badscience.net/2008/08/the-medias-mmr-hoax/#more-772
or read this extract here.
HTH

it isn't scaremongering. And no-one has said that no children should be immunised. But there is a certain group of children for whom immunisation can have devostating outcomes. And parents of children with auto immune disorders or who have a history of autism/immune disorders in their families should be acknowledged without being told that it's all scaremongering and that they must have mistaken their child as being healthy one day and autistic the day after mmr.

I'd like to know too if Slug's dh advises against vaccination where there's a history of auto-immune disease. We did all the research, didn't vaccinate, agonised as Sophable describes, and then, some ten years later, discovered that there is a very severe history of auto-immune disease in the family. Which would count our kids out anyway. But we didn't know that when they were babies. Just as well we didn't vaccinate, though, it would be too late now.

Riven, how come your uncle isn't shouting from the rooftops? Or is he?

so why then herbietea is the chickenpox vaccine introduced in the uk licensed only for over 13s?
news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/2161176.stm