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

Oh FFS Naturalbaby I also work with children, both phys dis and those with Autism. Even I can see your 'opinion' is outdated and of the NHS propaganda machine.
I would, fwiw, never express my opinions on how a child develops any condition.
God forbid you should ever be in the most unfortunate position of giving your child 'everything' and regretting it.

Knowing what those families (god I hope I don't sound trite) go through to try to find answers to questions that most professionals are unwilling to even acknowledge is painful to watch from the outside. I have absolutely no clue what it must be like to live day in day out without official answers that seem to be so obvious.

What's wrong with MN today? Have we had a shipment of NM'ers?

blimey - take a hint! i am not here to be rude and offensive... this is my opinion which i am entitled to.

i apologise if anyone took what i said the wrong way and took offence because that is not why i am posting. i just feel strongly that people need to make informed choices by looking at the proven facts on both sides of a story. i may not have a child with disablities but i am good at my job and get on very well with the families i work with so i must be doing something right.

you may not agree but there it is and i'm not changing my mind because of one parents unproven conviction. working very closely with families does give me a clue what life is like for them. you know nothing about me so don't make such quick judgements.

"and i will stand by my 'bad timing' opinion because that is my opinion.

some/a lot of scientific evidence is based on very restricted, biased research so cannot always be relied on. unless you are a scientist and have researched this yourself how can you trust absolutely everything you read? a lot of parents who do not do as much research as some of you just grab onto a possible vaccine link and may not consider that there couldn be other factors involved."

There are differences between a regression and disordered development though. The dics have had no problems accepting my son regressed - his followed a natural illness. Not sure why its one rule for one, one for another.

I am a scientist, I have researched it myself.

Chocolateclair- in your situation I'd go and see someone like Halvorsen and discuss options. On the NHS in a standard surgery you get the choice who a minimum of 5 vaccinations at once or nothing, in reality there are other options out there (some jabs not others, some spread out etc) - and someone like Richard Halvorsen will be able to talk you through them. He should give me commission

er dics should be docs. Bit Freudian perhaps.

LOL jute. Do you think Halvorsen has heard of Mumsnet by now?

I think its foolish and your decision does affect other people. I base my decisions on science and not paranoid scaremongering.

Fairymum I base my decision to not vaccinate my second child on science not scaremongering.

I frankly couldn't give a shit how my decision affects other people because as a parent my duty is to my children and I'm not willing to risk the health of another child.

I'm not alone on this thread to think this.

Have you actually read the thread?

a couple of points don't seem to have been pointed out very well - particularly when claiming there has been a proven link between vaccines and autism.

yes a link has been proven in the hannah poling case but nobody has pointed out (very clearly)that this was not a normal child where vaccine + child = autism. the key words in the report for me are theory, trigger and more research needed. this child may have developed autism without the vaccine but unfortunatley it seems to have acted as a trigger - and that is why i made my comment about bad timing/co-incidence. there could have been other factors, combined with the vaccine that contributed to the autism - correct me if i'm wrong but it hasn't been proven that the vaccine was one and only thing that caused autism.

so my opinion is not outdated or the result of nhs propaganda - my child at the moment appear normal and healthy, the same as the vast majority of children out there, so will be getting vaccinated. i do not blindly take or give him everything offered - for that reason he did not have vitamin k injections and i was fortunate not to need any drugs in labour.

the way some people present things does not help mothers make informed choices - mothers who have a panic attack if they drink alcohol before discovering they're pregnant thinking they're going to give their baby foetal alcohol syndrome, or eat nuts when there is no family history of allergies but think they are going to have an allergic child.

and what about the 'link' between paracetamol and asthma, between drinking moderately in pregnancy and better behaviour in school aged children. these are all very grey areas with a lot of factors to take into consideration.

when you are bringing up a child to be a part of our society then your decisions can greatly affect other people.

now is it really fair to judge people, swear at them and criticise them because they have a 'normal' child and are a bit sceptical about what they read and hear about in the press?!?

naturalbaby- but that's the whole thing about autism and regression - identifying the triggers (it's unlikely there's just one). This research is still in its infancy, but is most definitely going on. Some very interesting stuff that shows that genetic predisposition or some sort of priming during pregnancy can leave a child vulnerable to that trigger.

FWIW I assumed that both ds2 and ds3 were vulnerable to regression. Their brother developed completely normally until his second year and the regression is noticeable on videos (in fact i underestimated how much he had been doing). Interestingly ds3 shares many biological markers for autism with ds1 - but has developed normally. I'm not saying this is necessarily down to lack of vaccinations - he's also had no antibiotics, and we were very careful with gluten and casein exposure. I do think that he in particular was very close to developing down an autism pathway though.

FM- if you keep up to date with Science then you find that evidence for the autism/environment link in some cases is growing all the time. I sat in a huge international autism conference last year (1000 delegates) where potential environmental links (of many types- including vaccinations) were discussed openly and without ridicule. Papers were presented of interesting work.

What is clear at this stage is that autism often involves the immune system. I don't think that would be disputed now.

and that is exactly the point i was trying to make in the first place - there are so many possible triggers, it is unfair for some mums to be lead to believe that vaccines can cause autism without considering other factors - and obviously if there is family history or any signs of unusual development they have every right to be very cautious and sceptical about what goes into their children. i agree that digestion/gut issues and genetic predisposition seem to be key factors.

i was also very concerned to read about the child who was given the wrong vaccination by a nurse who didn't read the child's notes and vaccine label carefully.

i may be wandering totally off the point but it has been very offensive to read comments by some mums who think they have the right to be rude and judgemental because they write as if they know best/everything.

look, i don't want to be blacklisted as the mum who thinks all those who don't vaccinate are narrow minded because i don't dispute the fact that some vaccines can cause terrible reactions in some people. the fact is the reactions are not the same for every child who gets a particular vaccine so we have the right to be sceptical about the link, proven or otherwise. i just think some mums can get the wrong end of the stick by not considering other factors, and a lot of them may have been over cautious not getting their children vaccinated.

The people on this thread though have avoided vaccinations on the whole in younger children because of problems with older children. These include children whose health has been damaged or who have regressed dramatically.

You got a strong response because you were so dismissive. And working with disabled children is totally different from parenting them.

I know children who have been damaged by vaccinations and children who have been damaged by meningitis. Brain damage is brain damage, there's no 'good' way of getting it. Both suck tbh.

i can see why people on this thread have avoided vaccinations - and i would to if i was in their situation! i was not, or not intending to be dismissive, i am just sceptical of any 'proven' link.

of course working with disabled children for a few hours a day is totally different to living with them 24/7 - i was just trying to say that although my child is not affected with these issues, i feel i have an idea of the stress and heartache some families have to go through due to lack of information, knowledge and answers to their childs conditions/problems - and however much people disagree... i do. so forgive me for trying to be understanding and sympathetic to what some families have to go through.

naturalbaby- re-read your first post- it really didn't come across as understanding and sympathetic to those who have lived with vaccine damage. It's why you got the shirty response.

naturalbaby i think for those children who have been affected by MMR there has been a very dramatic and violent regression immediately following MMR. These parents continually get told it was 'co incidence' or they just didn't notice it before. Hence the reactions to your post here.
Most people accept that MMR causes problems in only a small proportion of the population, and most children are fine with it. But there needs to be more research to identify the children who may be at risk [auto immune history, gut problems] and this is not being done.

Ah small correction ruty- it is being done now, just about, but not in the UK. In the States and North America. And is being funded by parent led/funded bodies. They have so much money now that they are able to attract excellent researchers.

yes meant to say not in UK. very pleased about the States, even tho of course, the scare is only uk based

Naturalbaby : you should read yourself back! Much of what you say should lead you to a different conclusion than the one you have come to.

"Obviously if there is family history or any signs of unusual development they have every right to be very cautious and sceptical"

I would add to that: every parent therefore has a right to be sceptical as one may not know the family medical history and we are talking about starting at 8 weeks -- when I understand it is difficult to detect signs of development that could lead to a condition such as autism.

"The fact is the reactions are not the same for every child who gets a particular vaccine"

Well quite.

"The vaccine unfortunately seems to have acted as a trigger"

Well quite.

"I just feel strongly that people need to make informed choices by looking at the proven facts on both sides of a story."

Oh by golly yes. I would add only that that there are not many public sources for "the proven facts on both sides of the story". The Hannah Poling case was an astounding milestone but coverage was minimal. The truth is that in terms of the general parenting population, a site like Mumsnet is one of the few places an honest debate takes place and large amounts of information are freely shared.

People generally don't go to JABS or buy books on the issue unless they are already interested or concerned. The information you get from the NHS is obviously onesided and designed to put parents off seeking further insight.

It's still a shock to me to read someone like fairy talking about "paranoid scaremongering". That sort of claim makes absolutely no sense at all anymore.

You know naturalbaby the thing is that as a parent of a vaccine damaged child you get a lot of people who decide without really knowing anything much about vaccines or anything at all about your child, that you are being hysterical and making up stories or jumping on some bandwagon because of something you read on the internet.

A lot of people seem to think that you are so rubbish a parent as to have not noticed that your child was never 'normal' and that you are looking to 'blame' their condition on something.

It is just so offensive, insulting and unsympathetic to suggest to parents that what happened to their child was 'coincidence' and nothing to do with vaccines.

Very often children who regress after vaccination reacted badly at the time to the vaccine. The regression comes later because that is the biological nature of vaccine induced brain damage.

You may not have read the science, information and thousands of eye witness accounts that clearly demonstrate a link between vaccines and autism, but that does not mean that they do not exist. The link is accepted by many scientists and many people are spending large sums of money on research in this field.

People talk about Hannah Poling as though she is some isolated case but the fact is that we have no idea how many children there are like Hannah because the government is doing the damndest to not examine these children, or indeed even acknowledge them. The children in the UK who were involved in litigation similar to Hannah's had their Legal Aid withdrawn (and the decision to do so was made by someone with a serious conflict of interest and links to the manufacturer of the vaccine in question) so they never got their day in court and we have never officialy heard their story, we never got to find out if many of them were like Hannah Poling.

Currently nobody knows how many of the concerning number of autistic children have been affected by vaccines or exactly what makes them vulnerable. It could be just a small percentage like it could be a lot more. But until the state actually tries to find out, some new parents will be put of vaccinating because they don't want to take what is currently an unknown risk with their child's health. What we do know is that there are a lot more autistic children than before (and no it is not just down to better diagnosis/record keeping) and that the increase coincides with changes in the vaccination schedule. We also know that a lot of these children regressed following vaccination, that their stories are very similar, that vaccines can cause brain damage and indeed we are beginning to understand some of the mechanisms that do that damage. Currently the medics and the politicians claim that they don't really know what autism is, that they don't know what causes it and that they don't know how to treat it. Yet when presented with a biologically plausible, researched and documented explanation they reject it because they don't like the conclusion it forces them to come to.

People get upset when they are told yet again by some no doubt well meaning nice stranger that they do not know what has happened to their own children because we do know and we have the science to prove it. If the cause was anything other than vaccines it would have been accepted long ago.

For the record my vaccine damaged daughter is not brain damaged. She does however share many of the gut/bowel/intolerance/allergy/weight/nutritional deficiency issues that many autistic children suffer from. Many of the biomedical treatments that help some autistic children have helped my daughter too. Do you think that this is a coincidence or just 'bad timing' too?

Where's bogie? Did she mean to start a fight?

Also regarding what people are saying about vaccines only being one factor amongst many.

This is obviously true but vaccines are a factor than can be controlled and avoided.

No doubt my DD1 is genetically susceptible to gut problems, no doubt there are factors in her environment and my pregnancy that play a role too in her condition but if she hadn't had a vaccine reaction then those other factors wouldn't have actually made her ill.

Her sister had a very similar start in life (prem, low birth weight, jaundiced, dairy intolerant, reflux) and presumeably shares many genetic elements. And yet she is perfectly healthy and normal. Who knows whether she would have remained this way if she had been vaccinated?

There is an easy way to figure some of this out and that is to do the study that parents have been requesting for years comparing vaccinated and unvaccinated children. It is outrageous and speaks volumes that the government is still dragging their feet over such a study.

You only have to look at this thread to see accounts of vaccinated children who are unwell and their unvaccinated siblings who are fine.

of course i re-read my posts - if you have to you will see i apologised for any offence caused as that was not my intention!

maybe it was wrong to use the words timing/co-incidence but as I have also already said, some vaccinated children may have gone on to develop autism without the vaccine so you can's say 'the vaccine caused autism'.
i was also thinking about the case where 'Mystery illness paralyses girl given cervical cancer jab' you can make a big assumption just by reading the headline, but by the end of the article 'There is no good evidence to suggest that the Cervarix vaccine caused it'. i did not pick out anybody's situation or experience and say they were wrong did i? in fact, i actually agree with most of you.

as i have also already stated, i was trying to be understanding and sympathetic but say that people should be sceptical about any proof or evidence they read/hear about and look at the bigger picture - not to start a fight!

i read what i publish on the internet very carefully before i hit the send button, and i would never openly criticise other people's opinions - even if i completely disagreed. some people could do with re-reading the mumsnet philosophy and counting to 10 before they start typing.

bogie-welcome to the dark side!! I haven't been vaccinated and gasp I'm still alive.

oh FMF tell me more. is there any reason you weren't vaccinated? Did you get measles as a child? I have to choose whether to vaccinate ds2 and ds3 with tetanus and measles as a minimum soonish or whether to leave it until they're old enough to make their own choice. I worry about measles post puberty and tetanus generally.

FMF we're waiting with baited breath!

This thread is like a cat-fight.