For those who didn't vaccinate their DC

[Schnullerbacke]

I don't really want to discuss what is right or wrong - I just wanted to hear from Mums that chose not to vaccinate their children and whether you have regretted your decision or not. Or perhaps you have only given some of the vaccines - which one's and why?

i have looked at your links.

the first said two children died 10 days after the mmr. the docs presumably did an autopsy and couldn't find a link.

the second was about a cervical cancer vaccine's side-effects, not deaths.

the fourth was a faulty vaccine down to human error. this can happen with the administration of any drug.

the fifth implies human error by the statement 'The state government's inefficiency in administration and lack of alertness had lead to the death of six children' rather than there being an inherent problem with the vaccine.

the sixth was an experimental vaccine, not released for the general public. any new medication has potentially harmful effects.

the third link, imo, is the only article that is truly compelling.

for me, it comes down to assessing risk.

it's extremely difficult to assess the risk of having a vaccine. do you reckon it's 1 in 100 000 or 1 in 10 000 000 chance of death as a result of a vaccination? greater if you include side-effects. perhaps 1 in 20 000 if you take that account. i'm guessing here of course.

but the risk of catching one of these diseases by NOT having the vaccines is a LOT greater.

i wish governments and pharmaceutical companies were not so corrupt and had the general populations' best interests at heart. they don't.

the solution is to make vaccines safer, not to stop administering them.

Hello! Just back to defend myself against accusations of being an NHS puppet - to be honest, that made me

I don't work for the NHS, never have, never will I don't think (although never say never!). Wasn't trying to pretend anything other than what I wrote.

"I don't give a shit what money they get now - they got thousands in the past for meeting the quota, yes?" - No idea sorry, I just know they don't any more.

"Thiomersal (mercury) was discontinued in US vaccines in 2002 because of the link to autism. Sweden discontinued its use in 1989, Denmark in 2002. The UK waited until 2004 to discontinue vaccines with mercury. Ooh, no - it still keeps on vaccinating with mercury - some 'flu jabs recommended for children with asthma and diabetes" - again, I made no comment about when or why. Just providing the info that the routine vax don't contain thiomersal any more, for anyone who's worried about the current vax.

"Oh dear, you think I am going to make the obvious link between Alzheimers and aluminium? Think again." - you may not have, but someone on the thread did, not sure where, so I thought I'd throw an opposing view into the mix.

You seem very keen to have a fight LikeAFish - sorry, I'm not your woman for that.

I wanted DS1 to have the TB vaccine as a newborn, partly because my grandmother died of it, and I live in London where it is coming back in a big way - I was refused it. The woman in the next bed was given it for her baby (she was not given a choice!) because she would be at risk - she was black, had never been out of the country and lives in leafy Surrey, but the omniscient (and in this case, blindly racist) NHS insisted as tehy maintained that the baby 'would be in contact with relatives from overseas' - she told me this was b, but she did as she was told. (We joked that we should have temporarily swapped the babies - except hers was a girl, and even the dozy nurses might have noticed the difference).
So needless to say, I am not about to be told any more by the gvt what to do about vaccination - will make my own decision. My local GP respected our decision to the extent that she was willing and able to supply the measles vaccine, but could not get the mumps for DS2, so DS1 has had that privately, but not DS2. Not bothered with rubella as it is not a serious disease in the children the jab is administered to - but simply a means of the NHS bullying people like my friend from the hospital. We have kept in touch - her daughter has had the MMR because the Health Visitor browbeat her into it, and she is nrevous about questioning 'authority' figures). The entirely separate population that may beneift from it - adolescent girls -can take an informed decision to have it - or not.

"So what happens if they catch it (measles) at 8 or 9 months?"

I can answer that. I had measles at 9 months.

No immunity formed. I had measles again aged 7 (8?).

No nasty effects. I was sick for a while, then I got better. This was before children were routinely vaccinated for childhood diseases.

glad you were ok cotedazur. that is not always the case.

I'm 38. In my childhood, everybody had measles, mumps, rubella, and chicken pox. In fact, our mothers would take us to play with children sick with these diseases so that we would have them early.

Nobody I know had any complications.

So, really, I don't think I was extremely lucky.

What are the (reliable, unbiased )statistics on children dying from measles? ALL illnesses carry a risk of complications and potential death, including chicken pox, so why are measles, mumps and rubella particularly 'dangerous'?

I know there was an outbreak of measles when I was in Y4, my sister and I both had it, along with most of the school but there were no deaths. That was about 25 years ago or so.

mine have had everything but the MMR.

Ds has ASD but in a relativly mild form. i am certainly glad i hadnt risked the MMR.

Cote D'Azur (love the name!!!) - maybe I am the same vinatge as you because I had all those too - it was normal in those days before we all got so middle-class and precious and anxious.
When DS 2 (who is now 9) was about 2 weeks old I took him routinely to be weighed - the Health Visitor looked terrified - she said - 'he looks like he may have chicken pox' - I said - yes, probably has, because DS1 (2) has it, and I have a couple of itchy spots myself...The whole surgery went into overdrive with a succession of doctors traips9ng in to look at him, before agreeing that .... I should - 'errrrrrr.. keep an eye on him and call if he seemed to be worse...' I was fully breastfeeding him, but apparently had conferred no immunity and seemed indeed to have an ultra-mild case of it myself..He recovered without any more drama, and caught it again when he was 2 - again no ill effects. Since I had had it as a child my 'immunity' had counted for nothing, so don't see how a jab would have been any more use. There are always sad cases of people suffering adverse reactions from common diseases, but there are also numerous sadder cases of people receiving payouts for adverse reaction to vaccinations - there are NO GUARANTEES!!!

it's all about managing risk.

Olihan -

Rubella is not dangerous to anyone except fetuses of pregnant women without immunity. So there is absolutely no reason to vaccinate against it. Mostly it is so mild that you only know you've had it because you are immune (like myself). Just make sure your girls are checked for rubella immunity before they are of childbearing age.

Mumps is not dangerous to anyone except boys undergoing puberty and men, whose fertility can very rarely be affected. It is not really dangerous for children of either sex.

Which leaves us with measles. Yes, measles can be dangerous. However, death and even serious complications from measles is extremely rare in the western world and is almost always associated with an underlying immune condition. Iirc, there has only been 1 death from measles in the last 20 years, and that was a traveller boy with an underlying lung condition.

DD only had the measles single vaccine out of these three.

MrsGrahamBell - I agree.

Thanks Cote, that was my understanding, I really don't get why ALL children need to be vaccinated against Rubella at 13mo. All the girls had a rubella jab at about 14yo when I was at school. That's given me immunity, why do my dss need to have it? Why couldn't dd have that jab when she's older? It makes no sense to me.

And mumps sees to be a pretty 'safe' illness, safer than chickenpox if you consider the effects of CP on 1st and 3rd trimester foetuses/pg women. Why vaccinate against mumps and not CP?

I vaccinated ds1 and dd as that was pre-MN for me but I've read so much more since then and ds2 has had the polio, etc but not MMR yet. He's 2.1 and I face a barrage of questions about why not when I go to the surgery. DS1 and Dd have had no ill effects at all from the jabs but something is holding me back with ds2.

With my eldest 4 I had every jab going as it was brought out. My mum had me vaccinated against measles as a baby in 1964 as part of the initial public testing of the new jab. I have IBS and I'm wondering now about the link.

My DD was not allowed (by the GP) either the measles single, or the MMR when it came out, because of an egg allergy.

DS1 had a mystery illness at 9 mo. He lost loads of weight; had really foul smelling pale nappies and was generally "not right". They never found out what was up with him. He is 21 now and clearly not NT. We think he is on the ASD spectrum. The only dx we ever got was dyspraxia. We didn't realise at the time but all his symptoms started just after the 3rd DTP jab.

DS2 had the MMR. He was diagnosed with ADHD and dyspraxia at 6. He also caught mumps after having the MMR. He has IBS and other bowel problems.

DS3 had the MMR and is fine. He caught rubella at 13 mo and wasn't really ill at all.

With that history I decided against the MMR for DD2. She had the single measles jab at 18 mo and will have the rubella at 12, like I did. She did have the DTP and also the other Men C/ Hib/ PCV at longer intervals than the surgery was happy with. So far she has had chickenpox but nothing else.

Warthog I had to go.

You had not heard of any deaths connected with vaccines. And suddenly after reading about deaths you "presume" and you "guess" that there is no direct link, you dismiss the deaths of children in the developing world who are routinely used to test drugs -- with a shrug that "any new medicine can be harmful" . And then you say "the risk of not having the vaccines is much greater". On what do you base this risk-benefit analysis, as you reject any evidence that does not have an official stamp of approval?

You didn't read at least one of the links -- the cervical cancer: "Fifteen deaths were also reported, with 10 of these containing the level of information required for further analysis, according to the CDC."

You also apparently did not read the link which described coroner's proceedings following the death of George Fisher.

Yes, it is extremely difficult to assess the risk of having a vaccine. Because adverse events including death are under-reported -- by which I mean to and by the appropriate authorities, not the media.

We have gone very slowly and carefully on vaccines with both dcs. One at a time including singles instead of the MMR. With any live virus vax ds1 in particular has run a fever and been fairly poorly. Since he also has Sensory Processing Disorder I am glad that we have been so cautious. Sometimes I wish we had skipped them entirely for him but I was trying to take the most reasonable approach

the cervical vaccine link also said "After careful review of those reports, we could not establish the causal relationship between vaccination and death"... "The report notes that when Gardasil was being tested in the U.S. before being licensed, 10 individuals who were in the group that received the vaccine died, and seven in the placebo group died. None of these deaths were considered vaccine-related."

i simply can't take information reported in a newspaper as absolute fact that i should base my children's future on. a research paper in the lancet - without a doubt! what makes you so sure?

some people don't see what's wrong with getting some of these diseases. they've had them - they were fine. great! but personally, i'd rather my kids didn't get sick at all.

until i see compelling evidence, which i will continue to look for, i will be vaccinating my children.

Thanks for all of those who have posted their stories. It's made for very interesting reading and it's good to see that we all face the same kind of dilemmas.

There could be some bad news on the way though. Found this article that says that Merck may stop producing the single measles, mumps and rubella vaccines - not sure if it also applies to Europe.

The link is here www.askdrsears.com/thevaccinebook/?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=&utm_content=&utm _campaign=vn

I have not read the whole thread - only your OP and thought my experince may be of interest. I vax my dd1 as I knew no better and never considered arguments for or agianst. For various reasons we did not vax ds1 and after him the rest of our 5 dcs were not vax either.

Initially I did not regretr it although now I do have some doubts particularly when major illneses reach the news and I feel worried. Also now having to consider rubella vax privately for dd1 as she is 12 and didn't have MMr as wakefiled research all new at that time and ddidn't want to take risk.

Generally speeaking - and of course this is just a perspective on my family - my dd1 who was vax suffers from poorer overall health re immune system - excema etc than other kids.

I do think vax has some impact on immune system beyond what its supposed to do but it s a question of weighing up pros and cons.

You will wait forever Warthog, because you are waiting for a man in a white coat to tell you it's alright. But that is your prerogative.

Kerrymumbles - i kind of have the same feeling as you .....it does do something to their immune system . Wonder what the stats are on excema for starters in vax and non vax kids?

Under pressure from my GP, I vaccinated the first DC. By the time I had the second, I stood my ground and didn't vaccinate. I didn't trust the GP to give impartial advice when I knew that they had a financial incentive to get my DC signed up.
At the time, there was the big debate about Gulf War Syndrome which was suggested to be caused by multiple, Government sponsored vaccinations. The Govt were trying to brush it under the carpet, deny its existence and not investigate it. Didn't exactly inspire confidence.

It also didn't help that I was told that MMR was the best thing since sliced bread and must be taken yada yada yada - only to be told a few months later that a booster was needed because it was only 80% effective!