If your DC hasn't had the MMR, what are your reasons & have they had the illness's ?

[IcantbelieveImForty]

If they have had any of the illness's, how have they been ?

I wasn't vaccinated (although I did have rubella age 15) & as a child had mumps & measles.

If they haven't had the illnesses are you assuming they won't because of herd immunity, or are you relying on their healthy immune systems ?

I agree MrsMattie.

Not Murch ra. Don't want to say too much more in case identifiable.

I'm delaying rather than not giving. I was fully vaccinated but had serious measles aged 11 and was hospitalized.

Riven, the 'mild illnesses' thing is dangerously misleading. In as many as a fifth of all measles cases there are serious side effects. Mumps can cause infertility in boys. German measles can cause deformities in unborn babies.

When I had measles as a child I had to be hospitalised because my temperature got so high.

I can understand why individual parents with particular reason to worry about autism don't want the MMR, but I don't think it's fair that those of us who feel worried about the fall in immunisation rates should be labelled 'stupid' and 'offensive'.

I argued this point with my GP once. I said I suspected that the single jabs weren't offered because of the expense involved. He looked at me in horror and said: 'They aren't offered because there is no credible research that proves that there is any link between autism and the MMR'.

You see, it's difficult to argue with that. So, while I have sympathy with parents of autistic children / people with autism in their families (and I do, genuinely), I don't see why, at this point, the government should change the way immunisations are offered based on...what? Discredited research?

Nowhere near as many complications with chicken pox as with measles.

The government don't just make these things up for the good of their health...

MrsMattie mumps can rarely cause sterilty in adult males, [bilateral orchitis very rare]but very hard to become sterile after catching it as a child.
Measles though potentially very dangerous.

but Marla the govt are working from a public health perspective. MMR is safe for the majority. It is the most cost effective way of eradicating the diseases. One only has to look at the latest FSID advice [don't co sleep at all] or the latest alcohol in pregnancy advice [don't drink at all]to realise that the government don't believe the public can cope with complex advice. If they said 'MMR is safe for the vast majority but there may be a few children for whom it is dangerous' no one would vaccinate with MMR. So I can understand why they do it.

Mrs Mattie, the research has not been discredited. It has, recently, and at the GMC trial, been described as "good science which still stands"

there is no (so far) hard evidence between the MMR and autism because the studies have never been done. there hasn't even been a follow up study to "discredit" the original one. All the studies have looked at different issues, or looked within a different sub-group form the one flagged up as worthy of more research.

But, OG, the other blanket advice you cite protects the very small minority for whom the habit is unsafe (the baby who would be affected by alcohol during pregnancy, the baby who might die of cot death due to an unknown factor). The MMR stance does not. It disregards the minoroty for whom the jab may be unsafe, in the interests of the majority. That is why it is not right.

riven do you think your child has been harmed by vaccination?

but then surely you'd want other people to vaccinate because then your dd is less likely to get sick?