MMR jab - peoples thoughts please

[MK75]

DS 1 has just turned 13 months and is due to have the MMR jab.

A lot of the other babies we know who've already had it at 13 months seem to have been a bit poorly and out-of-sorts for a couple of weeks afterwards, so am just wondering what peoples thoughts are on the benefits of either

a) delaying having it until he is a little bit older or
b) paying to have the jabs done separately? (Not sure if this is an option but have heard it mentioned by some other mums)

What does everyone think and how did your children cope with the effects of the jab?

My DS1 & DS2 had separate jabs at a private clinic and we are about to start DD1 on separate jabs. We never had any reactions to the separate jabs.
We chose this way because of concern about the MMR jabs not just that it may be responsible for some conditions in kids like autism, but because it just seems wrong to put suh a cocktail into such a little person.
Each jab costs between £90 - £150 so it's not cheap, luckily the grandparents also thought this was a good idea and help towards the cost.
I can't see any reason not to delay if that's what you want. The only thing that people may suggest is that you don't wait too long so that your child has had all the jabs and booster jabs (second round of jabs a couple of years later) before your child starts school, or there abouts.

Hope that makes sense.

My son had a bad reaction to the MMR. I ended up taking him to the doctors every week for ten weeks. He kept spiking fevers evey week and he had a history of febrile convulsions, so he lived on calpol. They would not accept a link to the MMR even though at one stage he was covered in a measles rash. Then they gave him penicillen for the rash, which he was also allergic to.

I was a 'wet behind the ears' young mum who totally trusted the docs. They never warned me about any possible side effects at all.

He has never had a booster or will he ever have another vaccine again. When it goes crappy for you they don't want to know.

I was advised by a doctor who threw his hands in the air as if to say I give up, to see a homeopath, she cured my son with one pill.

Gp's know very little about vaccines, they just take what they are fed at med school and that is mostly by the detail men from pharma companies.

My suggestion is Educate before you Vaccinate and know that if your child has a reaction you will have to deal with it yourself, you will get no help at all.

This is my story. Not interested in any debate, neither will I respond to any provocation.

Regards.

my child is unvaccinated and 2 1/2. I wasn't prepared to take the risks of a recation in the short term or longer term health problems which I know are sometimes asociated with vaccines. As questioneverything has said above pls read up and educate yourself b4 making any decissions.
I am also not starting a debate but felt I should tell you my thoughts as well.

My DS is 20 months now and I had the same worries you have, MK75.

I spoke to a couple of friends who are also GPs (with children of their own) and they both said that the MMR jab was safe. Apparently the Dr who originally raised the link between the jab and autism has now been widely discredited.

We went ahead with the jab for DS and everything was fine, although I would say that DS did have a rash (from the measles part of the jab) for a couple of days and was generally a bit grumpy. Although, with all the teething that was also going on at the time, I couldn't be sure that the grumpiness wasn't because of that...

Okay thanks everyone, DS is also cutting the first set of molars at the moment and a bit grumpy so I didn't want to give him any more discomfort, poor little mite : (
So will hang on for a while and read up more about it.

moo moo

just a small but salient correction

the work of the dr who originally raised the link hasn't been widely discredited

my ds had the mmr, but only when he turned 2 1/2 as i didn't feel comfortable with him having it at 13 months. i will do the same with dd before she starts nursery.

Can't quite understand anyone who would subject their children to more risk to the terrible diseases the vaccinations prevent. The reason for 13 months is that many children circulate, touch and generally infect eachother when they're toddlers... wiping, eating snot that sort of thing.

The doctor has been widely discredited:
Andrew Wakefield is a fraudster, at best.

Claims of a connection between the vaccine and autism were initially raised in a 1998 paper in the respected British medical journal The Lancet. After it was discovered that Andrew Wakefield, the paper's lead author, had received major funding from British trial lawyers seeking evidence against vaccine manufacturers, ten of the paper's twelve coauthors retracted its interpretation of an association between MMR vaccine and autism. It was also discovered that Wakefield had previously filed for a patent on a rival vaccine using technology that lacked scientific credibility, and that Wakefield knew but did not publish test results that contradicted his theory by showing that no measles virus was found in the children tested. In 2009 The Sunday Times reported that Wakefield had manipulated patient data and misreported results in his 1998 paper, creating the appearance of a link with autism.

Just to balance the thread a little bit....
My two had it on schedule and were fine, no after-effects whatsoever.
In fact I don't know anyone in RL who had a bad reaction, only on MN.

My three dcs all had it on time, no side effects not a smidgen of illness, temperature or even tiredness.

These threads tend to kick off and I will try not to get drawn in if so, but just to add my experience. I did find the whole thing worrying as we have ASD in the extended family, but I read up on the science as closely as I could and checked out all the trials and tests, which are extensive.

As far as I could make out, having quite a good level of scientific understanding and education, it is generally safe but there are some who will react badly to it. It is a small minority and in general I concluded it is safer to have it than to risk the diseases it vaccinates against.

I could not find any scientific evidence for a link with ASD. Even though some people will tell you, and completely believe, that their child developed ASD as a result of MMR, that isn't scientific evidence - as they could have developed it anyway (and often do around that age). Evidence can only be gathered over a large scale and when they have done large-scale studies they haven't found a link.

That doesn't mean of course that there is no link, it just means that the strongest scientific evidence we have at this time doesn't show a link. But people often argue (I've seen it many times on here) that there is a link, using very limited, small-scale and non-scientific "evidence" as if it were just as good as a proper big science study - it isn't. That is one thing that has made me distrust those who claim a link - they often don't seem to understand or be willing to apply scientific process and logic.

Sooo, after getting to grips with all this and as open-mindedly as I could, we decided to go ahead with the programme as advised (though we made sure we did it only when DS was healthy, not with a cold etc)

He was fine, the only reaction was that he was tired and slept a bit longer immediately after the jabs.

Do also bear in mind that if you choose not to vaccinate you are laying your child open to some potentially very nasty diseases, and also even if they are not affected badly, you are contributing to the risk to others such as tiny unvaccinated babies by reducing immunity in the general population - that's why measles has made a comeback. In a way that made me want to vax more because measles is much more prevalent now, and a baby of a friend got it at 10 months.

Single jabs are one option, but I'm always a bit puzzled by this as Wakefield's original study pinpointed measles in the gut as being the issue - so why would he suggest doing it singly could make any difference? However. believing as I do that the vax are on balance a good idea, I suppose doing it singly is better than not doing it (though arguably more traumatic for your child).

Andrew Wakefield is not a fraudster.

Posey, that's not a good thing to say. The editor of the Lancet maintains the original study is a good piece of work.

I don't think you've read as much as you think you've read.

Given that we have been lied to repeatedly in being told that vaccinations are "perfectly safe" I really think you should direct your fraud allegations elsewhere.

This recent summary of the editor of the lancet's view of matters shows that he is considerably more regretful than you suggest iceage. He did support the paper and obviously chose to publish it but has since made his position a little more clear.

(Sorry by "recent" I didn't mean super-recent, just much more recent than the original hoo-ha - it's 2004)

Well he says in your link Ladyofbathtub 'Professionally I don't regret it' I doubt he would have said that of a 'fraudster' He also says:

?Although I knew this paper would be controversial, I did not expect the level of vituperative attack and personal rebuke that followed.''

And still going on.

As far as the conflict of interest is concerned [and lets not forget that many vaccine researchers are funded by big pharmaceutical companies] Wakefield was approached by desperate parents who had been ignored by other doctors, and so inevitably there were going to be pre existing links with those concerned about the jab.

Also interesting is this Spectator article on Brian Deer's rather erratic and unethical behaviour here

Wakefield has always said MMR safe for the vast majority. the idea is that about 7% of all autism may be triggered by MMR and that more research is needed.

Furious if you are worried get the single vaccine. Mumps is not supposed to be a dangerous disease until puberty. As long as you get the mumps vaccine before he is 9 or 10 it should be ok.

My DS had the MMR at 13 months and had no after-effects at all. Anecdotally, there are 12 of us in my circle of 'mum friends' and none of the babies had anything more than a slight temperature/a bit grumpy afterwards.

But as I said, that is anecdotal - I am not trying to infer anything by mentioning it!

just another thing. Wakefield did NOT have/apply for a patent for a 'rival vaccine' His patent was for a vaccine for enterocolitis. That is just a downright lie spread by, ahem, certain journalists.

DD has had all vaccinations with no problems. Having said that, she was a few months late with MMR as she kept being ill on the appointment dates.

Don't forget all vaccinations carry a tiny chance of a severe reaction, that's why they ask you to stay in the surgery for 15 minutes after they give it to you.

Agree with LadyOfTheBathtub - on a personal level, I am not convinced of the MMR-autism link. The fact that Japan went over to single vaccines and still saw the autism rate rising, the cases of regressive autism in non-MMR'd kids and the like... You can't prove a negative, but to me the evidence seems to be pointing that way.

all my dc had the MMR, no problems at all.

never believed there was a link with autism.

why, because your children were ok dp? Wow, the evidence is compelling.

not the only reason, i read an article in the daily mail telling me the MMR was safe..