MMR

[luckyjames]

I'm trying to decide whether to give my son the singles or triple vaccine. Some people choose not to vaccinate at all while others choose the triple vaccine and some choose the singles. I'd like to hear from everyone whatever your choices were and the outcome. I would like to hear from parents who believe the triple vaccine has damaged their child. Any parents believe single vaccines have damaged their child? I hear all the time that single vaccines are not safe but has never heard from anyone who has had a problem with them! Many thanks for those who reply.

Just happened across that Amish article as I was trying to find the reference for the following: www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12421889

It is, as you say, retrospective, but the study seems robust none the less.
The Pubmed link there has a whole swathe of 'related articles' offered on the right-hand side... I haven't read them all. But I suspect someone would have mentioned it if any of them had come up with anything other than the 'no association was found' that I keep seeing in the abstracts.

What advantage would a prospective study offer over retrospective or case-controlled?

I don't know how anyone could do a retrospective study of vaccinated and non vaccinated populations right now.

One disadvantage of retrospective is that parents report fewer possible reactions as they are told they are normal, coincidental and only to be expected. In a prospective study this would of course not be the case.

In addition there is the accuracy or possible incomplete nature of vaccine records for a child. And even if you take least vaccinated community by far, the Amish, their lifestyles are so different there are too many confounding factors, surely.

There IS a large population in the US of home educated children, who are largely HE because of the mandatory vaccine requirements. This is the only possible community I can imagine doing a retrospective study with. However, many parents who don't vaccinate have chosen not to do so because of a family or sibling history of immune disorder, also a confounding factor.

I'm not a statistician and most certainly could never design a study, but I would have thought all of these issues would need to be addressed prospectively in any viable or credible work.

The work with the Amish population serves one v useful purpose in my view which is to alert researchers to the possibilities of studying a largely unvaccinated community.

Thanks for the link. I'll have to read the full study again and I'm really glad you linked to it, because I was thinking of this study today and decided I really ought to track it down again.

I believe the problem with this study is that the average age of vaccination was about 18 months, while the average age of autism diagnosis was around five.

There was therefore a very large tranche of children who counted as vaccinated and non autistic simply because they had not reached the age of diagnosis.

had a quick look and found some people much brighter than me with an intense assessment

there is absolutley no reason for not giving your child the triple vacine. nothing has ever been proven to say that it causes any serious side effects.

anyone who refuses to have their child vacinated is risking their health and other peoples.

gingerbunny if you are going to grace the thread with your cutting edge insight perhaps you'd care to learn to spell?

Very good spelling thankyou. I'm sorry if I had a go at your spelling and you are dyslexic.

I think I might decline trying to argue about what was unreasonable in your first post though, I can see I won't get very far.

Gingerbunny, the problem is that there are some very knowledgeable posters on this subject putting forward very sophisticated arguments on these vaccination threads, including both those who have concerns about the safety of vaccines for some children and from those who believe those concerns to be misguided. So when someone comes on, clearly not having read any of these arguments, and says something like "MMR is completely safe and anyone who doesn't give it to their children is just being selfish/stupid etc" it is incredibly frustrating for those who have spent a lot of time looking into this issue in some depth.

thanks for the apology.
i don't recall using the wording stupid or selfish, maybe i have memory loss as well as dyslexia

No, gingerbunny, you didn't. But presumably you would have to be stupid or selfish to risk your child's health and other people's" for "absolutely no reason".

stick around ginger, there are lots of links and really interesting debates going on

zeph is quite right, there are many people who've done lots of research on BOTH sides definitely

Zeph is right; reactions do go unreported. I've not yet found a single medic willing to even note that DS3 seemed to be developing very typically until MMR.

I may have been more likely to see it as a coincidence if our fears had been taken seriously, but my experience has indicated to me that nobody is really knowing what is going on becuase of the way it is being handled.

I ahve 4 boys, 3 have had MMR. None had a reaction- ds1 has SN but clearly ha dit pre jab. DS3 regressed, severely enough that whilst he ahs language etc he will need lifelong care at some level.

So ds4 will not be vaccinated. I'd be surpirsed if anyone in our palce did go for MMR, tbh.

We booked Measles single bt after a night of tears and very real fear decided that tyically developing, great pointing ds4 will not have the single until he starts pre-school.

irrespective of any safety record of any vaccine, surely the element of parental choice is important? moreover, informed parental choice?

I had single vaccines myself, though went through childhood in an era when catching mumps was the norm. I know from blood tests that I am still immune to all three diseases.

when it came to my DD I had an enormous amount of hassle trying to find proper independent information about all of the vaccines, not just the singles. I even had the HV telling me that the MMR jab is altered each year to reflect the type of virus circulating. I asked if that meant that I should have MMR myself as clearly that meant that the single vaccines I had 30+ years ago would no be giving me any immunity. She had no answer.

I am not a medical person but it is my understanding that MMR is used because it is cheaper to administer - 2 appointments, as opposed to 3 (or allegedly 6); more likelihood of uptake because of lack of need for repeated visits. It is also my understanding that recipients of single vaccines do not require 6 injections, but rather 3. It is also my understanding that the mumps vaccine (single or as part of the MMR) "wears off" after a few years.

However, I have no idea if any of the above is fact or fiction because everyone I spoke to had an agenda.

In the end, for very many reasons, I erred on the side of caution and my DD had singles.

It should be your choice whether to have MMR or singles. Both should be available IMO.

I think things do get very polarised in this debate. In a sense, the vaccination programme is a victim of its own success - it has eradicated diseases, and rendered others so much less of a threat that few people have seen the devastating consequences. Thus the possible side effects and reactions have far greater power to frighten and influence.

Please note I am not attempting to trivialise those whose children have been adversly affected; clearly it is horrendous if your child is damaged.

One of the problems, I feel, is that as a parent you have to make an active choice to take a risk with your child; to inject something into them that may cause harm. If you don't, well, you'll probably get away with it. But the more people take this view, the more dangerous it gets, and the most vulnerable - who have no choice over vaccination - are most at risk.

But if you get the singles mmred you are not leaving your child or others open to the illnesses, and you are not relying on herd immunity.

MMRed you must know that the incidence of diseases like measles was more than 95 pc by improved sanitation, hygiene and nutrition well before vaccination.

There is good evidence to suggest that we have replaced generally mild acute childhood illnesses with chronic life threatening disorders.

Just out of interest, what do you accept are the dangers of vaccination? Would you accept that even one case of regressive autism has been the result?

Do you think every single one of the thousands of parents who say they have evidence that their child regressed into autism after MMR is either lying or mistaken?

I find it surprising that people who feel that there has not been enough research into MMR chose to immunise with singles - into which there has been even less research - and whilst I have outlined some of the drawbacks of singles I haven't said I'm against them. It's just a moot point currently as there is no single Mumps vaccine.

I also have nowhere suggested that any parent of a damaged child is a liar and I resent the suggestion.

It's a question of risk. And I decided for my children that the risks of the immunisation were less than the risks of catching any of the diseases. Part of that decision was also the responsibilities we have to each other in society, in particular those who don't have the opportunity to protect themselves and have to rely on herd immunity.

Sorry MMRed but if you are saying that their child has not regressed into autism after MMR then you are indeed saying they are lying or mistaken.

Any talk of risk is rendered meaningless unless there is agreement on the level of risk and the level of benefit. Especially so if you are not even prepared to examine what you think the level of risk is.

"if you are saying that their child has not regressed into autism after MMR then you are indeed saying they are lying or mistaken."

Please point out anywhere that I have said any such thing, mmrsceptic.

Could we stick to a sensible debate rather than trying to discredit my character on no evidence? I hardly think it strengthens your argument.

I'm not trying to sabotage your character, not at all, just trying to establish what you think. Don't think that, I'm sure you're an upstanding person.

So you do accept that children have regressed into autism after MMR?

Certainly - there have been a number of very high profile cases. The new stuff about mitochondrial disorders looks very important, too.

That doesn't mean that every case of autism is caused by MMR, just because of the time frame.

And if there is a direct causal link, why does the incidence of Autism increase when the level of MMR uptake remains the same?

mmred a few impotrtants point

first, most people do accept that asd is caused only in a very few cases- 8% is a figure I seem to recall- by MMR.

ASD is a very complex illness and nobody knows the aetiology of it at rpesent, it seems most likely that many cases have a genetic basis for which a trigger is usually required, and once you get to that level identifying the trigger becomes complex. Even when you look into famillies where there does seem to be a clear asd genetic issue, there is always the risk of spontaneous gene mutation and increased asd risk, plus potential otehr causes.

The important thing to note is that ASD is not one syndrome, but most likely a number sharing a certain number of characteristics; as such there could be a great many causes, from MMR to diet to birth damage to viral infection.

I ahve 2 with asd, and we new ds4 was at a high risk, and indeed I did start tot hink indeed he was but altely (he's at that crucial age- 17 months next week) he ahs started developing non ASD skills; has a great point, chatty etc.

I would guess (also based on such things as a dietray issue inherited by every other spectrum family member, a casein intolerance) that ds4 has the gene: so something we are doing is staving it off. He is BF, on a CF / GF diet, has intensive input in language, no MMR- even if it is one of thsoe I can never even guess at which, or if there's an environmental factor such as lack of pollution (we moved from along the A38 to semi- rural Wales when ds3 was almost2......) bt something IMVHO is changing with him

i know the thread has moved on quite a bit but i just want to reply to the question mmrred asked me.

no i wouldn't reconsider the rubella jab if i got pregnant because i had mine done at school when i was a teenager so im already immune.

also i discussed my vaccine choices with the nurse at the private clinic and she totaly agreed with me, i only wish i had investigated vaccines before i pumped the 8wk and 16wk jabs into him, he's fine from them though.