Implications of not vaccinating?

[Devvers]

Hi everyone, I have a beautiful seven week old baby boy and am soon to be contacted by our GP to organise an appointment for his 8 week vaccinations. I am really concerned about some of the articles and reports I have read about the potential side affects of some of the vaccines and am therefore trying to do some more research into whether, he should a) have them all at all and b) have them at 8 weeks or delay until we feel he is a bit more robust.

I would be interested to know if anyone was successful in delaying the normal programme but still being able to get their child vaccinated on the NHS but just on a later timetable and also whether anyone has made the decision to not vaccinate their child but then contracted one of the illnesses.

Its such a difficult decision, you feel like your dammed if you do and dammed if you don't!

Would really appreciate any advice/experiences.

Thanks very much.

Foetal and human serum are put in the growth medium for the cells in which the virus is grown up for virus production. If there was any risk of prions such as those causing BSE or CJD contaminating the vaccines, they would be tested for. DO you think vaccine companies are silly enough to risk their vaccines causing any serious diseases like these?

I'm a microbiologist working in veterinary virology, occasionally have something to do with vaccine production, and I believe absolutely in vaccination.

If you read up properly on the risks and benefits of delaying vaccinating your baby, including conferred immunity from bf-ing, and decide to delay, then that's fine. But I would urge you to vaccinate when you feel ready.

Or course there are always children who can't be vaccinated for various medical reasons. Which, as far as I'm concerned, makes it so much more important for the rest of us with healthy children to vaccinate, to minimise the risk of infection both to our own children, and those vulnerable ones who can't be vaccinated and are at even higher risk if they catch the disease. It's all about social responsibility.

the reason illnesses are rare is because most people are vaccinated so they have died out. The less people that vaccinate the more likely they are to become common diseases. If everyone else vaccinated i might feel comfortable not to, but a lot of people don't and there is a lot of immigration, so i'm not risking it.

thats fine Ronans. That is your choice

Bubbleymummy. Made my decision on the evidence too hand. Have never regretted it or, in fact, had cause to give it a second thought.
And don't have to ask myself how I would feel if any of my kids caught one of these diseases... I have complete piece of mind in this regard. There is a lot to be said for it.

Thanks for replying TSC.

I am not sure I agree with all of what you say. But agree that this will turn into an AIBU.
I respect your views and will toddle off now rather than get embroiled.
Cheers

Yeah, me too. Can't be bothered with a cyber punch up today. As I said in first post - your baby, your choice.

Mollys it's good that you have piece of mind. I am all for informed choice when it comes to vaccines but the problem is that the information we are given does not allow for this. We are fed misinformation and scare stories and people run around thinking they'll catch tetanus from a breadknife or from their child eating dirt or that mumps causes sterility or that if they catch polio they'll be paralysed etc. It's only when you start Reading information about the diseases themselves, complications and tge incidence of complications and treatment etc that you get the real story and not the one printed in the nhs leaflets that the hv hands you.

Watch what happens if the chickenpox vaccine gets introduced to the UK. All of a sudden it will be a dangerous, deadly disease and when our children have children they'll be wondering how we all coped without the vaccine.

Hmm. Well I have a close relative, who caught polio as a child. He was not expected to survive. Thankfully he did. He did, eventually, learn to walk again. Although still has a pronounced limp and muscle wastage on one leg. I'll take the vaccs thanks.

Now I really am walking away. As I said before it is personal choice.

bubble - most of the diseases vaccinated against won't do any long-term damage and children who get them go on to live long happy lives. Chicken pox is the same. But my two both suffered horribly while they had it, especially DD2 who got a super-strong dose from DD1 and was one huge miserable spot on her 2nd birthday. If I had the choice, I'd rather she'd been vaccinated and missed all that.

No, the diseases may not cause long-term damage or suffering. But why would I want my children to even suffer short-term if I can prevent it with a vaccine? Even more so if the infection they carry could pass on long-term suffering to a more vulnerable child.

Annie, when the vaccine wears off in adulthood they'll be vulnerable again and can catch it at a time in their lives when it is more dangerous... That's actually a problem now with the mumps vaccine. It is wearing off in the teenage years or early 20s and colleges are seeing more and more outbreaks and it isn't as mild as it is in childhood. i would much rather they getit over with now and be immune for life than mess about with a vaccine that'll wear off.

Mollys - That must have been awful for your cousin and his family. I'm not saying that Polio is never a bad disease but it is paralytic in only 0.1% -2% of cases and in a large percentage of those cases it is short term (obviously not your cousin). In 95% of cases it is completely asymptomatic which means most of us may have had it without even knowing and in teh remainder it presents with mild flu like symptoms. How many people know that though because doctors and health visitors certainly don't tell you!

bubble - then the answer is boosters for teens and adults, not to stop vaccinating children.

I'd still rather have chickenpox in childhood than spend a lifetime having to rely on boosters! How many per person do you reckon to keep them immune for life? 5-10? How many childhood illnesses are there? The vaccine manufacturers will definitely be happy anyway!

Interesting point made by AnnieLobeseder regarding human and foetal serum used for growth medium in vaccines, what puzzles me is that I am constantly told that there is NO test available or in use to screen for the human form of mad cow disease (vCJD)in humans, therefore how can it be possible for the vaccine manufacturers to eliminate the risk of vCJD in their vaccines?
Also SABTO added the following text to the labels of all UK blood components on 1st July 2007 " Risk of adverse reaction/infection, including vCJD"

Let us not forget that certain vaccines were withdrawn (BCG & Polio) a few years ago due to the possibility that they could contain BSE/vCJD, if we do not screen humans today for vCJD surely the vaccines must still pose a risk of this? I would be interested to know if vaccines have any form disclaimer on this issue?

@bubbleymummy

There is quite a lot of evidence which shows that naturally occurring immunity wears off just as vaccine mediated immunity does.

Sometimes faster (influenza for example).
Sometimes slower (pertussis for example).

Thus it seems a flawed argument to use.

@beaaware

There is a great deal of difference between finding vCJD prions in living brain tissue and finding prions in inert medical solution.

There have been no cases of vCJD confirmed stemming from medicinal solutions.
So possible but extremely unlikely.

The only jabs I was concerned about was the MMR. A friend of DH is convinced it caused his sons autism and made me promise not to give it to DS.

I gave him the single jabs, as I thought there was not much to lose in doing this, apart from a few hundred pounds, as he would still be immune and had not risked the MMR.

Well I was talking about chickenpox and mumps DB so I would be interested to read any evidence that shows natural immunity to either of those diseases wears off faster than the vaccine- It's certainly not something I've ever heard of before. Actually I'd be interested in reading any of the evidence if you can post a link to it. thanks! :)

"I'd still rather have chickenpox in childhood than spend a lifetime having to rely on boosters!"

Well, the funny thing is, if you don't get boosters (or similar) you're more prone to getting shingles -- or even multiple bouts of CP. So we need either boosters or occasional exposure to the wild diseases. There is no easy out.

I don't understand how 95% of us 'could have' had asymptomatic Polio when near on 100% of us have been vaccinated in many, many countries in the world - and in countries where the vaccination program has been curtailed for one reason or another, Polio has presented a problem.

Sorry - I reread that post - not that 95% of us could have had it, but 95% of cases.

The sad thing about the Polio vaccine is that it is very, very safe, and recently Polio was close to being eradicated in the way that smallpox has been. It was lack of use of vaccine that prevented that goal being reached.

@bubbleymummy

Sorry, I didn't see any reference to chicken pox (varicella).

And it might not be useful to talk about reinfection rates.

Chicken pox is, almost always, benign in healthy children but can be more serious in certain groups and adults.

But having chicken pox leaves you open to Herpes Zoster later in life which can more often be quite serious.
This much out weighs the 90-95% life time protection for a reinfection with varicella.

Varicella vaccination has been standard in the US since 1996 which means it's a great way of examining whether a vaccine gives any more protection than natural immunity might.

Reviews of studies (as they are far too many of those individually) here and here iundicate just how effective it has been.
It even saves money.

In the UK it is just for high risk groups but I hope this will change when the UK research in this issue is completed.

As for mumps, it is harder to be so precise with the data.
Mainly due to the effectiveness and popularity of vaccination programmes for it.

But disease acquired immunity certainly does not give life time cover, studies such as [http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7714488[ this]] demonstrate that.

Is that what you were looking for?

I don't see why delaying the vaccine should cause any problems. from a personal point of view my parents made sure i had all the vaccinations and the only one i ever had a problem with was Tetnus (painful swollen arm).
My parents didn't want me to get the HPV as it was in the first year they were doing it (i got it in the catchup program) but i decided to have it done after looking at the risks myself. They weren't happy but accepted by that point it was my decision. When i have kids (hopefully fairly soon) they are definitely getting vaccinated unless there is a very good reason not to (i mean like severly compromised health, not the scaremongering stories).

DBennett. how does the effectiveness of the vaccine in decreasing the incidence of the disease show that naturally occuring immunity wears off faster/slower than vaccine induced immunity? That was what I was asking in response to your post:

"There is quite a lot of evidence which shows that naturally occurring immunity wears off just as vaccine mediated immunity does.

Sometimes faster (influenza for example).
Sometimes slower (pertussis for example). "

I asked to see that evidence in relation to chickenpox and mumps as well as the influenza and pertussis examples that you mentioned because it certainly isn't something I've heard of before. Even if natural mumps immunity does reduce over time in some patients (as the study you linked to seemed to suggest) how does this compare with vaccine induced immunity?

You need to be careful talking about polio vaccine. Every now and then you heat of a polio outbreak.. do a bit of digging and you read about an immunization campaign just before or around the same time. It's not hard to see why. In developing countries the oral vaccine is given because it's cheaper. Everyone knows opv can be shed in faeces, hence the nappy/handwashing advice. So a mass opv immunization campaign in crowded slums with crappy sanitation and rampant diarrhea ..well you get the picture.