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"Doctors are giving the MMR jab 'by stealth'"

33 replies

coppertop · 29/10/2003 07:58

Don't want to start up an mmr debate but just wondered if anyone else saw this in the Daily Mail yesterday. Some doctors have been calling children in for the Hib booster and 'accidentally' giving MMR instead. Very worrying.

OP posts:
princesspeahead · 29/10/2003 08:45

that would be assault and battery. just need one parent to kick up a stink and call in the police and that will nip it in the bud pretty quickly.

appalling if it is true (mind you if it is in the daily mail it probably isn't...!!!)

marialuisa · 29/10/2003 09:31

Given the paternalistic attitude of some GPs I can quite believe it may happen. As DD is MMR free I'll be asking to see the labels when the time for other boosters comes.

jasper · 29/10/2003 21:34

I absolutely do not believe a word of that daily mail article.

robinw · 30/10/2003 08:03

message withdrawn

coppertop · 30/10/2003 08:55

Just seemed strange that, if true, such an important issue had been hidden away. No other newspaper picked it up either. The article mentioned that there were only a few cases so not common practice. Scaremongering again, obviously (just for a change, eh!)

OP posts:
handlemecarefully · 30/10/2003 12:30

I don't believe it. A doctor could be struck off for this - I don't believe that they would put their careers on the line like that.

Blu · 30/10/2003 12:58

B**y irresponsible of the Daily Mail if they have mis-represented or exaggerated this in any way....will put people off getting hib and other jabs done.

miranda2 · 30/10/2003 14:12

If it comes to that, all the fuss about MMR is IMO b**y irresponsible. Not getting it puts all those who can't have it or are too young to have had it at risk.
Sorry, soapbox over!

jasper · 30/10/2003 22:47

My GP gave my son the hepC vaccination by mistake. It was going through clinical trials at the time and we had decided not to give him it.

misdee · 30/10/2003 22:50

miranda2, calm down luvvie. getting the mmr is a huge concern for mums all over the country. its about weighing up the pro's and cons of the jab, its not being irresponsible at all.

carriemac · 31/10/2003 13:51

well our practice nurse gives the mmr, not the gp, is'nt it the same everywhere?

Jimjams · 31/10/2003 15:16

Oh Miranda- not again sigh{}. I'll happily swop places with you. Give me my old life back when I too thought that vaccinations were the most wonderful things in the world and parents were irresponsible for not immunising.

BTW- just as an aside- my old GP (who was lovely) almost gave my friend's dd the MMR rather than the DTP etc. he's forgotton his glasses! Luckily as he took it out of the fridge he asked her to check which jab it was!!

princesspeahead · 31/10/2003 17:01

jim jams, i haven't given my 2 mmr but now that dd is almost 6 i'm thinking about it. do you know if there is any evidence that it is better tolerated by older children?

and my 8 wk old has just been callled for d, t, p, polio, men and hib wich IMO is a ridiculous amount to be pumping into a young baby at once. i was going to give him men this week, and polio in about 4 weeks
(at the same time as a friends younger baby as that is the only way he could be exposec to the live virus) and leave dtp and hib until after xmas. i'd be interested in your views?

susanmt · 31/10/2003 17:31

Anyone giving an immunisation or other injection should have someone double check it for them before it is given, and then the label from the vaccine should go into the notes.
Dh only once forgot to get someone to double check on a day he had a surgery with one patient getting a depo injection of steroids and another getting depo provera (contraceptive). He was a very, very sorry doc when he got to the second one (the steroid) to discover he only had depo provera left .......
He went straight round to the other patient's house to apologise and she was very nice about it. It hadnt done her any harm and at least he found out before she got pregnant or anything! But the moral is - if you havent seen your doc double check what is being given, then ask to do it yourself, because they can make a mistake. The day DH did it he had been up most of the night with a terminal patient who died at 7 in the morning, so he was knackered, but most GPs don't have that kind of excuse (most dont do palliative care at home) but he still realised it was a mistake and shoudl be apologised for. If more docs were able to say 'sorry' then I think that people would be more satisfied with the health service.
If they did do it deliberatley then they could be reported to the GMC and struck off - I cant see any GP doing it deliberately, they would be mad to try it.

jasper · 31/10/2003 17:37

should have read menC not hepC as there is no hepC vaccine, sadly. - I would be first in the queue if there was.
My dh's work nurse once gave him an injected dose of steroids that was TEN TIMES what it should have been.
Mistakes happen.

suedonim · 31/10/2003 18:55

Susanmt, I have to say, our vet always takes a darn sight more care over our pets' jags than the nurses at the centre where our travel jags were done. The vet notes everything down meticulously, whilst the manner in which our vacs were done was pretty cavalier and didn't inspire me with confidence.

Jimjams · 31/10/2003 21:30

PPH- no idea about older children having it. Any reason you want to do it now? Monovalent rubella would be worth giving to a girl obviously (and worth testing immunity first to see if she needed it).

baby jabs- my view usual disclaimers- not medical advice etc etc.

Polio- pretty safe vaccine - probably doesn't make too much difference when given. Out of the meningitis jabs I would give hib first - the peak age for hib is 6 months and it is a disease that affects babies. Men c on the other hand affects teenagers more often, a baby is 8 times more likely to die from cot death than meninigitis c. So if I was going to space the jabs out I would be more concerned about getting hib first rather than men c.

As for the others. The one that a baby is likely to catch is pertussis, but it is acknowledged as a pretty dangerous vaccine. I wouldn't give if there was a family history of convulsions. The other thing I would insist on is using Infanrix- I really worry about thimerosil in vaccines. The govt is not keen on infanrix now, but other countries use it (US, Canada, France, Aus). There may be other combined thimerosil free vaccines now, but infanrix is the only one I've seen mentioned.

Remember that you'll need several doses of lots of these. An alternative would be to get them given in the normal manner (ie all at once) but wait until 6 months of something (although then of course you wouldn't have hib protection). or follow the US system and given then at 8 16 and 24 weeks rather than 8 12 and 16. You may want to ask Davros for advice as I know she spaced hers out for her dd.

Are you bfeeding? It provides massive protection against hib.

Jimjams · 31/10/2003 23:16

susanmt- your dh does sound more careful than most. The only time I have ever seen anyone double check a vaccine was when the private dr we were getting monovalent measles from checked the vial with me.

SueW · 01/11/2003 09:13

This reply has been withdrawn

This has been withdrawn by MNHQ at OP's request.

susanmt · 01/11/2003 12:37

jimjams - my dh is the best doctor! (well I would say that). In fact there have been a lot of times when I wished he was my doctor, but it's totally unethical to treat your own family, so he doesn't do it (except in obvious emergencies - like when I had my first kidney stone or when dd was very ill as a baby).

mieow · 01/11/2003 13:46

My niece had measles in april, she was 4months old. Luckily my sis had the MMR and the rubella jabs when we were at school, and her ammunities were enough to stop her DD getting majorly ill, but she could have been very ill and that is due to people not getting their children vaccinated....... so sorry I agree with the MMR and all the other jabs and my kids have all been jabbed

misdee · 01/11/2003 14:50

i agree with jabs, but u know why i'm holding off getting dd2 jabs done atm is because she appears to have some sort of digestive problems, i have not wiped out the thought of jabs completely just want her tested for allergies etc before i get her mmr done. she has been called for a hib booster but only had her 3rd hib in august, would it be ok for her to have the booster now, or should i wait a bit?

princesspeahead · 01/11/2003 18:59

thanks very much jimjams, v useful (esp re hib and men c...)
not breastfeeding sadly...
davros, are you around?

Jimjams · 01/11/2003 20:24

mieow if your sister had had measles herself (rather than the MMR) then your niece almost ceetainly wouldn't have got measles at all at 4 months. It's because the immunity provided by the MMR is not lifelong that babies don't get the protection across the placenta. But anyway I'm not meant to be debating this so I'll stop right now. (sorry but had to comment as its one of my main concerns about MMR-or at least the way it is administered now- babies then getting measles).

Misdee personally I can not make much sense of the hib booster programme at all. If you're breastefeeding you could certainly afford to hold off as bfeding provies very good protection. Otherwise - who knows. You could try asking your GP.

Susanmt- I have great respect for good GP's. I'm very very lucky with my GP. He listens. And when I turn up with really bizarre problems (like ds1 not weeing for 40 hours) he believes me- he even stuck up for me when the paed said something along the lines of "impossible, the mother's mistaken" (he described me as a reliable witness). And last time I went we had a joke about the MMR. He's a great GP.

mieow · 01/11/2003 21:40

We never had measles, I remember having chicken poxs, mumps, and I had whooping cough.... but no measles.......