Daily Mail U-turn on MMR (astounding hypocrisy)

[Babbity]

How the middle-class MMR refuseniks are putting every child at risk

Has the Mail forgotten their role in this?

Blimey.

(PS quite suprised this hasn't already been posted. I did do a search, but couldn't find anything.]

what an absoultely foul article. And I am a strong supporter of vaccination. But they hypocrisy (good call there) and the evil tone of that piece are just foul. It made me shudder.

Riven - I know, I know... a triumph of hope over experience (more fool me)

that made me shriek with laughter

It must be a) completely fabricated and b) the biggest load of bollocks I have ever read.

As if parents would stop their children playing with other children who hadn't been vaccinated. How will she know? Do you think she will interrogate every child that wants to play with hers? Do you think she'll select a special school for totally vaccinated children?

Absolutely dreadful, dire, nonsense.

Is that actually true? The bit about not being protected until school age?

Agree - vile article.

ellingwoman no it's not true. A single dose of MMR protects 90%. The second (pre-school) dose is not a "booster" as such, but rather to induce immunity in some/most of the 10% who didn't get the first dose.

Thanks - I was sure that wasn't right. That journalist should be sacked.

foxinsocks my husband and I had a serious chat about what to do when we discovered his sister and her husband weren't vaccinating their children. It was a very difficult discussion. In the end we decided that as we only see them a few times a year the risk to our children would probably be small, so we do let them play together (and my two have both had their MMRs now). It was an issue when they were younger. The nursery that I sent DS1 to when he was a baby (ie pre MMR age) had a measles outbreak recently. Had this happened then I would have had serious doubts about letting him go there.

But yes, it is very much something I worry about and if I had friends who didn't vaccinate at all (rather than going for the single jabs) I would have had serious doubts about letting my children play with them. I think partially because I am not sure I could have a proper friendsip with someone whose views were so different to my own.

What has annoyed me about this whole MMR debate thing is that Govt has not got to grips with the real public health issue.

For whatever reason and whether it is right or wrong - people are choosing not to have the MMR jab out of fear. Surely if Govt had just said held up its hands and said OK while we do not accept the Wakefield findings and we do not accept that the single MMR jab is dangerous we are going to be pragmatic and stop trying to force the single MMR jab on people. Instead we will allow the individual Mumps, Measels, Rubella jabs on the NHS and then compel everyione by law to have them to get the immunisation cohort back up to safe levels.

This Daily Mail article has missed a massive opportunity to deal with that real issue - of failure of Govt to tackle a potential health crisis by doing the sensible pragmatic thing.

Perhaps the writer should ask all children that her DD comes into contact with to have a blood test to confirm that the vaccinations they have had were actually effective. At only 90% effective, she's taking a 10% risk per vaccinated child!

What a disgraceful piece of "journalism". Has really nasty tone and does not attempt to solve the problem of poor MMR uptake. [Which is quite simple really, instead of not allowing GPs or HVs to recommend singles places, just let them trot out the line, we recommend MMR but if you really feel you can't, it's best for you to get singles rather than not vaccinate and they are available for x cost from x place down the road. Perhaps the govt. should licence them rather than frightening people so much that they won't have "unlicenced" vaccines]. There will always be people left who don't want any vaccines and that is their choice because vaccination is not compulsary and this has been the case since vaccinations started.

I'm pro-vaccination, but I have never heard of anyone refusing to allow their vaccinated children to have any contact with non-vaccinated children. Do they avoid friends that have babies who are too young to have been vaccinated against MMR as well?

I'm also surprised that the Mail didn't work in a way of blaming working mothers for increasing MMR by sending their children to nurseries where they cross-infect each other, when the children should really be at home with their mothers...

ABetaDad - couldn't disagree more. At present no vaccinations are compulsory. And though I am saddened by the fact that many people choose not to vaccinate at all, or use (in my opinion) substandard vaccines - I would defend their right to do so. "Compelling everyone by law to have them to get the immunisation cohort back up to safe levels" when they don't want to is something that would (rightly) cause a huge uproar.

I would be extremely upset if the NHS were forced to pay more for single vaccines when there is a cheaper more effective vaccine available. This, in the world of rationing, would deprive the NHS and its patients of funds. If people don't want the MMR, don't force it on them, but let them go privately and let them absorb the cost.

Whether unimmunised children should be allowed to put other children at risk is a whole other argument; as a libertarian I just can't decide where the ethical argument leads up. I can't help but thinking, risky though it is, that the current way is the best (ie not forcing unimmunised children's parents to withdraw them from state education or vaccinate, as happens in the US/Canada).

What a nasty article. Some children can't be vaccinated and others will have had parents who had mumps, measles, rubella as children so will have passed on some immunity.

I agree that the single vaccinations should be made available to parents who are loathe to go with the triple jab as there is obviously doubt about the triple jab now. Perhaps if the Gov't had handled it differently then we wouldn't be in this position now.

FWIW, my Nan would have been classified as a refusenik (not middle-class though) as she refused to let her children be vaccinated at all as children and both my uncles and my Mum are as healthy as you'd expect for people in their 60s. I think the only vacs my Mum had were for polio when my dd had hers. We both steadfastedly refuse the flu jab as well.

Babbity - I agree with your point. I do not like compulsion either but having had health visitors question me whether I have had it done for my DS1 and DS2 so many times in the past it feels like its a quasi compulsion to have MMR.

I just feel that if Govt really wishes to persuade parents into having immunisations something in the name of good public health then at least there might be a bit more acceptance if the single jabs were on offer rather than bullying people about MMR.

It just is not working at the moment.

I am pro vaccination but I completely disagree with that badly written piece of "journalism".

When you visit soft play areas or birthday parties, there isn't a list on the door informing you of what child has been vaccinated. Does that mean you don't take your child there?
Of course not!

Has the author never heard of herd immunity? For most childhood diseases that are vaccinated against, you need 75-95% of the population to have received the vaccine for this to work. There was no mention of this in the article.

We had someone in our family who wouldn't allow her children to have any vaccinations, I didn't let my dd have any contact with her children. Not because of the risk from diseases that can be prevented, but because she also did not believe in any form of discipline or using the word "No". Her children were just awful!

Riven - the (live) oral polio vaccine isn't used any more - the polio component is inactivated in DTP/TP/DTPHib - so can't give you polio.

Also, I know of mums who, as they refuse vaccinations, are having "measles parties" so that their children can catch the "better" wild form of measles. If my children were going to be hanging around those children, bearing in mind incubation periods, I'd be very worried.

Ah wellgood job I'm a working classrefusenik

'I would be extremely upset if the NHS were forced to pay more for single vaccines when there is a cheaper more effective vaccine available'

I ould spend many years in prison rather than let anyone near my ds4 with a vaccine:having 2 kids with asd there wouldnt be a chance in Hell.

It proves that vaccines don't work, because why vaccinate your child if you think that they are actually going to catch the disease anyway.

When you go abroad and you have a vaccine for a disease thats all around, do you not go because you are afraid of the people who live in that country that is infested with that disease.

Vaccines either work or they don't. You could be on the tube with anyone from any country who could be carrying it. Adults can have the measles who have immunity that has waned from childhood vaccines.

In my opinion that article was just to the start of a larger campaingn to attack those who choose not to vaccinate.

Breastfeeding protects children from so many infections, should I keep my child away from formula fed children as they could have an infection that mine are protected against by breast feeding - no- because its utter non-sense.

Its about engneering social guilt, trying to imply that you are not in the crowd, that you will be 'persona non grata'. Well that poor kid at the end of the article is better off away from that kind of fear mongering.

People go out and have unprotected sex all the time, if they catch HIV then they are to be included and loved, we must not treat them any differently, and we all know what to do to avoid HIV.

Vaccinate or dont vaccinate, just keep some perspective.

If her children are vaccinated, they shouldn't catch the diseases she's so worried about. So once she's had the jabs it will be fine for Jocasta to play with Tarquin. Is she going to spend the rest of her life refusing to allow her children to mix with new friends until she's seen a full vaccination history?

I hate the Mail. Weren't they all-out anti MMR until recently?

Speaking as someone whose 9 month old caught measles from an unvaccinated 5 year old (we didn't know at the time - only found out several months later that one of the children at a party we attended was incubating it, whilst kissing ds repeatedly) I think it's just one of life's risks. By her logic you shouldn't really leave the house until all your children have had all vaccinations going...

It's a probability thing.

The MMR is estimated to take first time round in 90% of children, hence the followup. You don't know which children have immunity and it is easier and cheaper to revaccinate everyone.

If the MMR take-up drops below a certain %, then those children too young for the MMR, those who are not able to have it for health reasons, those who are conscientious objectors, and the 10% of children whose first vaccine did not take - they are all at greater risk than they should otherwise be.

Attitude to risk is sometime very worrying in our society (eg the thread about what to do with chicken casserole yesterday, alcohol and caffeine during pregnancy, not letting children play on the street, etc.). When I had my children done, I did not assume they were in the 10% group - the odds said there was a 90% chance that they would be immune, which are good odds in most areas of life. Yet the same people will happily be voluntarily taxed by buying lottery tickets.

As a general thing, I get very frustrated when people misuse scientific data, or make difficult decisions without understanding the science (eg to go for separate vaccines). One of the things I am passionate about in my job is to help students evaluate data and evidence for when they have to make decisions (and this is a cornerstone of the new GCSE Science courses).

What makes you think peopledon't understand the science though?

I mean,in RL many probably don't, but my guess is that most people I know certainly have red,and researched, and pondered just aboput everything they could before making the decisions.

Generally of course MN tends to be an educated bunch compared to RL (maybe my RL?) but I think mopst poeple do get it just process info in different ways.