what are your feelings on the MMR jab??

[doodypud]

My DD has an appt for her jab on the 3rd of April, i am still really concerned about the possible links with Autism, has anyone else had concerns or any bad experiences?

I agree Jimjams risk are individual. My DS's allergy consultant wanted to give him the MMR in hospital where they would 'have the resusitation equipment would be on hand if he needed it'. Now was the risk of anaphalxis greater than the possible risk of measles, mumps or rubella. Doctor's vary in their opinion. As I said earlier the A&E Doc and nurses were more than understanding and our own GP understood perfectly our hesitation but an out of hours doc was rude beyond belief and another Doc failed to diagnose the measeles even after eing told he had been in contact with it.

To this day I cannot understand the allergy consultant's approach.

I suppose my main worry is that when the NHS reaches crisis point, (and it will, so many factors are pointing to collapse, not least the pensions crisis) you and your children and other impaired groups will be the most vulnerable as they're always the first funds to be cut.

I'm just wondering how to strategize now for the future.

have you read the links I've posted on these threads hapsichord? The research continues. The stuff published yesterday is relevant.

And what really pisses me off Soccie (RL again) is that the most vociferous of the not vaccinating is selfish brigade are the very ones who are unable to tolerate ds1 near their children.

I've posted \link{http://observer.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,6903,647836,00.html\this nick hornby link} several times before. It's old now but still I think brilliant.

Extract below- and exactly how I feel. I did my public spirited bit with ds1 - and I spouted the same lines. Community/society has done bugger all for him- it was a big lesson that actually no-one really gives a damn as long as they're OK.

Anyway over to an extract from Nick Hornby

"Let's assume for a moment that there is a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. I know this is an enormous assumption, and that no such link has been proven (nor, incidentally, has it been disproven, despite Government and media suggestions to the contrary), but the point is that a significant percentage of parents with autistic children - thoughtful, intelligent, observant people, otherwise immune to conspiracy theories and paranoid delusions - are entirely convinced that this vaccine has irreparably damaged the lives of their children.

Can you begin to imagine their fury and hurt? They have done what this and preceding Governments have told them to do, which is to protect their apparently healthy kids against measles, mumps and rubella, and as a result, they feel, they have ended up with permanently disabled children - possibly incontinent, prone to screaming fits, irrational rages and sleeplessness, children with severely impaired or possibly non-existent communication skills... oh, and if you're really unlucky, a child with a debilitating and painful bowel disorder. First, they cannot get anyone to diagnose the condition (the average age of diagnosis is six); and then they cannot find the education they want (in some cases, they cannot find any education at all). If they do find the education, then they often have to take their local council to court to pay for it - the motto of our local authorities seems to be 'Stonewall 'Til They Sue'. And one of the very few people showing any interest in their child's agonising bowels has been forced to resign from his job, because his research does not fit comfortably with what the Government wants to hear. These parents have, in other words, been hung out to dry.

Last week, I listened with growing disbelief and rage as Yvette Cooper (an otherwise smart woman who appears, sadly, to have been given a vaccination that has turned her into a robot) accused anyone calling for single vaccines of 'undermining public confidence', as if it were anyone's job but her department's to restore it. The truth is, Yvette, that these parents who have been on Panorama and London Tonight and in every national newspaper saying that their children were made autistic by the MMR vaccine - the very parents, in other words, who are engendering this panic, and whose fears prompted Andrew Wakefield's research in the first place - are really not feeling very public-spirited right now."

monkerytrousers the media have nothing whatsoever to do with my deeply held beliefs that vaccinations are not all they're cracked up to be.

the vast majority of the media reports are in favour of vaccination anyway.

No but they do not have the parents best interest at heart. They have a long antagonistic relationship with government and the majority of that antagonism is not responsible well researched journalism, it's sensationalist, dumbed down rubbish designed to get middle england in a apoplexy of indignation. The government are accountable for what they say and do, the press are not and I really don't think self-regulation works. But that's my opinion after studying the media in other areas.

It's always couched in sensationalist terms though, especially ITV news. It's the editorials that do the most stirring.

yes, jimjams, I always follow the links on these threads (maybe you have noticed I am often on these threads and I wouldn't post unless I have confidence that I know what I talking about). I find the subject very interesting - in particular the gulf between the quality of the media reporting (abysmal) and the science. I also need to keep up to date for if/when I am asked for my opinion in my professional life.
I have also discussed it with many very clever people, whose opinion I respect.
I am, I will say again, utterly unconvinced that there is any research evidence which indicates ant link whatsoever between the MMR vaccine and autism.
I will of course continue reading your very interesting links.

(sorry it's harpsichordcarrier btw, I meant to change my name back before I posted )

The media simply covers the debates which are going on anyway. It's a myth that they create stuff to talk about. Journalists write/boradcast on matters which they know will be of interest. I really hate it when people blame the media. It's patronising (as if people have no minds of their own) and disempowering.

Sorry MT. Nothing personal you understand.

From the research I did when ds (now 3yr 9mths) due his mmr I believe that a mercury (thiomersal) overload to a small persons system has the propensity to weaken their immunity, and if so weakened then the administering of a viral jab (even if it doesn't contain additional mercury itself) can be catastrophic for that small person. IIRC most of the singles jabs availabe tend to have mercury in them, and so would only increase this overload? For this reason we haven't vaccinated ds with either mmr or singles. I too (as someone else said) was dismayed to discover that I could have requested mercury free DTP jabs for ds . IMHO it is no small coincidence that Australia followed by many other countries banned thiomersal in DTP jabs a long time ago, and is disgusting that our own government was too caught up in the mmr/singles controversy to say there may be a problem and follow suit for a long time. Even now they try to hide behind the change in the DTP jabs with a long explanation about adding the polio element and playing down the fact that at the same time they removed the thiomersal even though there was 'no problem' with it...if that's the case why remove it? As far as I'm concerned, and this is just my opinion, until someone can show which small people are likely to be unfortunate enough to be immuno compromised by the mercury in the jabs ds would have received I'm not prepared to take the possible risk of giving him any further viral jabs until he's alot older and his body is able to cope better.

No, that's fine Spidy [smile} but to be honest it's also a myth that the media are impartial and unbiased. I'm not blaming them for 'everything' but they are ^everywhere, we make sense of ourslevs and the world though the media - it is the only intermediary between the people and the government and it uses (and abuses) that power at times.

Sorry to wander a little off topic again but. MonkeyT, as a journalist I don't see myself as an 'intermediary between the people and the government' and I'd be hard pushed to find a colleague who did.

The majority of journalists whom I have come acrss have integrity and pride in their profession.

The NUJ's code of ethics states ...

A journalist shall strive to ensure that the information he/she disseminates is fair and accurate, avoid the expression of comment and conjecture as established fact and falsification by distortion, selection or misrepresentation.

Anyone messing up on this front is a shit journalist and everybody knows it.

Spidy, with respect, do you read the tabloids?? (please don't tell me your Rebeccah Wade )

Does the MMR currently have thimerosal in it? I've read categoric statements that it doesn't but some posts here seem to imply that it does.

By the time DS had his DTP they had dropped the thimerosal (which is why I was fairly happy for him to have them). We are currently leaning towards his having MMR at 18 months but I am not letting him have any jabs with thimerosal in them.

the standard of science reporting in this country is an utter disgrace
I cannot recall ever reading a piece of science reporting that was not breathtakingly inaccurate, sensationalist and/or wildly overisimplified.
the consequences for the MMR vaccine have been very significant and I do blame the media for that, in large part
do you disagree, spidermama?

Pick up that gauntlet and let's talk about this calmly.

News coverage has to be simplified because people don't have time to read it all. They want a potted version. I think they got that, on both sides of the debate.

AFAIK MMR never had thimerosal in it. But the DTP did.

I mean people don't generally have time to familiarise themselves with the fine details of major scientific debates.

I have to agree but I'm sure you and others like you Spidey are great journalists, but good journalism doesn't sell papers. And like I said, editorials by journalists are only the expression of comment and conjecture yet these people take themselves and what they write very seriously as for many people it's the only side of a debate they'll see. The responsibility of the media is immense in this respect but it's sales not responsibility that holds sway.

Have you read John Lloyd's 'What the media are doing to our politics'? I'd recommend it - it's not journalist bashing for the sake of it, just asking them to be more responsible - especially the BBC after Hutton.

Oh, absolutely, I agree with your last post. But with science it's very hard to do this without distorting the facts and as journalists are not scientists themselves they can make massive category errors and assumptions which end up saying the opposite of what the data means. Or an angle will be added, for instance with the recent reporting on violent crime sentences being reduced - 'rapists will get shorter sentences' was the headline which would guarantee (rightly if it were true) a reactionary response before anyone got a look at the whole context. People were quoted as saying it was a blow for women's groups, a humiliation for women who were raped - but if it had been reported responsibly no woman would have felt humilated - they were only humilated after the press announced that they were!

Sorry for the hijack!

My brother, who is in in 40s is on the autism spectrum (no MMR then). When my nephew was about 5 or 6 months, my mother suspected something was wrong and she was right, he is autistic( he is 9 years old now).

My DTS have had MMR jabs because as far as I am concern, if they are going to be autistic, it is because they are born with it.

I think some children are born with autism but others are triggered by something. The argument that the parents are just blaming the vaccine and didn't know their child had autism is insulting and ridiculous. Everyone accepts that certain drugs can cause devastating side-effects so why can't people believe the same of vaccines?

One thing I think all researchers into autism agree is that it is not one condition. They are trying to identify subgroups. Some children are born with it, some develop normally (pointing and talking) then regress.

There is no thimerosal in MMR (or singles), but thimerosal in the baby jabs may be a first hit, live virus the next.

Incidentally when I've mentioned to drs that ds1 had a big regression following a live virus (herpes in the form of eczema herpeticum) they nod their heads sagely, if I was to say he regressed following an attenuated vaccine virus they would say I was a loon. If I was to isolate said vaccine virus from the gut and spinal fluid I would be super loon.

There was some research published last year (?) - if the archives are working I can find it- that showed that parents were able to accurately date the start of their child's regressipon (if they had one). No shit Sherlock!

Jimjams - exactly - shows health professionals and people in general lose all sense of perspective when it comes to vaccines - beyond reproach. I think they know very well what can happen but would never admit it because more people would be up in arms and there would be a huge decline in those who choose to vaccinate. My mum used to think I was a loon with my views about thimerosal (I was always banging on about it) and then when they removed it in the UK it made her think about why and she is very suspicious now.