MMR

[gretagrape]

Hi - I am reluctant about letting my son have the combined MMR jab (first one due in a month) but I don't want him (and others) to be unprotected. Can he have the immunisations done individually or is it a case of all or nothing?

Please don't bombard me regarding my actual choice - I do appreciate it's a controversial subject but I'm just looking for advice on whether I can get the jabs done separately, whether on NHS or privately.

Thanks
x

You can get single rubella and measles jabs privately. The mumps vaccine is usually available singly too, but there has been an interruption in supply recently (not sure if available again).

Thanks. Do you know why rubella is done so young anyway? We didn't have it until we were about 12 (but that was a looooong time ago!)

I looked into single MMR jabs, it costs quite a bit. You are looking at 600 quid for all the shots and you have to pay a 50 pound registration fee too. I have twins and 1300 for vaccinations is too much for us. I have delayed their MMR, I plan to let them have it at 2 years old, they are currently 18 months.

OP I don't know about individual vaccines I'm sorry. The reason why rubella is given is not because it is a life-threatening illness in itself - it is frequently a mild condition - but because it is very teratogenic in pregnancy, causing fetal loss and congenital rubella syndrome and severe disability. So babies are given the vaccine at 1yo to protect pregnant women and unborn babies.

neversleepagain Please don't postpone your child's MMR until 2yo. I don't want to turn this thread into a rant but I'm a GP and I can't not comment on that given the recent serious measles outbreaks that the UK has seen. I diagnosed a number of infants with measles during that time and had my own youngest daughter immunised with MMR at just 6mo to try to give her some protection against this often fatal and severely disabling disease. We need a certain percentage uptake of the vaccine for the vaccination program to work - I forget the exact percentage but if uptake of the vaccine UK-wide falls below around 80% or possibly higher, then measles outbreaks occur and risk of an epidemic. Delaying by 1y may seem trivial, but it is in infancy that we see the majority of cases, and even the first MMR will only give your child an immunity of 90%. The second booster pre-school will increase this to 95% - no child is fully immune, even if you have all the vaccines at the right times. Please don't put other children at risk, never mind your own.

Sorry for ranting on your thread. I tried to answer one of your Qs at least, OP. Is there just one of the vaccines you are wary of, OP? Maybe some further information on what it is / is in it might help?

To be honest I haven't had time to look into it as much as I wanted to, so I'm not completely against it at the moment. For me, it's more concern as to why there is the need to do these vaccinations as multiples in one hit on immune systems that are so vulnerable and still so early in development (I'm guessing it's down to money but then I'm cynical), but also concern about the various chemicals and preservatives that can be used. I think I read that different vaccinations contain different preservatives, but when I spoke to my GP as a passing comment he said he didn't know anything about the preservatives in them.
Also, my son has various food allergies including egg - not sure if vaccines are still developed using eggs or not? (2-4 month injections were done before we had allergy diagnosis and when I was way too tired/stressed to do any research on those).
Sorry for all the questions!

Just do the MMR it is a lifesaver- The research that suggested autism has not solid weight to it at all, but the rise in measles and even mumps is enough to tell you to do it, where I live we are having an outbreak at the moment and all the kids I know have had the MMR, its silly to put them at risk at the end of the day even one by one its the same thing going into them but your paying for the privilege.

It's not necessarily the same thing having them done one way or the other - the NHS might use a different brand to a private clinic therefore may use different preservatives which may or may not be harmful.

I do appreciate the sentiment but I haven't suggested I'm not going to do it at all or that I'm going to be "silly" and put anyone at risk. I just want to gather information so that I can make an informed choice about whether I have them done singly or together. I do accept that in the end I'm going to have to allow my son to be injected with tons of poisonous shit during his childhood - I just want to have more information beforehand than bland NHS leaflets!

Very small amounts of preservatives are often used in vaccines to prevent the risk of the vaccine being contaminated somehow by bacteria or viruses. In other European countries and in the US they commonly use one which contains a tiny amount of mercury, which has been shown not to be harmful. Despite evidence to show it is safe, we don't use it in any of our vaccines in the UK. The MMR vaccine contains a tiny amount of antibiotic, sucrose and protein, and the culture medium used to grow the vaccine itself. For some reason which I don't know the answer to, giving it as 3 separate vaccines rather than as the one MMR increases the risk of the child having an anaphylactic reaction. That sounds a paradox - you'd think having the 3 in 1 would increase risk of reaction - but evidence has shown there is greater risk in having them separately. That has pretty much exhausted my knowledge of the MMR vaccine now, I hope that info is helpful to you!

Op, you do know your son is exposed to thousands of viruses and bacteria every day, don't you? Three in a vaccine is a drop in the ocean compared to the exposure he gets daily just by going outside and having normal human contact.

OP I'm with you with our DD. We have decided to put off the vaccinations for the time being for our own reasons. You will not get a balanaced view on MN about this subject, 95% of answers will tell you it should be done now and you Abu. We had our own reasons we put it off and are happy with our decision. To satisfy our own curiosity we checked the numbers of cases reported for each of the infections and there was only something like 8 cases of measles, 4mumps and no rubella for our whole county in the previous year - your local health authority will publish these figures somewhere for your county. Yes people will tell you thre is outbreaks and lots of kids are infected but the truth is these outbreaks are normally small and will probably not affect you.

Oh my goodness, I hope you don't live in the UK and are quoting those figures. Our practice in South Wales diagnosed more than 8 cases of measles alone during that 2012/13 outbreak. There were well over 1000 confirmed cases of measles in Swansea and Powys - 1125 cases by the July alone. Those are the Dept of Health figures. You are perfectly entitled to make your own decision about following the vaccination program or not for your child, but please don't 'quote' dangerously misleading false data to others.

Here's a link to the NOIDs reports which give the figures every week of number of cases of notifiable diseases.

There are indeed counties in the UK with very low numbers of cases. But that doesn't mean it will stay that way, for know one knows where the next outbreak will be.

Mummytwo my figures are from the dept of health as well, they are specifically for my county. I don't care what your figures are for your practice in South Wales - I don't live there, not even close to it, and will not be visiting there anytime soon. Where I live there has been no outbreak.

Meditrina I know full well the figures may not stay that low however that's a risk we are happy to balance.

"the first MMR will only give your child an immunity of 90%. The second booster pre-school will increase this to 95% - no child is fully immune, even if you have all the vaccines at the right times"

Is this right? Usually this is described as 1 jab 'takes' in 90% of recipients, and the second jab takes that higher. If it made no-one immune, then everyone would catch it.

Hi, greta.

Your DS can have the measles and rubella vaccinations separately (with a 4 week gap in between) done privately - NHS won't do single jabs. There's currently not a mumps jab.

My youngest 2 are having the separate jabs at £110 per jab.

All the best.

medi yes it's correct that the two MMR jabs only confer around 95% immunity, but in the rare instance of someone contracting measles who has been immunised, they have got a much milder form of the disease. It isn't common for someone who has been immunised to get measles, but very occasionally happens. The vaccine program and 95% immunity does work at minimising outbreaks of measles, unless the percentage of parents getting their child immunised falls below a certain level.

peggy I am glad for your sake that the area in which you live has had very few cases of measles. I responded to your initial post however because you said that the truth is these outbreaks are normally small and will probably not affect you. That is perhaps more the case in your area, but given the large and serious outbreaks of measles that have occurred in more than one part of the UK recently, that isn't safe or accurate advice to give to others.

OP I hope you get the answers to your Qs and the information that you need to make up your own mind what to do. All the best.

Just to address the person who said you won't get a 'balanced view.' Impartiality is not relevant when the weight of sound scientific evidence supports one side of an argument and the other supported by fear-mongering pseudo science. I'm not surprised the majority of responses would be to get children vaccinated. I'd be very surprised if there was an even balance of responses on both sides, and would in fact fear for the next generation and it's dangerously low levels of vaccine protection.

'I don't need to vaccinate because there hasn't been an outbreak in my county.' Really? Well, congratulations, because you're making it more and more likely for an outbreak to happen in your county by not vaccinating your children. The fewer people vaccinated the more likely an outbreak. You may live in a bubble in your county, but you can sure bet you will still come in contact with someone who enjoys travelling to Wales or elsewhere who has just happened to bring back some disease or other that is just waiting to spread via the unvaccinated.

Op why are you reluctant as you don't explai clearly n in your post.

All three illnesses can have devastating effects if caught in childhood. The lady who is a doctor should be able to confirm but I believe anything from causing infertility through to death are the risks you are taking should your son contract one of these illnesses.

There was no evidence offered to prove a link to autism, tenuous or otherwise

Sorry for delay in replying - I am grateful for your responses so didn't want you to think I was ignoring you.

Please credit me with some intelligence - of course I realise he is exposed to bacteria and viruses every day and in fact I am vehemently against anti-bac or any harsh cleaning products for the reason that I know it is better for him to be exposed to bacteria in order to build a healthy immune system; however, that is hardly the same as injecting him with toxic preservatives (which a lot of vaccinations have in the past included) - that is what I am wanting to avoid, not the vaccination against the illnesses themselves.

As I've already stated I haven't said I don't want him to be vaccinated, I am just reluctant to have him vaccinated against several things in one hit. Thanks for the info on the preservatives used and also for the info re risk of allergic reaction - I'll look into that.

I can understand your worries, I felt similar and then my dd reacted badly to her 13 month jabs (including mmr) and I was worried sick til she got back to normal. Her boosters are due this year and I'm still not sure what to do. At the moment I'm thinking I might ask to have the mmr and the other jab done separately, rather than 2 injections in the same visit. At 13 months they have 3 jabs don't they - if I were to go back in time I think I would separate them out. That's just my thoughts though, I'm not medically qualified and have no idea if it would make a difference.