Anyone on here never been vaccinated?

[WildApples]

I'm interested to know if anyone on here has NEVER been vaccinated, I haven't, for anything , and consider myself to be one of the healthiest people I know. Yes, I did have the usual childhood measles, mumps, chickenpox etc, but I have quite a strong belief that having these has made my immune system far stronger.
My doctor commented on how little I have on my medical records, and barely any of it is virus/disease related, its all physical stuff like a waxy ear, constipation, and one time when my left boob went numb because I'd trapped a nerve.
Anyway, I'd just like to hear from people (fairly sure I will with such a controversial topic...) And please don't just say things like "get it done" without offering your own reasons why/why not, I'm not interested in just blithely agreeing with whatever the media/government/pharmaceuticals tell me. Though tempted as I was to go stock up on Tamiflu...
So, I'm off to work now, in advance appreciation of your responses....

No mumps vaccine existed in the 1970s.

Both measles immunisation were around since the late 1960s and routine (measles -or both measles in one shot - in infancy, rubella singly at menarche).

Anecdotes are a waste of time. Everyone knows someone who smoked 40 cigarettes a day and died at the age of 102 in a hang gliding accident. My fully vaccinated children have been to the doctor a handful of times in 18 years. My fully vaccinated Dp gets every single bug that's going. You can "prove" anything with anecdotes. But the facts show that the best way to protect children from a wide range of diseases is vaccination. And the facts show that the best way to protect the tiny minority of children who can't be vaccinated (and that is children with genuinely compromised immune systems, not children who live in Richmond) is for everyone else to be.

People in situations where they don't have the luxury of middle class affluent angst walk for miles and queue for hours to get their children vaccinated. Because they have lived with the consequences of "normal childhood diseases" Like polio, and diptheria........

My DM is very anti-vaccination, from an alternative medicine perspective as well as a cousin of mine having a convulsion as they were leaving the doctors after a vaccination - as I also had febrile convulsions it wasn't a chance DM was going to take. I think I had the polio on the sugar lump thing but that is probably all.

Yes, I am healthy, more so than average, never at the docs. Yes, I am lucky. I had rubella as a child (my sister had a blood test to confirm this otherwise we would have been vaccinated for that as children), which means that my immunity to that is stronger than if I had had the vaccination (again, lucky me).

However my children have had every regular vaccination and they are also healthy (never had antibiotics, only bad illness they have had is chickenpox). I also put that down to luck and I'm thankful that they are not at risk of measles etc. My Dsis is very pro vaccination which amuses me given our upbringing.

I'm an immunologist, specialising in vaccination. The more your immune system is stressed by viruses the weaker it gets as every time your immune system has to fire up to full power, damage is caused on a genetic level. The immune system is not a muscle, which gets stronger the more it's used quite the opposite. If this wasn't the case then people with chronic infections would be the healthiest among us, but they're not.

I think people use herd immunity when they are not in the 5% who need it as they are immunosuppressed or allergic to vaccines are incredibly selfish.

As a matter of interest, if you caught an infection while travelling abroad which you could have been immunised against, would travel insurance cover the cost of treatment and repatriation?

Mimsy yes it probably would, because as pointed out above, immunisation may not 'take' in 100% of recipients, and malaria chemoprophylaxis cannot be guaranteed. But if they decided you were reckless in not taking normal precautions, then payout might be reduced.

But it won't cover repatriation: you will not be transferred whilst potentially infectious yourself.

Why do want people to get serious illnesses when they don't need to op?
Vaccination is huge part of why most children don't die anymore.
I think you are just defending your own parents negligence.

Urgh I hate threads like this. My DD has had all of her vaccines - unless she had a severe allergic reaction I would never consider not vaccinating. I hate the attitude of "oh I had all of the childhood illnesses and I'm healthy" - what do you want? A medal?
My grandfather lost his hearing after getting scarlet fever. My cousin lost her sight after getting measles because my auntie was against vaccines. People who don't get their kids vaccinated (without serious cause) and they get a preventable disease (that would of been prevented through jabs) should be charged with abuse. Heard immunity is why you are healthy OP. I'm sure your diet and lifestyle also helps.

PhoebePenny You are essentially suggesting that unless you do as the government tells you they will have you arrested for child abuse. Not vaccinating isn't a criminal offence.

It should be a criminal offense IMO because you can get serious damage off something like Measles. Why should a child suffer because of a parents ignorance? Maybe I'm just biased after seeing what my cousin went through - because her stupid mother was all happyclappy and thought she could get autism off a MMR jab (even though this has been studied time and time again). She lost her SIGHT. My auntie should have been arrested for abuse. She was stupid.

Thanks, Meditrina. In this family we are vaccinated to the hilt and always would be, unless a doctor advised otherwise in a specific instance, but I wondered what the position was if a don't-vaccinate-on-principler got polio or tetanus or some other completely avoidable condition while abroad. I don't know what the legal position of insurers is, but I bet they'd like to draw a distinction between X, who had all the jabs but still picked up an infection, which is just bad luck, and Y, who decided not to bother having any, which is just plain idiocy if there are no medical contra-indications - in my view, anyway. (I assume that Z, who would have been delighted to have the jabs but was advised not to and has that advice in writing, would still be covered.)

MidnightRose just to say what you are saying about immunology is really interesting. My background/degree is in chemistry, so I've done a fair bit of biochemistry. I have to say, I hadn't appreciated that the immune system is actually weakened by illness, I guess I'd always just assumed it got vaguely stronger with illness (never having done much specific immunology). Off to google a little more . Ta.

It's so conflicting. I'm late 40's and healthy. As I newborn baby I had whooping cough, measles, mumps, chicken pox (possibly other things I don't know about). To me, therefore, you go though these childhood diseases and come out the other side.

I suppose the opposite of surviving these is too extreme for most parents to contemplate, and there's the rub.

Also, as an aside, there will be new diseases in the future we don't know about, and I think the more naturally resilient you are now, the better you will fare in the future.

"To me, therefore, you go though these childhood diseases and come out the other side."

Yes, most people did. Some didn't. And now in this country most of us will never have to worry about whether our child is going to be one of the ones who doesn't.

WildApples " I do work in a school and in retail and therefore come into close contact with hundreds of people everyday and still rarely catch even a cold."
So, coming into contact with hundreds of people (presumably mostly children) daily - how many do you reckon will, for medical reasons, be unable to be immunised? Because every one of those un-immunised children depend on the rest of us to protect them via herd immunity, by being immunised, don't they?

If one of those children fell ill from something you passed to them - how would you feel about that? And remember, some people are Typhoid Mary carriers, so you could pass diseases on without knowing you were doing so.

I didn't have the now routine vaccines. I nearly died of measles. Dsis and I had whooping cough when Dbro was born and he nearly died and we were sent away to relatives. Same happened when I had mumps and being sent away when ill as a small child has had a lasting impact on my relationship with my mother.

I pick up every virus going and have a number of chronic conditions which all related to immune system issues.

Interestingly my mother vaccinated my younger brother. And paid for vaccines which were not yet in the public scheme (not UK) to avoid all that again.

Well actually I've been reading up on the pros and cons of vaccinations for nearly a year now, ever since my daughter was pregnant with her PFB. I am not at all uneducated and I started out without any preconceived ideas, but ended up in the anti-vaxx camp. It's obviously not my decision, but so far my grandchild hasn't been vaccinated.

I don't live in the UK, but the first vaccination babies are offered is for Heb B at three days old. This vaccination wears off before they are old enough to have unsafe sex or use a dirty needle.

The only people I have met in the last thirty years with polio got it from the polio vaccine. And as for mumps, etc. I am old enough to have had all those diseases and not be any the worse for them.

But whatever...

"The only people I have met in the last thirty years with polio got it from the polio vaccine."

Tell us more.

Polio is no longer a live vaccine so no danger from that now, it used to be but not now.

HepB vaccination is only given to babies at risk, eg drug using parents, and usually involves 3 jabs over 6 months followed by a 5-year booster, even though the jab may give lifelong immunity; responses vary and it's easier to give more jabs than count the antibody response.

Mexicanspringtime - may I ask what you have read that put you in the anti-vaccine camp?

Someone posted a link to the I F*cking Love Science article near the top of the thread. Please read it, OP. It also links to lots of other articles.

The phrase "The good thing about science is that it's true, whether or not you believe in it" comes to mind.

Me! I don't know why but my DM would not permit any vaccinations. When I was 16 I returned to boarding school with mumps and exposed the rest of the unvaccinated to it.

It did not go down well.

I have read so much, NotCitrus, I wouldn't know where to begin. Maybe in the UK the Hep B vaccine is only given in those circumstances, which is understandable and sensible, but here in Mexico it is standard procedure and I think it is also standard procedure in the US.
I subscribe to the Arnica, UK facebook page and through it I have been able to link to other documents.

The tamiflu vaccine is just in the news as being ineffective, for example. Pandemrix, which they used in Scandanavia for the H1N1 in 2009, caused a rise in narcolepsy.

There are something like 50 different vaccines they give to children under the age of five here and most, if not all, contain mercury and formaldehyde. That is an awful lot of mercury to be injecting into a small body to protect it against curable diseases.

And I honestly don't trust the pharmaceutical companies. The human papillomavirus vaccine seems to brought some devastating consequences to some girls and only defends against some of the papillomavirus that could cause cancer, and nobody yet knows if this is a lifetime's prevention or only for a few years.

I was a very healthy child, but some vaccinations weren't given them and I actually remember having mumps age 3 or 4 and my god I remember the pain! Also I had measles when 10 or 11 that went to my eyes and I was lucky not to lose my sight. I think we forget how awful these illnesses can be.

Having had a child with leukaemia (who us still in treatment) I am even less tolerant of those that choose not to vaccinate. In fact, it makes me pretty furious.