Dare i raise the question....

[CharlotteACavatica]

who has let their kids have the MMR? how do you feel about it? Ihave a 6yo a 3.5yo and a 1yo and my 1yo dd is due to have hers next week, i havent let the other two have theirs and neither shall i be letting dd, but as so many people know its 'supposed' problems im still interogated and asked why why why? i have heard that the more patients your gp gets to have the MMR the more he/she gets paid, if they get 100% they get a shed load of money but if the percentage drops below 90 they start getting charged!!!????

well put magicfarawaytree.

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Not read all of this - but I have had all my 4 immunised.

In my family, my mum had a still born child due to having rubella in early pregnancy - the placenta was damaged. My mum herself has hearing damage due to a complication of mumps, while my brother (much older than me) has measles damage to his eyes. My dad(I know this is nothing to do with the MMR!) had TB twice, before the vaccination programme, which again caused lung damage, and probably contributed to his early death.So I suppose I have never thought that these diseases are relatively benign - I always wanted to protect my children against them.

Having said this, obviously, if there are any contraindications in your family, I completely understand that you will not want your children vaccinated. but if there are no contraindications, I personally think the risk from the diseaes is greater than the vaccines and I feel that I have some wider social reponsibility to ensure these common childhood diseses - that can have quite profound and far reaching effects - don't become common again.

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But I suppose what makes sense to me is that these childhood diseases also cause damage to children. So if we have a way of preventing them, isn't it ethically unsound to risk damage to a statistically higher percentage of children? When the damage caused is directly attributable to these diseases?

I feel very uneasy discussing this or saying I am sure I am 100% right when I have 4 children who have had their MMR and not suffered damage from it. Of course I might feel completely different if this had happened to me.I suppose what I was trying to say was that the evidence from my life persuaded me to have my children vaccinated.I think I'll bow out now too.

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Yes socci I see your pov, but also, on the other side, if there was no vaccination programme in place for measles and rubella and to allow the diseases to run their natural course and allow children to get "natural" immunity would also (imo and as Spidermama says) result in more people (children/vulnerable adults/foetuses) being seriously damaged/dying. which isn't ethically sound either.
either course - vaccination/abandoning vaccination - will mean some people are damaged/killed.

sorry,cross posts.
but stopping the programme of vaccinating against rubella would cause the number of cases of rubella to go up, and the cases of rubella damage to go up. it would increase the risks of rubella damage.
(I appreciate that some people think immunisation is not at all effective, but I can't quite come to terms with that, really, if the argument is also that the immunisation removes the possibility of achieving "natural immunisation through catching the disease.)

But a decision not to vaccinate, to me, is also a decision you make on your child's behalf, in that it has consequences in the same way as a decision to vaccinate may have consequences.I think the argument, with respect, very much does operate in reverse.

When I was taking the decision I suppose my question was, what is likeliest to cause harm? Not just to my children, but to the wider community? And in my opinion, the likeliest harm comes from not vaccinating. That is not to say that I believe there are no adverse reactions to the vaccine.It is a difficult decision to make but I am happy with the decision I made.Obviously if you believe your child is more likely to be harmed by the vaccination than by measles, mumps, or rubella, you will take the opposite decision.

Haven't read this thread but both mine have had the MMR (8 & 2.11)

I have a slight problem with the single vaccine. Maybe someone could correct me?
If those who choose to immunise are making an informed choice based on evidence produced, mostly, by the governement and pharmaceutical companies- to choose to vaccinate.
But my problem is - how can there be the same quantity/quality of evidence to back the single vaccine if they are unliscensed in the UK, not manufactured by the UK or given the UK stamp of approval (if you like).

(I'm sitting on the fence in this thread because I'm a bit over sensitive tonight and could get easily offended.)

Does this not make them a lesser known evil?

It is just a bit contradictory to me really to choose to immunise, as per UK public health guidelines, to then choose something that isn't governed by that government.

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(sorry for confusing post of mine, it got a bit jumbled hope it makes sense.)

Pity Aloha isn't on here- she had come across some interesting research related to Gulff War Syndrome. Relevant to autism and the MMR and numbers of vaccinations give at once as vets with GWS and some people with autism share the same urinary profiles. DS1 has that type of profile (basically it is believed to be an indicator that your membranes- gut/blood brain etc etc - are "leakier" than usual). DS3 also has that type of urinary profile. Now hes 21 months I can say he's definitely not autistic. We avoided all potential triggers we could with him, vaccinations, antibiotics, gluten, mercury (no tuna- ds1 stuffed it down him- and there were no public health warnings about pregnant women eating too much fiush during my pregnancy with him). DS2 may have the same profile- I've never tested him.

Richard Lathe's book on Autism the brain and the environment is woth reading if you are truly interested in the causes of autism (I doubt many are until it happens too them, but still, its a good read). He is pro-vax- he developed one himself (a rabies jab). He suggests it is reasonable to say that about 5% of cases of autism are triggered by the MMR. The people who work closes with Wakefield have quoted 7% to me. People are talking the same ball parkl figures.

I so miss her

I do wish that she would come back. Mumsnet is so much the poorer without her

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The single vacccines are unliceneced because the drugs companies didn't request a licence extension (or something like that- somewhere I have a letter from a Dept of Health worker explaining this to me). The strains used are the same as in the MMR.

Worth checking out your MMR brand though, as autism damage appears to be brand specific (in terms of severity of damage and chances of recovery/improvement). The worst culprit is no longer used in the UK. Apparently a new brand has recently been introduced. Might be worth sticking with the well tested longer used alternative.

when I say well tested btw I mean as in has been used for longer. The cochrane report noted that MMR safety testing was inadequate.

Socci, yes it was a common childhood illness but nevertheless it always recognised as having the potential to cause significant and harmful complications including death. as you prob know the problem with measles is its high degree of infectiousness, so an outbreak can easily happen.
frankly the idea of children catching rubella en masse is truly terrifying to me. the potential for passing it on to pregnant women unknowingly (as symptoms can be so sdifficult to pinpoint) and the potential consequences for the foetus being so devestating (esp at the early stages of p), and there being no way of knowing who is pregnant and who is immune. just horrible to contemplate.

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Incidentally I would have no prooblem with a national vacccination policy that included the following elements

1. At all times the safest possible vaccination was used, not the cheapest (thimerosal free jabs were $1 more expensiive per jab)

2. A vaccination program for each child included an assessment of their risk from vax vs jab (which will have an element of guesswork, but there are family history details that could act as an initial filter).

1. that potential reactions were actually recorded. I've practically lost count of the number of people I've met who had children hospitalised within days of a vaccination, seriously ill enough to have things like lumbar punctures and then told it couldn't possibly be to with the vaccination.

4. a compensation system that works and is funded by the drugs companies (as they used to have in the States). My friends little boy had massive life threatening seizures within hours of the MMR. Aged 7 he is in nappies, can't talk etc etc (he was starting to talk befoore the MMR), he's received nothing, no recognition of the damage, not a penny.

1. The choice to give single vacccines. For any vaccine. I would like my children to have a tetanus jab. At the moment they can't.

I don;'t think any of those features are unreasonable.

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vax vs disease I mean.

littleshebear, I think looking at the likelihood of harm in the round is a very reasonable way of looking at it.
thankyoupoppet, just thought I would say that I thought your post made perfect sense

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