MMR or seperate jabs which ones would you give ?

[robinredbreast]

hi yes dd has had all the vaccinations so far and is now 6 months, i know they do not have the MMR until 12 months ish?
so im doing reserch now trying to decide whever its better to get the single vaccinations
i don't mind paying

Chances are he will be- the MMR booster isn't a booster - if it was it would be given during teen years- it's given to catch the ones for whom it didn't work first time round.

yes yes yes I'm going.

This was why we agreed to the immunity est - if immunity to measles (the only one of the three that really worries me as such) had been lacking we would have done a single measles. Now we know about the mumps we will give him a single of that when he's older, 10 or so.

yurt, that Donna Williams article was great. Explained things really well.

Yurt, thanks for all your input. Hope you've gone!

Whatever I go for with DD, I won't get the boosters for either DS or DD unless a blood test indicates that the first vaccination didn't take.

I had a bad reaction to the rubella vaccination when I was a child, so when I became pregnant, just had a blood test to check my immunity (which was fine). I'm all for vaccination, but not for needless vaccination.

I gave both my boys single jabs. The way I looked at it was that I had single jabs (before this government decided to make great savings).
I read somewhere that it costs the NHS 20pounds to give MMR but 60pounds for single jabs.
I think the government just see it as a huge money saving move.
That aside I am so so glad that I chose single jabs as DS2 had bad reaction to rubella single jab. He went bright red straightaway then threw up like mad. Really really scary - imagine if he had had MMR. 3 jabs all at the same time - I don't think his body would have coped.
I gave DD1 MMR booster as I think at 4(the age he was when he had it) the body is stronger. DD2 will have single jab boosters due to his bad reaction to rubella.
Robinredbreast, it was one of the easiest decisions I made. Did I haveany worries/doubts about MMR? Yes, then I didn't do it.
We used Healthchoice UK and their jabs came from Switzerland- they gave all the manufacturers details to me so I was well infomed.
Good luck with everything.

We gave DD and DS2 MMR. No worries.

DS1 was not making any babbling sounds or much eye contact so we drove him over to Sheffield and let that bloody charlatan Andrew Wakefield give him simgle injections. (I take it he can be called a charlatan being that he went to prison for giving duff injections without that being libelous?).

Whenever the BBC shows archive footage of that man, thats our little boy being injected.

Anyway the upshot is that he not only had single injections but he also had to have a blood test to test his immunity which found that he wasn't protected against MMR,so we took our GP's advice (which we obviously wish we had done in the first place) and he had to have MMR and a booster.

Its a wonder he doesn't leak. We didn't get so much as a sorry from Wakefield let alone a refund.

The lack of speech and communication problems continued until at three he was found to have hearing loss.

I spent the best part of two years thinking that if our son was Autistic I had probably made the situation much worse by giving him so many doses.

So FWIW I would go for the MMR.

Er Wakefield isn't in prison.... I don't think he ever had anything to do with single jabs (he's a consultant gastroenterologist and was in London at the Royal Free not Sheffield). Do you mean the guy who wasn't storing them properly (can't remember his name).

The MMR doesn't always give protection either. My friend's son has had 2 doses- still has no measles protection supposedly.

before the MMR was introduced, were there any immunisations for measles?

I was vaccinated against measles as a young child.

and which clinics are good, can any be safely recommended? A code of conduct for private clinics, perhaps?

Yurt, can you advise me? (You're back, I see!) My dch are 14. They haven't had the MMR. DH is concerned about the few, but scary, regression stories associated with it. DS, especially - he's asthmatic, and was allergic to eggs (it's cultured on egg, apparently, but he's grown out of that now.

I'm worried about them not being protected, especially as they're now 14. In your opinion, have things changed? Would it be safe, as near as damn it, to have it done? Can their bodies handle it better now they're so much older?

EEEEEEEEkkkkk...Guess thats me sued then.

Dr.David Pugh, The charlatan who went to prison not, Dr. Andrew Wakefield.

Thank you Yurt.

serin .. interestingly some children never develop an immunity following vaccinations .. I'm wondering if he's been tested for immunity now (following the 2 MMRs)

also the reason they have double MMR is to catch the ones that the first vaccinationn didn't get

I also thought, but stand to be corrected, that there's actually an issue with the immunity testing and its accuracy

Hmm, that's interesting Twiglett, I wonder if I'm one of those ones who never got immunity. The consultant at hospital said vaccination isn't as simple as people make out anyway - and that if my immune system wasn't working very well at the time, even if the vaccine had worked it wouldn't protect me in itself, it would only be as good as the immune system it was in, iyswim. Hence, nasty measles for becster...

Am glad DS caught measles, thank god he was hardly ill at all, and at least I know he's got proper immunity. As have I, now! And at least it gave me an easy decision on MMR.

ds1 (age 6) had measles single only at about 18 months. i recently asked if he could have a blood test to see what his immunity levels are to measles before deciding on booster - doc said most kids the immunity levels wane to almost nothing after 4/5 years and that's why they do the booster. gives another few years of protection. i went to v interesting michel odent lecture at north london active birth centre a few weeks ago, he said the age distribution of measles has totally changed... lots of people still getting it, just teenagers instead of younger kids. which ties in with what doc said about measles vaccine not giving long term protection.

rubella & mumps are generally benign diseases. if i had a girl i'd do single rubella jab in teenage years.

i am heavily pregnant, was exposed to rubella at about 12 weeks thru work colleague who caught it. obstetrician was horrified, as i hadn't had blood tests yet to check my immunity. then i told him i'd never had the jab, had actually had german measles... he said getting the disease gives life long immunity, the jab only gives a few years protection. again, ties in with what gp told me about measles jab. funny how different teh story is from all those nhs pamphlets that insist how vital these vaccines are....

Oh I'm interested in what Odent said. And of course measles is more severe in teens than children. When they originally discussed introducing measles vaccination back in the ??? 60's I think- they did discuss whether it would just make things worse by increasing the age at which the disease was caught. That was something that used to be taken very seriously - but got lost somewhere over the decades. That's why I don't understand why they introduce mumps vaccine. Mumps is asymptomatic in 1/3 of childhood cases is more severe in adults - the vaccine doesn't work well enough to eradicate it, so why introduce it?

My friend rang a R4 phone in a few years ago and said to the dept of health bod that his concern was that MMR would need to be given repeatedly during adulthood to maintain immunity levels and the health bod agreed that that was indeed likely

sorry, been giving small boys their lunch. odent was v interesting as he's not anti-vaccination, and comes at it from a doctor's perspective (whereas i am more of the unsure about vaccines in general, homeopathic all the way kind of mindset).

in summary, he said that he thinks giving multiple vaccines is a bad idea and there has been no proper research done on the interactions of several vaccines given at once.

he also feels that whilst many of the vaccines ARE effective, they should not be given to tiny babies. he recommends waiting a year before giving the 5-in-1 baby ones which are normally given at 2/3/4 months, and looking at each vaccine in isolation and making a decision on each one rather than just giving all 5. (i had to have a fight with my gp when ds1 was having what was at the time the 3-in-1, but i did eventually get him the tetanus jab without pertussis... the whooping cough vaccine caused more deaths than whooping cough, hence why i didn't want to do it).

he is pro tetanus jab as tetanus is a serious disease for which the treatment is worse than potential vaccine side effects.

he is pro rubella for teenage girls and pro mumps for teenage boys but thinks children should have the chance to get the diseases and immunity if possible before vaccinating those who need it at puberty.

he said the meningitis C vaccine has been effective at reducing men C, but rates of men B have shot up as men c rates waned... so perhaps there is a cause&effect there.

trying to get down all the relevant points.... hmmm... he also said that he doesn't see the point of vacciating a baby against hep B which is large sexually or needle exchange transmitted...

his overall message which he kept restating was that we are condemned to make an informed decision: ie that because in the UK vaccines are NOT compulsory, as a parent you should not just blindly go along with vaccinating your child with everythign the doctors suggest without looking into each vaccine as a separate issue and making a decision on whether it is necessary, waht the risks/benefits are, and when it should be done.

i have to say though that my ds1, who has only had the tetanus and measles jab without booster is one of the healthiest kids i know (quite amazing given he was 3 weeks prem and spent 2 weeks in an incubator)... as are all the other mainly non-vaccinated kids of my acquaintance. whereas all the fully vaccinated kids i know seem to be constantly on antibiotics for colds/ear infections, lots of allergies etc. that's purely anecdotal, obviously, and i think it has to be personal choice, but i feel very secure about my pic n mix attitude to vax.

Did you know you can no longer get a single paediatric tetanus jab (or DT) - which I want for ds2 and ds3. Have to wait until they are 10. Even my GP thought that was crazy,

oh really? bummer, as i'm expecting ds2 in couple of weeks and was planning to do tetanus jab only... it used to be poss to get a combined diptheria/tetanus jab which might be a viable alternative?

sorry, just realised you said dt also not available. wonder if can get it privately?

Nope- not that I can find. Although I intend to pay for an appointment with Richard Hallvorsen next time I'm in London and assume that he'll know for sure. Wouldn't be keen on th old DT anyway as it contained thimerosal.

halvorsen did ds1 measles jab 5 yrs ago... be worth ringing them to ask them re DT...