does it ever work if one partner is pro vaccination and the othervis anti vaccination?

[superstarheartbreaker]

Just wondering if this issue is a bone of contention or has split anyone up? Ive met a lovely man who wants kids and so do I but for some reason we got talking about vaccinations. He Iis very anti vaccination and hasnt got his kids done whereas im very pro vaccination. For some reason I know this is a big issue for me. Am I being daft? I guesd I just get people who fall for conspiracy theoriescand scaremongering. There are many other qualities about him I do get and admire though. Very early stages so do I carry on?

Yes, it is silly.

In truth there may be a proportionally very few people who are damaged by vaccines. There's a lot of adverse drug reactions from normal medicines that just aren't reported, and I find it feasible that there could, occasionally, be adverse and very very occasionally serious reactions to vaccines

But when you are looking at the overall picture, they are a tiny tiny number compared to the number of lives saved by them. Wellwobby was extremely convincing.

Either way, positions seem entrenched on this one.

Superstarheartbreaker's gotta make her own choice, and work out how she's going to handle disagreements with this man and if she wants to see him again :) Good luck, superstar, hope that whether it's him or someone else, you find another superstar to shine with :)

Well in that case, I believe the true ignorance has shown it's face.

Starlight - smallpox did leave UK through vaccination. There was concerted efforts at vaccination which meant that by the time the 20th century came most small pox cases were imported. Vaccination against small pox started centuries ago. Literally. Catherine the Great was vaccinated against smallpox in Russia in public to encourage others to follow suit.

As for kids getting mild versions - absolutely true. However if you don't get it until later for some reason then, like my friend with chicken pox, you can end up with permanent damage.

For a kicker, the wild versions of stuff like measles hit various places where there are none of these nasty vaccinations. Lots of kids die.

With plague, it isn't really hitting endemic proportions the same way, due to things like public health, but is actually easily treated with antibiotics if caught early enough.

In general, by and large, all things considered, if there are no contra indications, I am pro vaccination. I wonder how Andrew Wakefield can sleep with all the damaged kids on his conscience.

Wellwobbly - I often think the anti-vaxers (excluding those who are advised by doctors not to follow the schedule, obviously) should be deported to countries where these illnesses are rife, and we could import a family who would be grateful for vaccines and western medicine.

"Well if cowpox saved us all from small pox, what could small pox have saved us from had it not been eradicated?"

The mortality rate for the V major strain of smallpox was between 30 and 35% - that's right, roughly 1 in 3 people who contracted it died

I hereby nominate the above for the most totally fucking stupid post I have ever seen on mumsnet, and that really is saying something. (NB please note - not intended as a personal attack, you may be rational and well balanced in all other opinions, but that statement is way up there with claiming the earth is flat).

"hat does not mean that vaccines are risk free though."

Nobody says it is. Nothing that works is completely risk free.

Those who haven't dealt with the consequences of stuff like measles before vaccination don't realise just how bad this 'childhood disease' really is. People were left deaf, blind, brain damaged, not just killed. My father's family were badly hit, the damage from measles shortened my aunt's life.

I don't know the statistics about people disabled from measles, but I would be interested to see how it would compare to those disabled from measles vaccines.

Some people have very good reasons not to vaccinate. For them and for those too young to be vaccinated or just missed in the mix there are a lot of risks and it is for their benefit as well that the rest are immunised to grant 'herd immunity' which I think has been quoted at 95%

Measles makes me angry. There is no animal reservoir and a vaccination programme like that of the one against smallpox could wipe it out. Lots of children wouldn't die. Lots of children wouldn't be left blind, deaf, damaged. And then we wouldn't need any of the vaccinations - result!

btw - the 'wild infection' of flu @ 1919 killed more people than WWI. I bet a lot of people then wished there had been a vaccine.

If you want your DC vaccinated you only need a parent present. If his ex isn't as anti vaccination as he is, his DC may have been vaccinated too.

Here is a link to the World Health Organisation's statement on vaccines:

www.who.int/bulletin/volumes/86/2/07-040089/en/

And a quote:

Vaccination has greatly reduced the burden of infectious diseases. Only clean water, also considered to be a basic human right, performs better.1 Paradoxically, a vociferous antivaccine lobby thrives today in spite of the undeniable success of vaccination programmes against formerly fearsome diseases that are now rare in developed countries.2

Understandably, vaccine safety gets more public attention than vaccination effectiveness, but independent experts and WHO have shown that vaccines are far safer than therapeutic medicines.2,3 Modern research has spurred the development of less reactogenic products, such as acellular pertussis vaccines and rabies vaccines produced in cell culture. Today, vaccines have an excellent safety record and most “vaccine scares” have been shown to be false alarms.4,5 Misguided safety concerns in some countries have led to a fall in vaccination coverage, causing the re-emergence of pertussis and measles.6

Putative vaccine safety issues are commonly reported while reviews of vaccine benefits are few. A Medline search over the past five years using the keywords “vaccine risks” scored approximately five times as many hits (2655 versus 557) as a Medline search using “vaccine benefits” as keywords.7 This reflects the fact that negative aspects of vaccination get much more publicity than positive aspects.

How one addresses the antivaccine movement has been a problem since the time of Jenner. The best way in the long term is to refute wrong allegations at the earliest opportunity by providing scientifically valid data. This is easier said than done, because the adversary in this game plays according to rules that are not generally those of science. This issue will not be further addressed in this paper, which aims to show how vaccines are valuable to both individuals and societies, to present validated facts, and to help redress adverse perceptions. Without doubt, vaccines are among the most efficient tools for promoting individual and public health and deserve better press.8

Starlight did you watch that Youtube clip? Please watch it.

This is THE REALITY of a disease that is easily vaccinated against. If that baby was not in white, western, middle class Australia, but lived in a slum? How many times in that clip would that baby have died? I counted three times at least.

I am terrified of whooping cough, I distinctly remember listening to a child younger than me when I was a child. Awful, awful, awful.

What are the chances of being damaged by vaccines? Really? Granted, there is a chance, but it's minuscule. Really tiny. The chance of contracting mumps, measles or rubella is many times higher than being damaged by the MMR vaccine. So logically it makes sense to vaccinate.

To the person who asked why I didn't vaccinate against mumps as an adult - I had no idea how risky it was. I believed the propaganda that it is a mild childhood disease. Since I knew I was immune to rubella and had measles as a child the question of mumps never entered my head. I didn't know that it was dangerous to pregnant women.

Well if cowpox saved us all from small pox, what could small pox have saved us from had it not been eradicated?

I don't know about us, but could well have been used to vaccinate cows against cowpox.

Seriously, you'd risk having people dead and disfigured for some possible, theoretical, benefit?

People also should think that if their children were damaged by a vaccine, what might have been the consequences of them catching the actual disease.

I suspect that lots of anti-vacc parents might decide the risk of vaccination is more than worth it if they lived somewhere that measles, mumps, tb etc. were rife. They can afford to be anti-vacc here because (ironically) of vaccination making the risk of serious illness / death lower and (possibly) more comparable to the risks they associate with giving vaccines.

As far as the OP is concerned, I would worry that this wasn't the only area where you had conflicting views and while some things can be sorted with a bit of compromise, this isn't one and could cause serious issues later on.

I wouldn't want to be with anyone who was gullible enough to fall for the anti-vaccination crap.

A lot of so called 'vaccine damage' is unproved anyway. The actual links between any of the commonly used vaccines and any adverse effects are almost non existent.

Totally loved Wellwobbly's post - this is the truth. History and third world countries show us what an unvaccinated world was like, and it wasn't some kind of lovely system where everyone got mild diseases and then the diseases just went away on their own. And the unvaccinated children are only NOT living in this reality because the rest of us act responsibly.

But of course I am sure that all the anti-vaccinating parents with their most excellent knowledge gained via google and hysteria forums know much better than the World Health Organisation...

'A lot of so called 'vaccine damage' is unproved anyway. The actual links between any of the commonly used vaccines and any adverse effects are almost non existent.'

You are saying vaccine damage does not happen? Seriously? Tell that to vaccine damaged people and the parents of vaccine damaged children. I know that there are a lot of people who see vaccination as holy cow, beyond reproach but that is ridiculous.

My children have both been vaccinated according to the normal schedule... btw! Other than I was very about dd1 being immunised for swine flu when she had already had it.

I think all this pro/anti-vaccination discussion is just crap. I don't agree with either side and think both are brainwashed to be honest.

There are some illnesses that it is vital to vaccinate against, whooping cough in babies, tetanus, measles, polio. I have absolutely no argument about this.

But what about others? There was a mumps epidemic in Coventry schools (and possibly other places) about 10 or so years ago amongst the older children who had just missed out on MMR (Y11/ 6th form age - great). The jab had eradicated it just enough so they hadn't caught it mildly as children, but then they did. Problems caused by vaccination. I was born in 1977 so had one single measles jab and may well not be immune as a result (I didn't have it as a child), so another potential problem caused by vaccination.

Rubella? Dangerous to pregnant women, why not test all women for immunity at 15 and then vaccinate any who haven't had it?

The new ones - rotavirus, flu for healthy 2/3 year olds. I mean where do we stop?

'People also should think that if their children were damaged by a vaccine, what might have been the consequences of them catching the actual disease.'

This is certainly a fair point. It is why it can be a difficult decision to make when you feel your child might be more susceptible to damage than others.

Yes brettgirl - I have found that if you don't want all the vaccines at once you get shouted down and bullied. I agree that some of the vaccines are far more important than others.

'What are the chances of being damaged by vaccines? Really? Granted, there is a chance, but it's minuscule. Really tiny.'

No, the problem is that while the risk is tiny for some people, the risk is much more for others. The risk is not uniform.