MMR Booster ???

[Mytwopenceworth]

My kids had the separate jabs as i was worried about the possible link reported between the mmr and autism as it turned out, they are both autistic anyway!

the gp has said that the boys need their boosters and that the seperate ones are not available any more (unless we travel to france, which we couldnt afford!) so they should have the mmr booster and he said --

"I don't believe there is a link between the mmr and autism, but even if there was you might as well let your children have the booster because (here he laughed a little, a 'chorkle'!) its not as though it could make them any more autistic, and it will ensure their protection"

so since i withheld the mmr pointlessly should i just let them have the booster? i felt ever so upset when he said it couldnt make them any more autistic (i dont know why that upset me, it just seemed so cruel) but i guess he's right. Is he?

DD2 pretended a hairband was a phone today so your boy had more chance of some answer

DD2 pretended a hairband was a phone today so your boy had more chance of some answer

baka - dd2 does that a lot - as well as pretend their little checkout scanner is a phone - that is even better as it makes sounds... so ds3 is right there with her.

Single jabs are definitely still available privately as dd2 is booked in to have a single measles booster in a couple of weeks. Am doing it rather reluctantly, as am not convinced of the safety of the singles either, and may well chicken out before then! I asked about the blood test - they said it was a bit meaningless as it provided a snapshot of immunity now, but that in 6 months the immunity could have gone. So you would have to keep on having regular blood tests to keep checking the immunity, which is obviously undesirable.

If our immunity to vaccinated diseases runs out as we grow up, why don't adults regularly get measles etc? Just puzzled!

They may do in the future caroline.

Originally - before interference :o you were exposed to measles as a child. There was no choice- it is highly contagious, if youre in the same room as it you've been exposed. Then in 99.9% of cases in the western world you developed immunity (the other 0.1% would have died- in the west where measles has been around many thousands of years the number dying from it were very small- I;ve guessed at the figures though- but in new communities -such as amazonian indians exposed for the first time- it could be devastating).

Ok so you've caught measles, you've developed immunity, then you had regular boosters from exposure to other people in the community incubating measles.

Now we're in a situtaiton where there won;t have been much boosting goiing on since the 90's so immiunity could wear off (including natural immunity- although its usually longer lasting than vaccine induced).

Incidentally the best way to ensure that your measles vaccinated child retains immunity is to expose them to a child with measles-- nice natural booster- hopefully with no illness. The lack of circulation of the disease, does, imo, have the potential to cause future problems (measles in the elderly would be a killer I would imagine).

I see - hadn't realised that you need to keep boosting your immunity to any illness to keep it active.

at 'interference'!

it is this jimjams, that makes me feel impotent and angry....i really want to say to the powers that be: 'if you 'take out' all the 'childhood illnesses' how the f are our children's immune systems going to develop? and aren't they going to be a such greater risk of serious illness in later life. i believe the answer to that is yes.

Thank you to everyone who has taken the time to give their views. I know I normally post daft stuff, not serious issues, but this is one time I am really struggling!

I didn't know you might not need the booster if the original jabs did their job, so I am going to ask my gp for the blood test people on this thread have mentioned. If the boys have the required immunity, then it sounds like it might be problem solved.

This really wasnt meant as a big mmr debate - I'm just one mum trying to figure out what's right for my boys!

Only just come across this. I agree with Davros/Baka about genetic predisposition and triggers based on the very unscientific example of my sons, who both had the triple jab MMR. DS1 had a fairly illness free babyhood and not many antibiotics. He was mildly speech delayed at 2 and has dyspraxic traits. DS2 had staphylococcal scalded skin syndrome at 10 days old and needed massive doses of antibiotics to save his life. He developed severe eczema at 4 months - more antibiotics and steroids - and asthma at 12 months - more of the same. He has multiple food allergies and ASD. I believe that both my sons have a predisposition to autism but that DS2 was 'triggered' and DS1 was not (or not to the same extent). DS1 had so many similar traits to DS2 between the ages of 1 and 2.5 - slow speech development, lack of interest in peers, lack of response to questions and instructions, similar 'stims' - but he grew out of them and DS2 didn't.

Incidentally when DS2 was being dx our paed asked us to look at old videos to see if we could pinpoint when his regression started. Because it was very very gradual, we didn't notice anything in actual life until he was 2, but when we looked at the videos it was clear that it began at 16 months - a gradual turning inwards, a greater seriousness, an increasingly blank expression. A couple of weeks after reporting this to the paed I had to fill in a form with the date of DS2's MMR so rang the dr's to check. I'd thought he'd had it around 12/13 months, as most do, but drs told me it was Feb 2004. He was 16 months old. I was utterly convinced of the safety of the MMR before this.

I didn't give DS1 the booster and won't be giving it to DS2 either. Not in the near future anyway.

sphil- children who develop slowly (and therefore who's neurons supposeldy mature slowly) are smeant to be at higher risk of being knocked off course. DS2's development wasn't exactly fast. When ds1 had eczema herpeticum it became staph infected as well (the skin in his face peeled away and had yellow crusts on itit- the rest of his body was blistered from the e herpeticum)- ditto mega course of antibs (and acyclovir for the herpes). DS1 was 11 months, and it started his regression 10 days is teeny tiny to cope with all that.

I was a bit worried because I was given iv antibs after having ds3 (who I breat fed). They ummed and ahhed about giving him some, and thankfully they didn't.

It's so scary isn't it? It makes me feel sick to think back. DS2 lost all the top layer of skin on his arms, legs and much of his face. I often wonder whether this contributed to his sensory problems as well, never mind all the drugs. I just WISH I'd known all this back then, although I know it's a futile thing to say. He obviously had to have the antibiotics then, but I'd have been much more wary about subsequent courses for the eczema/asthma and i definitely wouldn't have given him the triple jab.

yes- snap. Ds1 was blistered everwhere except his feet, so afterwards when he refused to let any skin touch grass and showed other weird sensory things we just assumed it was from the eczema herpeticum. He also needed the antib's (although unfortunately it took 3 goes to get one that worked), and the acyclovir (e herpeticum can also be fatal). Before the blisters came up he had a weird few days where a mole swelled up and started leaking clearish whitish fluid. The blisters started there. Previously we had taken him to a demratologist as the same mole had gone all crinkly and cracked. Since the infection its been normal.

There is a link between the MMR an autism. The drug companies are doing some serious damage control right now. They have many lobbyists in the US government, a lot of the articles denying that there is a link with vaccines/autism were written by research groups that were funded by these a**holes. A legistlative bill recently went through the US house of representatives/Senate and a very important piece of legislation got tacked onto it at the last minute.

This legislation was introduced by a politician who was paid big money by Eli Lilley (drug company that makes vaccines). In a nutshell it stipulates that Eli Lilly cannot ever ever be accountable or sued if it is proven that some children are damaged by the stuff this company produces. This is now law. That says guilt to me. I never thought that MMR's were the only factor in autism, but they play a role and it seems to me that the people responsible have known for awhile and are covering their tracks because there are billions at stake.

Basically if a link is proven, and these guys are held accountable and hit with lawsuits, it will destroy these companies so bad that everyday meds will become hard to come by.

The other thing that has got lost in all of this is that Andrew Wakefield simply said that he'd found something interesting and that there should be more research, that was all he said at first. No-one has ever proved that there ISN'T a link, but no-one has proved that there is. THen he got witch hunted (?) and the media distorted everything. Eventually his position at the Royal Free became untenable and he became a little more outspoken that there seemed to be a new type of bowel problem that may be linked to autism. The bile directed at him was never returned by him although the whole thing completely changed his life.
I am not an Andy Wakefield "follower" but the distortion just annoys me.
I heard somewhere recently (can't remember where I'm afraid) that there is a high incidence of bowel problems in individuals with learning disability (was it on a TV prog?) but that didn't mean that the two conditions were related.... but it doesn't mean they're not does it?

Jimjams, that's really interesting. I didn't know that about boosters, thanks! I will get her levels checked. She's had a million blood tests and is pretty good about them. There is a case of measles at her school, we had a letter home yesterday

I have a friend who is a speech and language therapist and she said that she was sure there was a link between the MMR and autism. Her son still had it though. My son has not had the jabs at all, singles or combined since I was concerned that whatever is in the MMR vaccine is also in the single measles jab, he's had mumps (the illness) anyway and I don't see why a boy needs the rubella jab (until they are older so they can't give it to a pregnant friend/partner/wife etc.) I accept that he may get measles and if he does we'll have to deal with it.

A friend of mine said that she has friends, one is a GP and the wife a nurse - they agonised long and hard over giving their dd the MMR. She found it reassuring that they gave the MMR - I am afraid that I found it incredibly worrying that they had to agonise about it!

I also feel that the vaccination programme has a lot more to do with economics than public health - ie it's much cheaper for kids to be vaccinated and deal with the few who are damaged (there is a Vaccine Damage Act so the govt does accept that children will be damaged if they are unlucky) rather than deal with the kids who get the illnesses and need treatment, parents who need to take time off work to look after them and of course the few cases of complications - all of which will cost far more. It's all about resource allocation.

This is for every parent to make up their own mind and I don't think it's ok for other people to say that they are irresponsible or otherwise. Ultimately it's about weighing up the risk for your own child, based on your own experiences.

And I also think the doctor's behaviour was completely inappropriate! Especially as there has been anecdotal evidence of children regressing even more after the boosters - even when they've had them at much later ages such as 8 or 10.

When we went for dd2's single vaccines, the doctor who was giving them said he had recently given single vaccines to the child of two consultant immunologists - well, if they're worried, we all ought to be!!

I agree that the government's approach to this (and many other issues) is very Machiavellian - they think it's worth sacrificing a small minority for the sake of the many.