Selfsufficientish.com

Will do THANKS x

KellyB wrote:Now the thing I don't get is this. A friend of mine has a little girls who has just had German measles ie Rubella Saffie didn't get it as we don't see them much and they were away when she got it. She HAS however HAD the mmr at the age of 1 as per the "usual" route. Now while they were away another kiddo had just had the mmr and my friends Dr said that this is how she caught it (her vaccine didn't work - the daughter of my friend). Can you understand that ....not sure I can reading it back lol There was a pregnant woman on the trip too not sure what the outcome was there. The worry I would have would be if I caught it off Saffie as we have been trying for a baby since she was 6 months I have had the Rubella vaccine but what if mine didn't work??

My sister's 3 kids all had the MMR but only the youngest had the pre-school booster (it had only just been introduced). As a result of the booster, all three kids got full blown Rubella despite all being vaccinated, one of them twice. According to their doctor, it wasn't unusual at all, although I didn't realise this might still be the case. After all, that was 10 years ago.
hth
Lynne

please be aware that measles, mumps and rubella are notifiable diseases.

http://www.patient.co.uk/showdoc/40000306/

vaccinate or not vaccinate is your own choice but I would advise that you do your own research on the complications of the disease rather than rely on the 'my child had it and is ok' scenario. Rubella for instance is not just dangerous for pregnant women but the very young, elderly and those with low immunity.

Yep, good point there. We got Ellis 'done' because one of the children he often sees has had a liver and bowel transplant, and is therefore immuno-suppressed. I would hate to think that I had unwittingly let her catch something she was unable to fight off. I do totally understand that the whole issue is a very emotive one, and I do believe that the timescales for these jabs seriously need looking at; but you can speak to your GP and HV and set your own timescale if you feel more comfortable with it and are able to keep up with them all! Fortunately, Ellis's jabs were mostly done with 4 or 5 month, rather than 8 week, gaps between them but that was pure luck rather than judgement really.

baldowrie wrote:please be aware that measles, mumps and rubella are notifiable diseases.

http://www.patient.co.uk/showdoc/40000306/

vaccinate or not vaccinate is your own choice but I would advise that you do your own research on the complications of the disease rather than rely on the 'my child had it and is ok' scenario. Rubella for instance is not just dangerous for pregnant women but the very young, elderly and those with low immunity.

I´m glad this has been so civilised so far.

My understanding is that Rubella carries a 1 in 6000 risk of encephalitis, if we lived our lives according to 1 in 6000 risks, we´d never leave the house. I found no reference to it causing death. There is no treatment for Rubella as it is usually a mild virus that runs its course without serious problems.

It is also very important when one considers any statistic that one finds out where it came from. Pro-vax campaigners often muddy the waters by including worldwide statistics, these are not useful, a child is far more likely to die of measles in a country with poor infrastructure, nutrition and healthcare. Like CT alluded to, those who are immunosupressed are far more likely to suffer serious consequences of the diseases (that said, if the Drs now think that the diseases can be spread by recently vaxxed kids, you´re damned if you do and damned if you don´t KWIM?)

Clara wrote: It is also very important when one considers any statistic that one finds out where it came from. Pro-vax campaigners often muddy the waters by including worldwide statistics, these are not useful, a child is far more likely to die of measles in a country with poor infrastructure, nutrition and healthcare. Like CT alluded to, those who are immunosupressed are far more likely to suffer serious consequences of the diseases (that said, if the Drs now think that the diseases can be spread by recently vaxxed kids, you´re damned if you do and damned if you don´t KWIM?)

One of the objectives of a vaccination program is to reduce or eliminate the pool of potential infection precisely so that those who are immuno supressed, malnourished or have poor access to basic health care might have a better chance of avoiding it. In the West, measles kills 0.1% - in an unvaccinated population that size of the UK that would amount to around 300 children per year at normal levels of infection (something over 50% getting sick).

I mentioned once before that I attended to aftermath of an outbreak in West Africa that killed 10% of the children it infected. Personally, that was enough for me to be convinced of the reasonableness of attempting to prevent infection from being allowed to continue. But I am sentimental like that.

As you say, "if we lived our lives according to 1 in 6000 risks, we´d never leave the house." And the statistical risks of serious, lifelong side effects from vaccination are?

I am still reading all this just soaking it up here. And yes it is nice that it's civilised

The Riff-Raff Element wrote:As you say, "if we lived our lives according to 1 in 6000 risks, we´d never leave the house." And the statistical risks of serious, lifelong side effects from vaccination are?

Unknowable.....because side effect statistics are under reported and only tend to include those that have been observed directly as cause and effect (for instance going into immediate anaphylactic shock). It cannot be determined to what extent vaccines add to our toxic load and/or undermine our immune systems.

Unless I am missing something, a death rate of one in 10,000 (ref Sussman 2003) is expressed as 0.01%, or 30 per year according to your figures. Though bear in mind "western" world includes the US where children do not have access to universal healthcare and they have quite staggering rates of child mortality amongst the poor (for a so-called first world nation) because of this. I personally would not compare survival rates in the US to those in the UK (or rest of western Europe) or even use any statistic that includes American stats.

Interestingly The US also had the most intense vax schedule in the western world and mandatory vaxxing for education, like France.

Furthermore hidden within the context of your post is the assumption that nothing can be done to prevent having a bad reaction to the disease or aid recovery. Breastfeeding, good nutrition, clean water and hygienic living conditions, all improve a childs chances in the face of illness. Of those 30 children it would be reasonable to assume that many would not only have had measles but their immune systems would have been compromised due to things that could have done differently were circumstances conducive to it. By choosing not to vax my daughter I have acknowledged that her wellbeing is my responsibility, I nuture her in a way that is conducive to her staying healthy (knowing full well that one can never predict any outcome) rather than hoping that someone else will fix it.

baldowrie wrote:please be aware that measles, mumps and rubella are notifiable diseases.

http://www.patient.co.uk/showdoc/40000306/

vaccinate or not vaccinate is your own choice but I would advise that you do your own research on the complications of the disease rather than rely on the 'my child had it and is ok' scenario. Rubella for instance is not just dangerous for pregnant women but the very young, elderly and those with low immunity.

Absolutely agree. However, when my youngest caught rubella from his teacher's son (who was confirmed by his doctor to have had it although ds2 was with him before the symptoms came out), the locum who saw him flatly refused to diagnose it as rubella as the totally characteristic spots had come out in the wrong order. Not only did she tell me it was just a random viral infection, she told me to send him to school!

Obviously I did not.

Lynne

Clara wrote:
Unless I am missing something, a death rate of one in 10,000 (ref Sussman 2003) is expressed as 0.01%, or 30 per year according to your figures. Though bear in mind "western" world includes the US where children do not have access to universal healthcare and they have quite staggering rates of child mortality amongst the poor (for a so-called first world nation) because of this. I personally would not compare survival rates in the US to those in the UK (or rest of western Europe) or even use any statistic that includes American stats.

The 0.01% rate (or less - France-specific studies put the rate at 0.005%) is indeed valid for a population where the vast majority of people (in excess of 80%) are vaccinated because it more or less precludes the possibility of epidemic.

Which means, in event of complications, medical facilities such as ICUs and specialist nursing are available. However, in conditions of epidemic or pandemic percentage mortality will rise simply because medical resources are overwhelmed. And that is where the one-in-one thousand rate comes up.

You point that some of our poor unfortunate 30 have impaired immunity is not perhaps fair. For those with immuns system problems the rates are much higher, which given some of the anecdotal evidence about the general health of children today could be worrying.

Certainly good living conditions can aid recovery but they do necessarily help where there is a genetic predisposition to complications, and that is a further risk factor to be evaluated.

You and I have viewpoints that are unlikely to be reconciled. Like you I seek to nurture my children with the best that I can provide. For me that includes vaccination, not just to protect them (though I think the risk is worth taking just for that versus getting the diseases), but also as part of the fire break that protects those who cannot be vaccinated. Which, personally, I think is part of my wider responsibility. Just like cutting my carbon footprint to the minimum, avoiding waste, not pouring engine oil down the drain and lots of other things that my not benefit me personally but which I think are important.

Kelly: always civilised. It's the only way forward.

Well all of this as made me come back in thinking to one of the original points I made, that whatever we decide to do (in the current situation...another one of those variables ) neither of us are likely to be putting our children at risk.

I too share concerns about the social responsibility of not vaxxing, like I said before I´m not completely reconciled one way or the other regarding measles, the fact that I can only consider not vaxxing because most children are does not escape me.

Though there are social implications of vaxxing to be considered...the measles vaccine is only about 69% effective, that is just under a third of vaxxed children have incomplete immunity, these children are at risk of the deadlier strain "atypical" measles. If this strain were able to make the jump into the population at large that would be devastating. We have abx resistant bacteria, are vax resistant viruses around the corner?

If it were clearcut then we wouldn´t be having this conversation: children stand a remote chance of being damaged either by the vaccine or by the disease. Experience fuels intuition: If I, like you, had seen a fatal measles epidemic chances are I would have vaxxed by now, as it is I spent most of the last decade working with vaccine damaged or suspected vaccine damaged children. Go figure

Clara wrote:
Though there are social implications of vaxxing to be considered...the measles vaccine is only about 69% effective, that is just under a third of vaxxed children have incomplete immunity, these children are at risk of the deadlier strain "atypical" measles. If this strain were able to make the jump into the population at large that would be devastating. We have abx resistant bacteria, are vax resistant viruses around the corner?

Could I ask where the 69% came from? My understanding (though I admit it has been 20 years since I had to do any viriology in anger) was that the immunity rate from modern MMR vaccines was over 98%.

Some viruses mutate in a way that means vaccines rapidly become ineffective: measles is not one of those, but 'flu is. If it did mutate to be unaffected by the vaccine, the type of virus that causes measles means that a replacement sould be easy to formulate. The existance of immunity does not directly encourage virusus to mutate - they do not respond to outside stimuli like bacteria.

Atypical measles syndrome (AMS) was a presentation of the disease that arose when incomplete immunity(and hence an altered immune response) to measles resulted from use of the killed virus vaccine. And very nasty it was too. It was caused by exactly the same virus, not a different strain. The killed vaccine was discontinued some years ago, mostly because of AMS and the live attenuated vaccine used now avoids AMS.

You are right, of course. Had I spent years dealing with the needs of vaccine damaged children I might view the matter differently. Experiences shape attitudes.

Do you guys find though that statistics and percentages can be lets say adapted to go for or against something if you know what I mean?? I'm looking at everything everyone is saying on here and on other web sites but I'm now trying to omit all these numbers in my mind as they all seem to be conflicting

OK I stand corrected about AMS.

I shall type out verbatim the information from which I gathered the 69%, it may explain your figure too....

The government states that the MMR vaccine is 90% effective against measles and mumps and 95% effect against Rubella. A booster jab is needed to ensure that 95% of the population are immune. this will ensure that enough people will be immune to measles, so that the disease is unable to cause epidemics and will die away (citation Salisbury & Begg. Immunisation against infectious disease. Dept of Health, HMSO 1996).
In 1995, 475 children who had been given the MMR triple jab were tested for resistance to each of the diseases. 99% were resistant to Rubella, 69% were resistant to measles and 81% resistant to mumps (citation Miller et al, Vaccine, 1995 ;13:799-802)

Now you could argue that 1996 trumps 1995 as being more up to date, but its dubious. The sample size wasn´t huge in the first study, but I can´t find any reference for the research that informed the latter.....it was also released by the government ( a little "sexing-up" perhaps ), and the earlier study would have had to had some serious methodology problems to get it that wrong (BTW for anyone that doesn´t know Vaccine is a journal aimed at an audience of those in the research, production and clinical practice).

KellyB wrote:Do you guys find though that statistics and percentages can be lets say adapted to go for or against something if you know what I mean?? I'm looking at everything everyone is saying on here and on other web sites but I'm now trying to omit all these numbers in my mind as they all seem to be conflicting

Yep you are absolutely right! Lies, damn lies and statistics as they say. It is one of the things that makes the decision so much more complicated. On balance I would say that you have to go with a some information and some intuition, knowing that your decision is unlikely to do your child any harm but that you cannot guarantee any outcomes.

We all make decisions with the way that we bring up our kids that other people would see as risks.....many people have expressed horror at the fact I live without a road (and a very long way from a hospital), should anything "go wrong" they say I would be in trouble. Well yes, quite possibly so, but then I wouldn´t live in an hermetically sealed chemically scrubbed house in the middle of a polluted town, I´ll take my chances thanks!......horses for courses.