Selfsufficientish.com

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/health/7392510.stm

To jab or not to jab - one of the biggest parental dilemmas - don´t worry though the Government wants to make the decision for you.

Coming soon. a HV in every bathroom to make sure you don´t forget to brush your teeth!

I know this issue arouses strong feelings, but does anyone thnk that those in power have the right do tell us we MUST give how children jabs? If they are truly "completely" safe (and a government slush fund for vaccine damaged children hints otherwise) surely the argument could be won by facts not force?

If the government does try to make vaccination compulsory, they're contravening the European convention on human rights, so not to worry. I seem to recall a while back there was talk of putting vaccines into bananas!

This is a topic that causes furious debate, as you say. And I'm one of those on the receiving end of a pasting because my kids have had no vaccinations other than their first baby vaccines (DTP, Polio and Hib), and my younger son only had one of those rather than three doses because huge lumps came up in his neck which turned out to be cysts in his lymphatic system which will never go away and which cause him to take longer than average to get over anything. Thank goodness I don't use anti-bacterial everything and let me kids hare about and "eat dirt" whenever they want to, because he's as fit as a flea. I think he's had about 3 colds in his 9 years so far. My reason is personal and medical. All three of my sister's children had serious complications with the MMR. My GP felt that it wasn't worth us taking the risk with our children.

Here's my take on it. I would never recommend anyone to vaccinate or not to. Their kids aren't my kids and I don't live their life. However, a few points.

1 - Many vaccines have a listed side effect of death

2 - If you find the government, or anyone else, quoting research from Canada, step away. At least up to a couple of years ago it was not mandatory under Canadian law to reveal negative side effects in research

3 - Vaccines, like diseases, have a genetic component. That is to say if you have a genetic pre-disposition to suffering the side effects of vaccines, it might be better not to have it. But if you have a genetic pre-disposition to suffer adverse reactions to diseases, have the jab

4 - You can say anything with statistics. For instance, look at this set of completely made up figures for people suffering the side effects of a drug, looking at a total of 600 people, 100 in each age group

Age No
0-5 : 1
5-15 : 3
15-25 : 7
25-40 : 18
40-60 : 22
60+ : 49
Total : 100

What that tells you is that the older you get, the greater your risk of suffering from side effects. But you could also bung it all together and say that 1:6 will suffer from side effects. As the saying goes, lies, damned lies and statistics. We never see age-differentiated figures for these things, do we? Neither do we see national figures. Third world stats are lumped in with first world stats.

So that's me. Interestingly enough, the government pulled the plug on legal aid for vaccine damage cases a couple of years ago. There were simply too many. But now a judge in the US has ruled that one child's autism was caused by a vaccine, the floodgates may re-open.

There's a lot of talk about parents nowadays never having seen measles and therefore not understanding what a terrible disease it is. Well, I'm old (46) and I had measles. So did every kid in my street and every kid in my school. In fact, when I got measles I never had so many friends as parents from all over brought their kids round to play with me. We used to have measles parties, just like we had chickenpox parties when my kids got that. I actually had people phoning me to ask if they could bring their kids round in the hopes of catching it. Because that's the thing. You get it early and it's no big deal. But now there's a vaccine for measles, so it's a terrible killer.

And we all know chickenpox is a mild childhood disease which can have complications if you get it late. Only now there's a vaccine, so all of a sudden, we've started hearing news reports of how deadly chickenpox is. So I suspect that in 20 years time the parents who've seen chickenpox, as people of my age who saw measles, will be giving the same arguments about it as I am now, while their grandchildren will be vaccinated up to the eyeballs because they could die if they don't have it.

So no, I don't believe the government should be allowed to tell us whether we can vaccinate or not. In fact I believe that bonuses given to GPs for vaccine uptake should be outlawed, that pharmaceutical companies should have to publish all their findings on everything they peddle in the national press, that all incentives to GPs from these companies (holidays, money etc) should be outlawed. Pharmaceutical companies should be accountable to everyone, not just their shareholders.

I once tried to complain to the ASA about an ad which showed a baby surrounded by lions, with the tagline that went something like "No responsible parent would put their child in danger. Vaccinate your child". Apparently they didn't feel that the ad was saying that if you didn't vaccinate you were a bad parent.

Sorry, that turned into a really long, rambly, disjointed "conspiracy theorists" rant didn't it.

Lynne

I think vaccination is a good thing. Polio is a nasty disease. Certainty of safety must be guaranteed, however. Where is the research to deal with real or supposed side-effects? It does not help when medical researchers tamper with results to back their opinions.

I think it's every parent choice whether or not to vaccinate, except if there should be an epidemic because then it becomes a matter of public safety. This Government is interfering in family life far too much. It is not protecting the vulnerable by do this. It's choice not order!

However I don't think anyone should trivialise the side effects of childhood illness like measles and chicken pox. I know of several adults that suffered serious side effects from them and one of whom who nearly died (I heard of one who did). Measles can have side effects of deafness in children, and possible death. I know of one such case. Chickenpox can also kill, particularly if an adult catches it. My brother got measles as an adult and was very ill, not hospitalised but daily doctors visits. He also got chickenpox as an adult and was border line to be put into intensive care, 24 hrs of hefty antibiotics before the decision was to be made. A friend of mine was and was hours away from respiratory arrest. It took 24 hrs from the first spots to appear to being blue lighted to intensive care.

LSM we seem to have pretty much the same take on these things, but perhaps what I feel you said most importantly is that our kids are OUR kids. I will not flame anyone for taking a completely different approach with their own kids, it is a HUGE dilemma: given modern medical facilities, vaccines cause problems at pretty much the same rate as the diseases they hope to prevent, so in many senses you can feel damned if you do and damned if you don´t.

We all make decisions each and everyday that affect the safety of our children, see for example the recent garden pond conversation on this site. Imagine if the government wanted to tell us that none of us could have ponds, or that you could only have ponds of ? exact dimensions with ? type of fencing or safety netting.

At the same time as blaming parents for leaving parental responsibilities to schools etc (in response to rising anti-social behaviour), they are creating a situation that positively encourages abandoning your own free will when it comes to raising your kids. I hope that it won´t succeed.

johnhcrf wrote:I think vaccination is a good thing. Polio is a nasty disease.

And the last cases of polio in the UK were caused by........baby poo.

More specifically baby poo from babies who had just been vaccinated with the live strain. Fortunately they use an inactivated strain these days.

Things are not always that straigtforward John.

The other thing that bothers me about this is the suggestion that parents be punished for not vaccinating by taking away child benefit.....so basically it will be poorer people who will not be able to afford to choose. Given that serious effects of the diseases themselves are more common amongst those with poor nutrition, that could have very serious consequences.

just heard it on the news., some damn fool woman MP demanding that kids should not be allowed to start school unless they've had the dubious MMR jab............
An utter disgrace - big brother definitely rules - probably the most frightening thing is that the great british public will sit apathetically by, and let it happen!
Guarantees? - Safety? - no such thing - what this is about is drug company profits!
(As a child my parents had one hell of a battle to keep me vaccination free during the polio outbreaks of the 50's - they succeeded - several of my schoolfriends died/were crippled for life by the vaccines)

The head of the BMA (a VERY pro-jab organisation as you can imagine) has referred to the suggestion as "stalinist" and "counterproductive"......perhaps commonsense will prevail

The science is not good enough to cover all aspects of vaccination. MMR is the main concern partly because the signs of autism become apparent around the time of MMR. This fact should tell the govenment that it is vital to prove beyond doubt there is no connection between the 2, otherwise the parent(s) cannot make an informed choice.
Vaccinations in general are a way of dealing with otherwise untreatable conditions. With the increased resistance of pathogens today, it may be necessary to broaden the range of vaccinations to meet this challenge. This makes it more important to understand fully all the actions and interaction, with other vaccines, that occur.

The history of polio vaccine is not a glorious episode. In the mid 50's in UK, the introduced vaccine caused polio, oro-faecal contact was the assumed mode of transfer between infectees. Risk assessment seems to be a feature of vaccine use, making it controversial, then as now.

Possible side effects is one of the reasons that people don´t jab, others include the possibility that in the long run they undermine the immune system and also the other ingredients which go into them or they are cultured in (bovine foetal serum for one ).

You´re contention that vaccines are a way of dealing with otherwise untreatable conditions is not true. Measles for example is something that one can expect to be a relatively mild disease (of course there are always exceptions) and to achieve full recovery, given first world healthcare, nutrition and hygiene standards. I think my daughter has already had rubella....I say I think, because it was such a mild case (a rash and nothing else), that I can´t be sure. We certainly didn´t have to go to the Dr.

The way forward is not compulsory vaccination, is not even more research it´s putting the money into improving childrens immune systems in the first place by providing them with environments, food and water that are free from toxins that undermine them.

Well we were all vaccinated against this that and the other when we were kids, so what is the harm now?

As far as I am aware, you can't send kids to school in France unless they have vaccination certificates to prove they have had the required vaccines.

I have friends in France who told me this.....thus it makes education a privilege rather than a right under law. My friends managed to get a sympathetic doctor to write them an exemption letter.

MMR was introduced in 1988, so none of us over 20 (that´s me for sure!) will have had it.

Don´t get me wrong, I don´t think that all people who are vaxxed get damaged (though some will argue differently), but whilst you survived there will have been others of your generation who didn´t or whose health was compromised in some other subtle way. The "it didn´t do me any harm" argument is a non-starter.

Back to compulsory jabs....it is already the case in the US and their vaccination schedule includes more jabs more regularly than any other developed nation. It also has the highest infant mortality rates in the western world at 7 deaths per 1000. So more jabs do not save lives, access to free at the point of use healthcare for all children (which they do not have) probably does.

US is a rich country but the poor there are very poor, hence the mortality rate. Diseases and epidemics will always be with us. What comes with that is premature death, especially in the young who have less resistance. Leaving it to chance is not an answer. Further research is necessary to alleviate parental concern and better techniques should be developed to minimise serious side-effects. Political interference in such issues does not help.

johnhcrf wrote:MMR is the main concern partly because the signs of autism become apparent around the time of MMR. This fact should tell the govenment that it is vital to prove beyond doubt there is no connection between the 2, otherwise the parent(s) cannot make an informed choice.

Which is why MMR is now given a year earlier than it used to be. Autism tends to be diagnosable at about 2 years. The MMR used to be given at around 2. Therefore the link was said to be circumstantial because there was no way to tell whether it was the jab or not. So now it's given at a year, which means we still don't know but we won't be able to blame it if it is the cause.

But this isn't a debate about the MMR. It's a debate about whether vaccination should be compulsory or not. However, this is a good forum on which to point out that if you have tetanus boosters, you're not getting a tetanus booster any more. You're getting the DTP. Single tetanus vaccines were phased out some time ago. And it is not unknown for people to get full blown whooping cough as a result of having the vaccine.

As for polio, scientists now believe that this has mutated into what we now call ME (Fibromyalgia). Certainly the symptoms are very similar. That's the thing about viruses. They're the perfect organism. Desperate to survive, they adapt and evolve to suit their environment. So when you produce a vaccine to kill them off, they adapt into stronger strains. Which means that it's quite possible that measles is much worse now than it was when my school got it, simply because it's adapted to beat the scientists.

Millymollymandy wrote:Well we were all vaccinated against this that and the other when we were kids, so what is the harm now?

Thalidomide was a wonder drug, prescribed to pregnant women as a cure for morning sickness. Nobody questioned it until the number of damaged babies started to get out of control. By then it was too late. But strangely enough, it's not prescribed for that any more (although it has turned out to be fantastic for certain rare skin conditions).

The difference now is that we have greater access to information than was the case when we were kids. There was a time when we trusted doctors implicitly. But when Harold Wilson made all prescriptions free in the 1960s, doctors pumped out the antibiotics like sweeties. Now look at the problems we have, with resistant strains of bacteria because they've adapted to the drugs we have. Those times are, thankfully, long gone. But their legacy remains.

Lynne