Thread: Vaccinations

Feivel summed up my opinion much more coherently than I could! Hence why I hadn't!

Anecdotes do not equal data but saying that I almost died of whooping cough as a child so had Em vaccinated. Funnily enough I think I got it again last month and so did Em. Apparently we're seeing the biggest whooping cough epidemic since the 70s and it's a slightly different strain.
We both ended up with a super nasty cough but I dread to think how much worse it could have been if he wouldn't have had the vaccination.

@Ruthiecc there are immediate and long term risks. Immediate risks include vaccine injuries (death is a noted side effect of many vaccines, though rare) and vaccine mutated strains of diseases which tend to be riskier. Again, not common but a risk worth noting.

Long term risks are purely speculative at this point.

On the phone just now so no stats to hand, but just wanted to respond to say that there are various risks to weigh up. They're rare, but they're there and worth considering.

That's why I think all decisions should be based in knowledge and not fear. Being scared of disease, you're still risking vaccine injury and being scared of vaccines, you're still risking serious illness from disease. You have to be 100% confident that you're making the right decision so that, heaven forbid, should the worst happen, you won't be blaming yourself or wishing you'd known more etc.

X

Originally Posted by Elle

@Ruthiecc there are immediate and long term risks. Immediate risks include vaccine injuries (death is a noted side effect of many vaccines, though rare) and vaccine mutated strains of diseases which tend to be riskier. Again, not common but a risk worth noting.

Long term risks are purely speculative at this point.

On the phone just now so no stats to hand, but just wanted to respond to say that there are various risks to weigh up. They're rare, but they're there and worth considering.

That's why I think all decisions should be based in knowledge and not fear. Being scared of disease, you're still risking vaccine injury and being scared of vaccines, you're still risking serious illness from disease. You have to be 100% confident that you're making the right decision so that, heaven forbid, should the worst happen, you won't be blaming yourself or wishing you'd known more etc.

X

I don't think anyone can ever be 100% sure of their decision though when you're weighing up potential benefits and risks. I'm absolutely comfortable with my decision regarding Aisling being vaccinated but I can't and never will be 100% sure I've made the right decision and if she did end up with complications I'd likely still blame myself. Same if I chose not to vaccinate, she got one of the illnesses and had a bad outcome, I'd blame myself for not vaccinating. The guilt of being a parent I guess! All you can do is look at the evidence, make the decision you're most comfortable with and try not to beat yourself up too badly if it ended up not being the "right" one.

Aisling's dad was another baby who didn't get the whooping cough vaccine and very nearly died from it. Although they're all anecdotal stories, I honestly haven't heard of any in relation to bad effects of the vaccines.

@Ruthiecc , although it's not admitted, it seems that the MMR used to be given at the 15-18 month mark. Then when the mistaken link was made between MMR and autism (autism more commonly starting to present at that approximate age), the age for MMR was moved forward in an attempt to stop the link being made. Apparently anyway!

A big part of the issue for me, is the myth aparently deliberately spread by most health authorities that vaccinated = definite immunity... When in reality, it just doesn't. If you look at any measles outbreak in the western world since the introduction of the measles vaccine - a large proportion of the people who catch the disease, are vaccinated.

Most parents don't understand (because they are never told) that. If your child has the MMR, it's still perfectly possible for them to catch measles, mumps or rubella if exposed. It's not even "rare". Whether or not a vaccine actually provides immunity is a complete roll of the dice - and if it doesn't take, the vaccinated child is in exactly the same boat as one on whom vaccination was never attempted.

The medical goal of vaccination programmes is not to immunize every child - because that's just not what happens. It's to successfully immunize a certain percentage of those who are vaccinated, with the goal of limiting the speed / scope of disease spread across a population. Of course, it's harder to convince parents to agree to vaccination if they say it like it is, and so, the popular misconception that vaccination is intended to protect each individual directly has been propagated.

To take the measles vaccination as an example, the popular myth is that "had the jab = won't get measles". The cold hard facts are, 1 in 10 who get the vaccination will have no additional immunity over someone who is unvaccinated at the point of vaccination, and that proportion increases in direct correlation with the time since the vaccine was recieved.

That alone makes me far more comfortable with the concept of not vaccinating. To take the statistic literally; at least 10 people in this thread have vaccinated for measles, meaning that by the numbers, at least one vaccinated child actually has no more immunity to measles than an unvaccinated child.


The honest truth is that I struggle a lot with this one. The availability of unbiased information on the topic, is shockingly poor, on both sides. Many "anti vax" sources are very hard line but then, as I said, most major health bodies "press" information regarding vaccines is so misleading that it's practically propaganda, and as I said, they seem to have their reasons for being deliberately misleading. I do find it concerning that most parents believe that their vaccinated children are definitely protected from any given disease when, as a baseline, 10 - 20% are simply not.

I delayed the 12 and 13m vax, I thought and read a fair amount before i made my decision and like Lu said are we ever 100% sure we have done the right thing either way, I'm happy with my choice for now, but if anything should happen in the future I'm sure i'll blame the vax and curse myself for what I've done. As someone who was seriously ill and on the verge of hospital admission from measles, I'm not sure I could have ever gone with non vaxing. I will come back to this and read all the info Elle added as it is far too late to take it all in now.