[LucyB]

Morning all.

Just struggling on another forum with a thread about parents not vaccinating their kids because of the 'dangers'.

I did look into Dr Wakefield's (FLAWED) studies, and lots of other stuff besides. There is no link with ASD.

Sorry, I'm ranting now.... deep breath. So, I have posted on this thread, but it seems that people distrust strong evidence produced by valid research. All they respond to is anecdotal evidence 

GPs, if you don't mind sharing can you just let me know if you went ahead and vaccinated your little people. I figured if anyone would have weighed up the pros and cons of their little ones' safety, it would be you.

[GCW]

Both of mine were vaccinated. I'd feel neglectful if they weren't.

[LucyB]

Is this bollocks? A reply to my comment on the other thread:

'Herd immunity is not achieved through vaccinations anyway , thats a myth, herd immunity is when a population is nearly all protected by having lifelong immunity to each disease by actually catching said disease. The vaccinations don't offer lifelong immunity and indeed only 70-80% of babies actually become immune to the diseases they're vaccinated against hence the mass 'booster' that each child is given pre school.  I'm presumung the NHS still doesn't check the immunity status of each child?  I vaccinated my daughter 15 years ago so genuinely don't know if it's all changed.  London currently is having a measles outbreak (apparently) yet 65% of the kids who have it have had vaccinations, two of my friends being examples, my faith is limited to be honest.'

[GCW]

Yes, that is the view of an ignoramus.

[GCW]

A less trite reply.

There are two sides to this. Firstly the risks to the individual child. Here, the complications of the actual disease far outweigh the risks if vaccination. There is plenty of evidence for this and that vaccination confers long term immunity.

Secondly is the responsibility to the population. Herd immunity is purely a term for having enough people immune that you won't get outbreaks of the disease. Whether this is natural or innoculation induced is irrelevant. If people stop getting their kids immunised there is potential for epidemics.

[clm]

This debate is on the gcse science syllabus. You could point some of the ranters at books written for 14 year olds? Simple risk/benefit analysis - and then a personal choice.
Depends what you consider the worse evil.

Caveat: I am not a gp, or a parent.

[LucyB]

Someone has asked if I have any evidence that 'vaccination confers long term immunity' 

Shall I just walk away? Does anyone have any evidence that the sun will rise tomorrow? AAAGGGHHH!

[Stu Littlefair]

Ask how many cases of polio they've seen amongst their kids and their friends kids in the last few years.

Fucknuts

[GCW]

Ask them how many cases of measles encephalitis they have seen.  Or meningitis.  Or SSPE.   Or mumps Meningitis, orchitis, oopheritis, or rubella Cataracts, diabetes, cerebral oedema, heart disease etc

Then tell them to go away and research their opinions properly before coming to a forum with a load of shite.

[mrjonathanr]

Or smallpox, which is where Jenner started anyway. You don't see many milkmaids with bad skin now do you?

[fatdoc]

I'm not  a GP.

I have been asked by my wife's huge family on this issue for over a decade... must be 22 kids spawned


get it done.

I'm a medical risk analyst... have read it all

and..... have 4 kids...

it's criminal not to let children have this opportunity.

[SA Chris]

Lucy what vaccines are you referring to?

The regular childhood ones, or the seasonal flu?

[slackline]

Someone has asked if I have any evidence that 'vaccination confers long term immunity' 

Shall I just walk away? Does anyone have any evidence that the sun will rise tomorrow? AAAGGGHHH!

Tell them to go and read about Edward Jenner and Smallpox

EDIT - mrjonathanr beat me to it.

[duncan]

Simply labelling people as stupid when they don't behave rationally is tempting but unhelpful as they are frequently not stupid.  It's about risk perception and climbers are not immune to irrational risk assessment and should be careful about throwing (or casting) stones. 

Wearing a seat-belt could be a useful analogy.  There is a tiny, theoretical, chance that wearing one could trap you in a burning car.  Wearing one does not guarantee survival in an accident.  Most people would agree that, on balance, we are a lot better off wearing seat belts than not.     

PhD in medical stuff, offspring all up to date with vaccinations and thriving.

[tomtom]

Wearing a seat-belt could be a useful analogy.  There is a tiny, theoretical, chance that wearing one could trap you in a burning car.  Wearing one does not guarantee survival in an accident.  Most people would agree that, on balance, we are a lot better off wearing seat belts than not.     

True, except not wearing a seat belt rarely damages anyone except for the non-wearer....(unless you butt someone from behind).

I think the interesting point with vaccines (as mentioned above) is that not vaccinating also can put others in danger...

[slackline]

A very useful document on risk (in a medical setting) is available from the British Medical Association (BMA) for free online...

Risk : What's your perspective?

Its aimed at (medical) doctors, but should be suitable for most people.

Sections "3.2.15 - Infectious diseases and andemic influenza" and "3.4.3 - Immunisation" should be particularly useful.

[duncan]

Wearing a seat-belt could be a useful analogy.  There is a tiny, theoretical, chance that wearing one could trap you in a burning car.  Wearing one does not guarantee survival in an accident.  Most people would agree that, on balance, we are a lot better off wearing seat belts than not.     

True, except not wearing a seat belt rarely damages anyone except for the non-wearer....(unless you butt someone from behind).

I think the interesting point with vaccines (as mentioned above) is that not vaccinating also can put others in danger...

All true but when people can not get to grips with the true risks to their own children, you have to keep things simple(istic).   

Parents tend to be extremely selfish on behalf of their offspring so I'm guessing that appealing to altruism via herd-immunity arguments might not have much effect on individual choices.  It is a bit like persuading enough highly motivated parents to put their offspring into the local less-than-ideal school to raise standards for everyone.   

[GCW]

If we continue your analogy, it would be a legal requirement to have your child vaccinated. If you don't the ghost of Jimmy Saville would arrive and say "clunk click, you're a prick".

 

[The Sausage]

Dr Ben Goldacre (Bad Science fella) has written quite a lot on this subject. Check out his web-site (google ben goldacre or bad science).

He's all about evidence , and he's pro-vaccinations.

[LucyB]

I've trawled through a lot of the stuff - like Ben Goldacre's site - when making the decision for my own kids. I quickly realised there was no decision to be made, it was so blindingly obvious. I did have a slight worry when it came, as even though I knew in my head that Dr Wankshaft Wakefield is an evil, stupid quack who should burn in hell, there was a tiny whisper in my head going 'But what if....?"

So, I thought that most rational people would have reached a similar conclusion. Then I stumbled on the above mentioned thread, and then found loads of similar, where people seem to really believe that vaccinations are bad 

Apparently, there is no clear evidence that long-term immunity comes from vaccination (apart from Jenner, as mentioned above). There seems to be a strong belief that the mumps vaccine particularly is ineffective. I have had a number of people claiming that they aren't 'anti-vaccine', they just don't like the MMR. There is an often-qouted piece apparently from WHO that gives quite a high percentage of children who don't develop immunity after even the second dose. There is also a quote that it only lasts for 11 years, so people reckon that if they give their 2 year old the MMR, it will have worn off by the time they hit puberty so it's not worth having done.

And so on. I can't find any of the figures supposedly from WHO. Some people even claim that you can't trust the information on their website because they are in thrall to the big pharmaceuticals, as are all our GPs, so this is why we are getting vaccines that don't work and have nasty additives.

I had to just leave it in the end. I feel quite passionate as I have worked with parents who are convinced that the MMR 'gave' their child autism, and it is such a destructive thing for them. Also, the whole 'herd immunity' thing just riles me. It was only going to get nasty though, so I left the discussion before I was really, really rude.

[slackline]

If I remember correctly from the vaccinations I had when I went to Kenya many years ago, the Yellow Fever jab provided about 10 years of immunity and was nothing more than a scratch, whilst the Hepatitits A only lasted about a year (didn't have the booster) and had some very nasty side effects.

The basics of vaccinations (which I'm sure most know) are to present the body's immune system with antigens which are foriegn. The bodies immune system then mounts a response against it and produces antibodies which recognise the antigens (in a kind of lock and key situation) such that when presented with the true virus the antibodies are pretty much readily available and pounce on the virus before it gets stuck in.  Its perfectly possible that some won't produce an immune response, because we all have different immune systems which we inherited from our parents, so for any given vaccination some simply don't have the prerequisite genetic code to mount an immune repsonse.

There are two problems as already highlighted, firstly there can be side effects to being injected with a vaccine, similar, but nowhere near as severe as the full blown thing.  Secondly they don't always last forever and sometimes require boosters.

Two important things to remember when balancing up decisions like this are that medicine isn't perfect, but these days it does tend to be evidence based, so over time knowledge is improving and 'better' solutions are found.

The other is that there is a risk associated with everything, sometimes the relative risk of one course of action compared to the other is so glaringly obvious that it should be self-evident.  The MMR vaccination is one of those situations, not that there is a risk of autism, but that there is some risk associated with vaccinations, but that the HUGE benefits conferred by  having a vaccination with an associated very small risk far, far out weighs the risk associated with not having the vaccination.

Mass media should have greater accountability for blowing the MMR 'scare' out of all proportion.

I think GCW is spot on with it being a legal requirement, see the Wikipedia : MMR Vaccine Controvesy - Impact on Society all because some people without detailed technical understanding (or even a vague appreciation) of whats involved believed what they read in The Sun. 

[clm]

Which is exactly why I have to teach kids about it. To try to avoid a new generation of people flaming all over the internet about what they read in the papers.

Ps. Someone wrote 'convinced caused' up there. Rather different from 'did cause'

[Oldmanmatt]

One of the problems here is, we have forgotten what these diseases did before the vaccinations...

My parents generation (born in the 40's) knew only too well and took up the offered jabs and sugar cubes and prayed for deliverance...

It is unfortunately, those children, many of whom survive today only because they were vaccinated; who have forgotten the horror of Polio and Measles.
Of whooping cough.
Smallpox.

The list goes on.

They fail to recognise that the mild versions of these killers, that they experienced or witnessed in their youth; were only mild because of the vaccinations.

Simply retarded.

I'd say let them find out the hard way, except it will be the children who suffer.

Change the law. If you fail to vaccinate your children and they then develop something nasty,
Prosecute the idiots for child abuse (at the least) and endangering the entire population..

[Stubbs]

I had forgotten the Private Eye got involved with this at the time, here's their step down http://www.private-eye.co.uk/sections.php?section_link=columnists&article=197&  which also had a useful link to the Cochrane review on MMR  http://ow.ly/9kAWse

[slackline]

Cochrane review on MMR  http://ow.ly/9kAWse

ow.ly doesn't like that, but the article is here