question for delayed/partial and non vaccers

[skybie]

hi guys.
*please note,i dont want this to turn into a why we should, why we shouldnt debate, ta!*

DD1 had her 8 week vacs done on monday, i feel physically sick at the thought of all those things running through her system. im leaning towards delaying all her upcoming Vacc's because i dont think they're necessary for a little baby and even then only getting certain vaccines.
My question is DD1(fully vacced) goes to day care 1 day a week, am i making the wrong choice in delaying DD2's immunisations by possibly exposing her to illnesses that DD1 could pick up from day care?

And if u delayed or partially vaccinated, what were your schedules and which vaccines did u choose to have?

I'd also like to thank this wonderfull forum for bringing it my attention that we DONT have to vaccinate, wish i'd known that when i had DD1

[skybie]

[Junglemum]

I don't really like talking about my choices in vaccination. Only because i think it is such a personal thing and something you need to do the research and make a decision for yourself.
We had partially vaccinated. I look at each vaccine, how it was made, its components and associated risks. I also looked at each disease, its prevalence, and risks associated with each one. Then i made a decision.

Given that your choice can have possibly serious consequences i feel uncomfortable advising anyone on the topic iykwim? It really is something you need to research and decide for yourself. I hope you don't think i am being harsh, i just wanted to reply as no-one had and explain why i wasn't going to reply!

There is a book called the vaccine book by Dr bob sears which i found helpful.

ETA- i also wanted to add, there is no hurry. You have time to research and make a decision.

[skybie]

thanks falguni, i have done my research, that why i've come to the decision to delay and partially vaccinate, i just couldnt find anything in regards to older children being in care for one day a week which is why i posted the question.

[Junglemum]

Having your first child in care would slightly increase the chance of either of your children being exposed to a disease. But i guess the way i see it your second child will be exposed to other children anyway, at playgroups, playgrounds, ect.
So having delayed and partially vaccinated children, if my older child was in care, it would not be a concern for me. But i know it is for some other mums.

[skybie]

DD2 wnt be going to childcare or anything like that till shes over one at which time i wll have already started vaccinations. was just worried about leaving her open to what DD1 brings home in the mean time

[Junglemum]

i know what you're saying, but i mean just in general day to day. Neither of my kids go to childcare but we go to mothers groups, play centres, shopping centres etc.

Have you thought about homeopathic vaccinations? My GF has used these for her two kids...

[STARRYSKY]

hey skybie

I delayed my DS vax till he was over 6 months, are currently on a catchup schedule, he is due for his 6 month ones now he is 1 year old.
because I delayed, he missed out on having the rota virus vax, and I have copped nothing but grief over this from varios GPs, (every time he is sick, im told he probably has it, as he wasnt vaxed! he hasnt had it yet....)
We go to mums group, he is also exposed to other kids (older) Im not too worried about him catching anything, its interesting that I found in my research that all countries have differing schedules for vaxing littlies.
The only vax I will not give DS until he is over 2 is the MMR, Im sure youve done enough research for me to not have to explain.
But thats just what I have done, I know how hard and frustrating it can be to come to decision on this topic, various family members are also breathing down my neck about it as its not the "done thing"

[skybie]

have looked into it, but its still giving her things i dnt think she needs IYKWIM?
i wear her in a sling on the rare occasion we go to the shops and she wont b at a play centre till shes walking, so again over one and i dnt have a mothers group. i sound like im justifying myself, im not just thinking outloud lol

[Junglemum]

i didn't think your were justifying yourself.
I think and type all the time!

Yeah i know what you mean re homeopathic stuff. But there are no nasty chemicals in it. Just a thought anyway.

[skybie]

lol Starrysky, dont even get me started on family!
if u dnt mind me asking, why did u choose 6 months to start?
im thinking of starting a few of them at 1yr because she'll be well and truley mobile and possibly be in care occasionally

[STARRYSKY]

weeeel, TBH he almost 8 months by the time I got around to it, I was scared, DP didnt want to have anything to do with it I had my mum in my ear about the whole thing etc etc....I had half decided not to vax till he was a year old, but then the GP (who I saw for his 6mth checkup) basically said to me, just go down and see the nurse, lo and behold she was all ready to give him his vaccs!! So I just went with it. But she was telling me not to wait the 2 months between vaccs, just 2-3 weeks! no way was I doing that! she also told me last time I was there that she could do his 1 yr ones 3 wks after his 6 mth ones, I dont think so!!
Personally, I think there are reasons why there is a delay between the schedule the govt sets, I dont think rushing them all is a good thing, I am like you in that I couldnt bear the thought of DS being so small and having all that nasty stuff injected into him.

[Schmickers]

Skybie,

I think the decision to delay vaccinations for your little one is reasonable. When you think about, seeing as your older child who is in childcare is vaccinated, you are not really placing your younger one at any increased risk, because if the vaccinations worked for your older child, then they have the same level of immunity as any other child out there in the community.

It is a very difficult decision to make - good on you for giving it some thought.

[tenar]

Just to let you folks know, there is an awful lot of misinformation out there about the MMR vaccine.

The facts are that the original piece of research (Wakefield, 1998) that suggested a link between MMR and autism has been entirely discredited by several much larger, very careful studies that have been done in several different countries since (I don't have the citations to hand but they are easy to find). Almost all of the original authors (I think everyone except Wakefield himself) have since disavowed the study as being flawed (ie the result cannot be trusted in their expert opinion), and Wakefield is currently under investigation for charges of professional misconduct - apparently the study is full of things like suggesting that a child was totally fine before their vaccination when in fact they were not, or saying that their behaviour changed straight after the vaccine, when in fact it changed months afterwards.

You need to be extremely careful about what you read on the internet. Science is not perfect, and statistics are both difficult to understand and, in this kind of thing, frequently misinterpreted by non-professionals. Don't believe anything that doesn't give references to peer-reviewed journals. Even if there is, as in the Wakefield case, a peer-reviewed journal that has published a result, you have to look further to see how many studies of what calibre have confirmed the result, and how many have disputed it. In the end, science works on a "majority rules" way, since it's so easy for one study to get a wrong result, but it is much less easy for lots of studies to get the same wrong result.

Now, I don't expect anyone here with sense to believe me just because of what I have written here. But this information, with the essential references, is easy to find online. I'm happy to hunt down some examples if you'd like, though it's probably better to find them yourself - that way you can have more confidence in the results.

Now, this is an aside, and not suggesting you feel this way, but the question I'd like to ask parents who don't vaccinate because of autism fears (if there was a real connection, which there does not seem to be), is why they would rather risk their child dying of a disease than risk them being autistic. Death is rather more severe a thing...

Also, it's not true to say that a younger child is not at risk if the older child is vaccinated (not that Schmickers said exactly that). The fact is, young kids aren't perfect in their hygiene, and they get exposed to a lot of bugs. While your older child is very much safer than if they weren't vaccinated, the vaccines aren't perfect, as we all know, so there is still some chance of them contracting the disease and passing it on to your younger child. This is why the schedule has been designed as it has: to minimise the window of time in which babies are totally unprotected from the diseases in question, and thus to save as many lives (and serious illnesses) as possible.

[Schmickers]

You need to be extremely careful about what you read on the internet. Science is not perfect, and statistics are both difficult to understand and, in this kind of thing, frequently misinterpreted by non-professionals. Don't believe anything that doesn't give references to peer-reviewed journals. Even if there is, as in the Wakefield case, a peer-reviewed journal that has published a result, you have to look further to see how many studies of what calibre have confirmed the result, and how many have disputed it. In the end, science works on a "majority rules" way, since it's so easy for one study to get a wrong result, but it is much less easy for lots of studies to get the same wrong result.

Tenar, a lot of what you say is true. As yet, no scientific study has proven a link between the MMR vaccine and autism. It is worth remembering, though, that it took over two decades from the first concerns being raised about a link between smoking and lung cancer, until research proving that link became available. I believe we are at that initial stage now - where enough children have developed autism or other unexplained side effects after the administration of the MMR that some autism experts are beginning to ask the question: "is the MMR contributing to this growing problem?" Until that question can be answered definitively, I think it is reasonable that parents exercise their best judgement in making decisions about vaccination.

Now, this is an aside, and not suggesting you feel this way, but the question I'd like to ask parents who don't vaccinate because of autism fears (if there was a real connection, which there does not seem to be), is why they would rather risk their child dying of a disease than risk them being autistic. Death is rather more severe a thing...

I am happy to address that question, Tenar.

The diseases that the MMR vaccine prevents are measles, mumps, and rubella. Mumps is not a fatal disease. It causes a week of neck and jaw pain and glandular swelling. It rarely has any side effects or complications. In adolescent boys and men, it can produce an inflammation of the testicles that can result in infertility. For this reason, I think it is reasonable to give the MMR in early adolescence, but I don't see a compelling reason to give it in childhood.

Rubella is even more benign. Essentially it causes a rash and flu-like symptoms. It rarely has any side effects or complications. If contracted during pregnancy, though, it can cause fetal abnormalities. For this reason, once more, I think it is reasonable to give the MMR in early adolescence, but I don't see any real reason to vaccinate against Rubella in childhood.

Measles, rarely, can have a side effect called encephalitis. This is an inflammation of the brain that can be fatal. About 0.3% of children who contract the measles virus will go on to develop this form of encephalitis.

The difficult decision that every parent has to make is what is more risky? The (currently unevaluated) risk of developing autism following the administration of the MMR, or the 0.3% risk developing measles encephalitis? This is a difficult decision to make.

Also, it's not true to say that a younger child is not at risk if the older child is vaccinated (not that Schmickers said exactly that). The fact is, young kids aren't perfect in their hygiene, and they get exposed to a lot of bugs. While your older child is very much safer than if they weren't vaccinated, the vaccines aren't perfect, as we all know, so there is still some chance of them contracting the disease and passing it on to your younger child. This is why the schedule has been designed as it has: to minimise the window of time in which babies are totally unprotected from the diseases in question, and thus to save as many lives (and serious illnesses) as possible.

Indeed, I didn't say that. Let me try and clarify.

Skybie's child is at no greater risk than if she was in the general community, because if we assume that her older child's vaccinations were effective, then the older child is no more likely to contract and bring home a disease then anyone else she has contacy with. Nearly every one of the vaccine preventable diseases spreads through close contact, after symptoms have appeared. It is possible to enforce basic hygeine rules, even with a younger child and a baby; no kissing, no close play, while you have a runny nose or a cough. It works; we've done it, even with coughs and colds we've managed to keep Lily protected from quite a few. And as far as I am concerned, I think there is as much, or more, value in teaching these rules of basic hygeine, as there is in vaccinating your children and then expecting this to be a gold shield against all infections.

[tenar]

Tenar, a lot of what you say is true. As yet, no scientific study has proven a link between the MMR vaccine and autism.

It's even stronger than that. They have looked for a link and not found one. In scientific research this is a very strong result. Remember that in research, you can never prove a null hypothesis. So it will never be proven that there is no link - that's not the way science can work.

I believe we are at that initial stage now - where enough children have developed autism or other unexplained side effects after the administration of the MMR that some autism experts are beginning to ask the question: "is the MMR contributing to this growing problem?" Until that question can be answered definitively, I think it is reasonable that parents exercise their best judgement in making decisions about vaccination.

That question will never be answered definitively, for the reason I describe above. So the question that parents have to ask themselves is whether they consider the risk of some bad vaccine reaction to be worse than the risk of the disease. Something to consider is the fact that in the UK, since the beginning of the MMR controversy there, measles has again become endemic in the country, and people are dying. The same thing will happen here if vaccination rates drop below the level required for herd immunity (that's what I'm scared of!).

By the way, there was evidence of the link between smoking and cancer (published in top journals and never retracted) as early as 1950, which was confirmed repeatedly in the following years. What took the time was for governments to get onboard the anti-smoking campaign. Depressing, I know, not to mention costly in lives and medical consequences. But this is not a parallel situation to vaccination and it is disengenuous of you to mention it as being similar.

The diseases that the MMR vaccine prevents are measles, mumps, and rubella. Mumps is not a fatal disease. It causes a week of neck and jaw pain and glandular swelling. It rarely has any side effects or complications. In adolescent boys and men, it can produce an inflammation of the testicles that can result in infertility. For this reason, I think it is reasonable to give the MMR in early adolescence, but I don't see a compelling reason to give it in childhood.

The compelling reason to vaccinate against mumps and rubella, and even more measles, is to maintain herd immunity. This protects everyone, including those who cannot, for reasons of immune deficiency or whatever, be vaccinated, and those for whom the imperfect vaccines haven't "taken hold". If the vaccines were 100% effective it wouldn't be such a problem, but sadly, that has yet to be achieved.

Measles, rarely, can have a side effect called encephalitis. This is an inflammation of the brain that can be fatal. About 0.3% of children who contract the measles virus will go on to develop this form of encephalitis.

The difficult decision that every parent has to make is what is more risky? The (currently unevaluated) risk of developing autism following the administration of the MMR, or the 0.3% risk developing measles encephalitis? This is a difficult decision to make.

To suggest that the risk is unevaluated is either naive (or misleading - but I'm sure you are not trying to misinform people). So many studies have been done, on so many hundreds of thousands of children, that the result is not in doubt: if there is a link between MMR and autism, it has not been found. If anything, the opposite (at least one study has found a weak result that suggests that children who have been vaccinated with MMR are less likely to have developmental disorders like autism). So the chances of such a link being there but having not yet been discovered are vanishingly small.

Skybie's child is at no greater risk than if she was in the general community, because if we assume that her older child's vaccinations were effective, then the older child is no more likely to contract and bring home a disease then anyone else she has contacy with. Nearly every one of the vaccine preventable diseases spreads through close contact, after symptoms have appeared. It is possible to enforce basic hygeine rules, even with a younger child and a baby; no kissing, no close play, while you have a runny nose or a cough. It works; we've done it, even with coughs and colds we've managed to keep Lily protected from quite a few. And as far as I am concerned, I think there is as much, or more, value in teaching these rules of basic hygeine, as there is in vaccinating your children and then expecting this to be a gold shield against all infections.

I agree with this and I'm gonna bow to your greater knowledge of the hygiene habits of toddlers. We only have one toddler in the family at the moment, and I am inexperienced (though she sneezes all over me regularly, and her parents and grandparents seem to catch every cold she has whatever they do).

To parents who are informed with reliable information from, as I mentioned, studies published in reputable journals, which have been confirmed by subsequent studies published in reputable journals, the decision whether or not to vaccinate a healthy child is not difficult. It's like deciding whether to put seatbelts on your children in the car: seatbelts can cause injury, but on average they reduce injuries and deaths greatly.

(FWIW the risks of either vaccine injury or, currently, serious injury from the diseases are many many times smaller than the risk of injury on the roads that most of us don't think about it even though most of us use the road daily in one way or another. Of course if our herd immunity decreases enough that we have a major outbreak of disease in Australia, that statistic might change.)

Anyway, I've said enough here. Thanks for reading, folks, and Schmickers, thanks for the discussion.

[skybie]

tenar, thank u for all that info.
our decision to delay vaccinations isnt based soley on the MMR, otheriwise we'd give her all the needles except that one.
our decision is based on not want horrid chemicals running through our babies tiny body, for diseases that she is at minor risk of getting.
We've weighed up the likelyhood of her exposure to the diseases she'd be vaccinated for against intentionally exposing her to the effects of an injection.
she will most likely recieve the MMR at around 3-4, but after reading up on each of the diseases, im not intirely sure she will get it.
im aware that immunisations arent 100% so if on the small chance an illness is prevalent in DD1s childcare centre and the small chance DD1's immunisations arent effective and she does bring something home with her, then we would be very unlucky, but also prepaired to take the necessary precautions and take pre-emptive steps to ensure the health of DD2.
We are fully aware that should DD2 contract any of these diseases that one possible outcome is death, so please dont think this desicion(sp?) is one that we have taken lightly, we've(DF and i) spent many hours doing individual research about it and are now happy with our decision to delay and selectively vaccinate.

i see your arguement with autism not being caused by the MMR vaccine, but the numbers dont sit right with me. and after seeing the rise and fall of other diseases whilest vaccination was available as apposed to it not being available, its hard for me to believe that the injection can be ruled out as a contributor to the disorder, obviously not in all cases though.

Schmickers, thank u for all your information, i take your opinions on this matter very seriously and thank u for being a wealth of knowledge on the topic

[JellyBean]

Have you considered a homeopathic prophylaxis kit to increase your DD's immunity? Google Issac Golden to find out more. You can also order information packs from the Australian Vaccination Network.
Some points to consider;

Just as a side note - (and I believe you can find 'evidence' to support whatever you wish to) but various studies have found rates of illnesses such as whooping cough to be more prevalent amoung vaccinated children than non-vaccinated children. This is not to suggest that the vaccine is not effective at producing an antibody response, but rather that the additional vaccine ingredients such as thimerosal (mercury), aluminium and formaldehyde accumulate as toxicity in the body, thus weakening immune function.

- Some healthcare practitioners have also argued the likelihood that vaccines are the very thing keeping these pathogens alive in our community, and that, left to nature they would have run their course toward extinction long ago as have many other illnesses that have plagued humanity in the past. Cases of healthcare workers passing on illnesses to patients shortly after receiving their booster shots lends weight to this theory.

- In Japan, the national vaccine shecdule has been postponed until the age of 2 (no child under the age of 2 can receive a vaccine). Interestingly, they have one of the lowest infant mortality rates in the world, and controversially, their rate of SIDS has dropped significantly since the introduction of this schedule.

- Neither homeopathic or conventional vaccines offer complete immunity, so you have to weigh up that factor (incomplete immunity) with the potential risks caused by the other vaccine ingredients that are additional to the pathogen strain itself - and offer no health benefits to the human body. Its a choice that you alone can make for your child, but in my opinion, it is not acceptable to inject a baby with formaldehyde - or any other such toxic substance - in any amount. I believe the cornerstone of health and a strong immune system is sound nutrition, and the absence of toxins which burdon the immune system and make the body a hospitable environment for pathogens to thrive.

If you are interested in researching vaccine ingredients in their complete form (not just the pathogen itself)- go to the WAVE website (World Association for Vaccine Research).

Hope this helps.

XX