I wanna know a few things :D Please....

[~ Mylitta ~]

I tried to gather some info while the kids slept Unfortunately I've found that my access to the Uni's journal database is no longer active (I guess I should feel lucky it took them this long since being a student to remove my access, lol), so I've tried to put in sources as often as possible, but don't shoot me for the bits and pieces that don't have sources. I wish I could have put in more actual journal articles (I'm kicking myself for not saving them while I had access to them!).

I tried to give you a bit of info about all the vaccines in our National Vaccination Program. It would have been more but kidlets are now awake



National Vaccination Program (from 0-4years) include:
5 x Hep B
4 x Diphtheria, Tetanus, Whooping Cough (acellular pertussis) (DTPa)
4 x Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib)
4 x Polio (inactivated poliomyelitis IPV)
3 x Pneumococcal conjugate (7vPCV)
3 x Rotavirus
2 x Measles, Mumps, Rubella (MMR)
Meningococcal C (MenCCV)
Chickenpox (varicella) (VZV)

That's at least 27 vaccines by the time a child is 4.

Hep B
- Hep B is generally found amongst young adults who are sexually active or IV drug users.
- A survey of 600 doctors in the UK revealed that 50% of them refused the vaccine for themselves despite being in a high risk group. The cited reasons included a lack of trust in the vaccine and doubt of it's benefits. (Australian Vaccine Network. Vaccination Roulette: Experiences, Risks and Alternatives. Bangalow: Australia Vaccination Network; 1998).
- The French government stopped their school-based Heb B vaccination program due to multiple schlerosis and MS-like illnesses associated with the Hep B vaccines. (Herroelen L. et al. Central Nervous System Demylination after immunisation with Recumbent Hepatitis B vaccine. Lancet. 1991;338:1174-1175.) (Tourbal A. Gout O. et al. Encephalitis after Hapatitis B vaccination; Recurrent Disseminated Encephalitis or MS? Neuro. 1999;53:396-401).

Diphtheria, Tetanus, Whooping Cough (acellular pertussis) (DTPa)
- An Australian Doctor monitored infants before and after DPT shots in the 1980s and found that there was a significant change in both the depth and frequency of breathing. Some babies even required CPR after they stopped breathing. The respiratory changes would last for weeks, the subside, then return with subsequent DPT vaccines. (Scheibner V PhD. Vaccination; 100 years of Orthodox Medicine shows that vaccines Represent a Medical Assault on the Immune System. Santa Fe: New Atlantean Press; 1994).
- Tetanus is extremely rare in infants and is a disease of adults. Wounds that may contain tetanus spores are generally well cleaned and tended in infants and children, and the majority of cases of tetanus are seen in males in their late teens and early 20's. This is possibly because at this age males like to seem "tough" and a wound may be left not properly cleaned and treated.
- Diphtheria is extremely rare.
- There is currently no way to get the whooping cough vaccine without getting the other vaccines along with it.
- Whilst there have been recent whooping cough outbreaks, many of the patients have been fully vaccinated. This is because the whooping cough vaccine does not cover all strains of whooping cough and one of the most common strains seen currently is not protected against by the vaccine.


Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib)
- Nasty, but rare. This vaccine is icluded in the DTPa-hepB-IPV-Hib 6in1 and the so can't be omitted by choice if you want to give the rest of the vaccines in the 6in1.


Polio (inactivated poliomyelitis IPV)
- Polio is eradicated in Australia. While there is a small risk of someone in Australia getting Polio, it is statistically less than 0%.
- The majority of Polio cases today are caused by the vaccine itself.
EDIT: Just wanted to add a note here that the injection vaccine used in Australia in not live and can not cause polio. The live oral vaccine that is still used in other countries is the one that is still causing some cases of polio)


Pneumococcal conjugate (7vPCV)
- Has a higher than average rate of seizures and other standard side effects.


Rotavirus
- This is a pretty new vaccine and has had a pretty high rate of side effects.


Measles, Mumps, Rubella (MMR)
- Measles is extremely rare and in most cases relatively harmless.
- Mumps and rubella are both mild and rare.
- The main concern with this vaccine remains it's potential link to autism. Whilst it was believed that the link between the two had been disproven, two recent studies have once again potentially linked the two.


Meningococcal C (MenCCV)
- Meningitis is serious, but extremely rare.
- Overall risk for all meningococcal strain is about 1:30,000. For C strain, 1:135,000. Risk of death from C strain is under 1:1,000,000 based on 2002 Australian figures.
- Meningococcal C vaccine offers no protection from other strains. In Australia, serogroups B and C occur most frequently.
- There are 13 strains of Meningococcal C bacteria, but only 3 are contained in the vaccine. (Meningococcal C. Vaccination Information South Australia Newsletter. Cited in: Informed Choice: August; Vol 2(3) 2004.)
- Studies have shown that targeting C strain has led to an increase in B strain (of which there is no effective vaccine) and that while the prevalence of C strain may have decreased, the overall rate of bacterial meningitis has increased exponentially. (Meningococcal C. Vaccination Information South Australia Newsletter. Cited in: Informed Choice: August; Vol 2(3) 2004.)
- The meningococcal vaccine has had more reported adverse reactions than any other vaccine in 37 years based on 2003 figures. (South Australian Commission Disease Control Branch. Cited in: Informed Choice: August; Vol 2(3) 2004).


Chickenpox (varicella) (VZV)
- Chickenpox, whilst annoying, in children it is generally harmless.
- It's a good idea to vaccinate after 11 years of age in males (if a blood test shows no immunity) as it can cause sterility).
- The chickenpox vaccine has been shown to wear off, and while the incidence of chickenpox in children has declined, the incidence in adolescents and adults has increased. So the vaccine seems to be wearing off when the disease is most dangerous.
- Catching chickenpox naturally almost always gives lifelong protection.

[NaeNae]

Polio (inactivated poliomyelitis IPV)
- Polio is eradicated in Australia. While there is a small risk of someone in Australia getting Polio, it is statistically less than 0%.
- The majority of Polio cases today are caused by the vaccine itself.



Measles, Mumps, Rubella (MMR)
- Measles is extremely rare and in most cases relatively harmless.
- Mumps and rubella are both mild and rare.
- The main concern with this vaccine remains it's potential link to autism. Whilst it was believed that the link between the two had been disproven, two recent studies have once again potentially linked the two.

PLease correct me if I am wrong (happy to be corrected ) But wasn't the MMR and the "potenital link to autism" debunked fairly recently?? I have this vague recollection on seeing something like this in the 6-12 months?

My brother had the measles and I had the mumps when we were kids is it less common therefore more rare these days?? Wouldn't the vax have helped if that was actually the case ?? Same with the polio ?? I have no idea about the diseases so I am just asking

I was also under the impression that the chickenpox vax was like an "original strain" so it does differ slightly to the one that is passed from human to human (which is why if the vax causes spots, the spots are NOT contagious) therefore would lessen the severity of the disease if it were caught H 2 H if that makes sense??

I also wonder about the stats regarding "side affects" they are not really differentialing between a little bump and a slight temp irritablilty etc and the full blown side affects ITMS??

Not wanting to start anything I am just really curious is all and happy to be corrected if my understand is WAY off

Nae x x

[~ Mylitta ~]

So flaming going to happen hun. Your answering a specific question with your own facts ;D

I wasn't answering with my own facts. That's why I've tried to put as many references as I could. Nothing I've written there has come out of my own head

The Autism studies were actually false and made up, the articles were pulled and since then the 'founder' has admitted that these studies were false.

The autism study by Dr Wakefield was the study that was full of inaccuracies and basically had so many problems with it's "study" (I can't even fathom calling it a real study), that I can't believe it was ever published in the first place. While it's definitely been found that his study was full of holes, that doesn't mean that his theory was actually wrong, it just means that he didn't prove or disprove it.

Mylitta do you mind me asking why are they "high risk"

We have a couple of reasons for being extra cautious. Both my sister and I had pretty severe reactions to the whooping cough vaccine as babies. I almost died when I went into respiratory distress, and my sister has a rare lifelong form of eczema that has been potentially attributed to an immune response brought on by the vaccine. Whilst the vaccine has been changed since back when we had it, we've been told there is no way to know if the reactions were definitely to the constituents in the vaccine carrier, to the vaccine itself, or to the specific immune response. And as it's been proven that vaccination reactions are more likely if a family member has also had a reaction we are being cautious.

The main reason though is due to the potential link to autism. Both sides of our family has an extremely strong history of children on the autistic spectrum, especially in boys (probably around 80% of male siblings and cousins affected to some degree). After seeing a geneticist and a psychiatrist that specialises in children on the autistic spectrum and vaccinations, we have decided that the potential risk is too great for us to feel comfortable given the vaccines at this stage. Most of the studies surrounding vaccination and autism focus on the MMR vaccine, yet a more recent study has pointed to link more generally toward vaccines in general. It basically possible causes of autism and included autism caused by encephalitis, that was initially caused by a vaccine reaction (not specifically the MMR). (Helen V. Ratajcza. Theoretical aspects of autism: Causes—A review. Journal of Immunotoxicology, 2011; 8(1): 68–79)

PLease correct me if I am wrong (happy to be corrected ) But wasn't the MMR and the "potenital link to autism" debunked fairly recently?? I have this vague recollection on seeing something like this in the 6-12 months?

The two journal studies I've read still potentially linking vaccines and autism were both published in 2011, so are both very new. I also have a 3rd article on my computer (that I am still reading as it's 52 pages long, lol) was also written this year and is basically an analysis in which they review and critique the analytical epidemiology studies most commonly cited as evidence against the autism-vaccine hypothesis.
I really do wish that the potential link would either be confirmed or debunked because it would certainly make the decision of whether to vaccinate or not a lot easier!

My brother had the measles and I had the mumps when we were kids is it less common therefore more rare these days?? Wouldn't the vax have helped if that was actually the case ?? Same with the polio ?? I have no idea about the diseases so I am just asking

I was also under the impression that the chickenpox vax was like an "original strain" so it does differ slightly to the one that is passed from human to human (which is why if the vax causes spots, the spots are NOT contagious) therefore would lessen the severity of the disease if it were caught H 2 H if that makes sense??

It's often cited that once you have a vaccination against something, that if you still manage to catch the disease it can be a milder form of the disease. This can certainly be true. What is less often mentioned is that someone who has been vaccinated against a disease and then catches the disease is more likely to have an "atypical" form of the disease than someone who was never vaccinated against it. It's still rare to have that sort of reaction, but they can be much more devastating than the "normal" course of the disease.
With Polio, Australia has zero cases of polio since it was declared "polio-free" by the world health organisation in 2000. The risk of one of my kids getting polio is statistically 0%, whereas the risk of a reaction to the vaccine is higher than 0%. It makes more sense to me to get the polio vaccine later in life if you are ever planning on visiting a country that still has polio, rather than giving it repeatedly to a baby with an immature immune system.

I hope I'm making sense. Vaccination is such a complex subject.

And again I want to point out that I'm not actually against vaccinations, lol. I DO wish that there were stricter studies done on vaccines before they are used on the public, and I definitely think that the efficacy and safety of vaccines should be greatly improved, AND I think that there should be more options when it comes to being able to choose which vaccines to give and not to give (rather than limiting it to a 5in1 or 6in1), but in general the theory behind a vaccine is certainly a good one and I don't doubt that they do a lot of good.

[~ Mylitta ~]

I also wonder about the stats regarding "side affects" they are not really differentialing between a little bump and a slight temp irritablilty etc and the full blown side affects ITMS??

Oops, missed this bit That's definitely something that I wonder about too! It's very difficult to find numbers on what rate certain reactions have with particular vaccines. The reason it was so hard for us to make a decision on whether to vaccinate the kids or not was because we couldn't find anyone that could give us hard facts as to whether the risk of vaccinating was or was not outweighed by the risks of not-vaccinating for our kids in particular. And the two "specialists" we saw both recommended caution with vaccines, and one outright said he did not recommend the MMR for our kids. Once my kids reach the age past which regressive-autism is a risk, then we will re-evaluate what vaccines to give. It's a lose-lose situation though. We would hate ourselves is either of the kids caught something really bad that we could have vaccinated against, but by the same token, we would hate ourselves if we vaccinated and then the kids developed regressive autism. With one son already pretty severely effected on the autistic spectrum (my eldest stepson) we have first hand experience at the devastation it can cause

[beansbeans!]

I agree mylitta, my biggest problem with vaccinations is the hard facts for the pros and cons. I really wish the 'real' stats, pros and cons were put forward to the world honestly. And until thats done, I find that I am unable to trust the available data whole-heartedly.