Mandatory jabs!

[MKG]

When I was a lad (and Thurston was in the navy), parents practised their own form of vaccination and immunisation - as soon as any kid in the area had measles or chicken pox or mumps, we were all sent to play with them. It worked - we all caught the diseases (which, at our tender age, were not too virulent) and so built up natural immunities. Whooping cough was just something you got as a matter of course (with only a few exceptions). Polio and TB are, naturally, not to be so lightly dealt with. However, I feel strongly that our over-sanitised society is partly to blame for disease susceptibility and, hence, government knee-jerking.

[johnhcrf]

Thalidomide is not a vaccine. True bacteria/viruses change and antibiotics were overused by the medical/dental professions. Diseases still have to be challenged otherwise mortality will rise, especially in the young. We should learn from previous mistakes and scientific approaches should continue but strict rules governing new drugs and techniques must apply to prevent horror stories, like thalidomide.

[lsm1066]

Quite right. It's not. It's a drug produced by a pharmaceutical company. That wasn't my point. My point was that just because we used to do something doesn't make it safe or right. Apologies for the confusion.

Lynne

[Clara]

Thalidomide is not a vaccine. True bacteria/viruses change and antibiotics were overused by the medical/dental professions. Diseases still have to be challenged otherwise mortality will rise, especially in the young. We should learn from previous mistakes and scientific approaches should continue but strict rules governing new drugs and techniques must apply to prevent horror stories, like thalidomide.

Do you really REALLY think that the people who make these things and fund the trials, really REALLY care about people over their profit margins?

[johnhcrf]

Drug companies are subject to the law as are you and I. Thalidomide was a wonder drug but pre-testing procedures were inadequate. This should be a warning to drug companies about their research. It must be rigorous and subject to supervision by monitoring agencies. Their mistake was not an error of omission but more a defect in procedures, with horrendous results for patients offspring.

[MKG]

But they are supervised by monitoring agencies. Testing is pretty rigorously controlled, but even then, unforeseen things can happen (as they did fairly recently). Not that I'm defending the drug companies because, as Clara implies, they couldn't give a hoot about patient welfare. Satisfy the relevant criteria and then reap the profits - that's what they're interested in. The vaccination argument is all about forming your own informed opinion and then taking your own decision rather than depending upon the fatuous statements of governments and drug companies who have a very different agenda to that of mere parents.

[Martin]

Drug companies are probably THE most immoral companies in the world today..........they have multi-billion dollar slush funds to hush up the dire results of using their often noxious products. In the case of new drugs, it's a well-known fact that as long as they can hush up the body-count, they'll just carry on selling the stuff, even when they KNOW it's deadly..........people are "paid off" en masse - Take Seroxat for instance........loads of suicides, particularly amongst teenagers, and horrendously addictive - their own studies done pre-marketing showed this, but they still proceeded to sell it!
Every time I hear adjectives like "wonder" being applied to pharmaceuticals I despair - in their time, ALL of the following have been hailed as "wonder drugs, with no addictive problems" - morphine, heroin, cocaine,pheno-barbitone, valium, librium, ativan, mandrax (qaaludes), and surprise, surprise, Seroxat!
(there are LOADS more, but you get the point!)
The latest scam is not to invent new drugs, but to get old ones licensed for new uses.........often with "invented syndromes" for which an old drug is now listed as treatment.

[Ellendra]

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).

Actually, it is still prescribed, but only as a cancer drug. It turned out to have very strong anti-cancerous properties.


What I don't like is how here in the US some groups are pushing to have all girls vaccinated for HPV at age 11. Its a friggin' STD!!!! But they won't vaccinate the boys, where do they think the girls would get it from?

[red]

I probably would arrange for my daughter to be vaccinated against HPV - if I had a daughter

As it goes I have a child with a disability. This has made me aware of kids who are very vulnerable to diseases.. going to play with kids with measles would NOT be a good idea for these individuals.

The truth about childhood vaccinations is statistical. It is not necessarily better for the individual, but better for the herd... yes they use that term - better for the masses statistically

You could argue that opting out for your kids is selfish. if most people do get their kids vaccinated, then the chances are your child wont be exposed to the virus, and therefore need not take the risk of the vax. but if everyone took that attitude.. then the chances for your individual child would not be so good.

It is very easy to make the choice not to vax if you and your family are essentially healthy. if you believe in society then you have to look at what is best for everyone.

Personally: of course I do put my family first.. so I guess I am selfish. and I make the best decision for me and mine that I can. I'm in two minds about it.. my son has had some, and missed others.. I made the best decision I could at each stage - and as his parent I reserve the right to do just that and the government should not be trying to take that right away.

[Meredith]

Too right, this issue arouses strong feelings. The idea of government enforcing medication on my family that I do not agree with incenses me. This is the thin end of the wedge. As it happens I had my children immunised, after much thought and making an informed choice. I will argue all the way against that choice to be taken away from me.

[the.fee.fairy]

I'm fully vaccinated against most things (i've travelled to a few dubious locations...) and i would do it all again.

The risks of catching something, for me, are too great. When i've travelled to dubious countries, i would rather know that medically, i am as covered as possible!

The same goes for my dog. I know its not the same as children, but i don't have children,. My dog is the closest i have to my baby. He is up to date with his jabs. He went into kennels a year or so ago and came ouot with Kennel cough. He was vaccinated, but they had a rogue strain. He caught it and was not a well dog at all. If that was my child, i'd be devastated. it was so hard watching him cough knowing that all i could do was give him the antibiotics and wait. If it was measles, polio, TB, anything that a child could catch i don't think i could describe how i'd feel.

I'm going to be training as a body piercer soon, and because of the bodily fluids angle, i will be fully vaccinated against Hep B. It is not mandatory, but i will do it anyway. My health is too much for me to risk. I had a virus earlier this year that attacked my liver and kidneys, it lasted for a week and i was admitted to hospital for tests a plenty. It scared the life out of me!! I definitely will gbe vaccinting myself and my dog (surrogate child:)). Having the virus was bad enough, knowing that i had to wait for it to hopefully work out of my system before it caused too much damage and caused liver and kidney failure...they were real possibilities at the time. If i caught Hep B and knew that it could have been prevented, i would have kicked myself. I wouldn't want to go through the virus again, let alone a full-blown disease that causes the same thing.

But, i would never take away personal choice. I took the choice to be vaccinated, and to take malaria tablets, but i'd never take away someone else's choice to do so. It is difficult, and quite emotive too. As someone who has suffered Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (a form of ME), it wasn't nice, and i wouldn't want to wish it on anyone. However, i also wouldn't blame my parents if it ws a childhood vaccine that caused it. They have done what they blieved to be the best thing.

I've seen people blaming antibiotic allergies on the amount given to them as a baby - when they were born early. That actually makes me angry...the doctors gave them the antibiotics to make them live (i was born 9 weeks early myself, so i know what gets pumped in). I'm glad to be alive, and even if i was allergic to antibiotics because of the amount given to me as a baby, i'd still feel glad to be here!

So in summary, its up to the individual, but health is something that i personally would never risk.

[lsm1066]

I've seen people blaming antibiotic allergies on the amount given to them as a baby - when they were born early. That actually makes me angry...the doctors gave them the antibiotics to make them live (i was born 9 weeks early myself, so i know what gets pumped in). I'm glad to be alive, and even if i was allergic to antibiotics because of the amount given to me as a baby, i'd still feel glad to be here!

Now that's an interesting one. You see, I was never allergic to anything until I had to take Amoxycillin when I was 12 weeks pregnant with my younger son for severe tonsilitis. That's what you get for sharing drinks with your toddler :). It was so severe that I was unable to eat (or even keep anything down, including water) for 2 weeks and had to have 5 weeks off work for something that, in someone who wasn't pregnant, wouldn't be much more than an annoying sore throat. He is allergic to penicillin and so, now, am I. Weird or what?

[the.fee.fairy]

I think there is definitely something in the fact that people have resistances/inteloerances/allergies to things given to them.

I'm resistant to the cocaine/opiate family of painkillers. I don't know if i was given them as a baby. i suspect not. It is interesting though.

[Millymollymandy]

The allergy thing is interesting - I never knew anybody who had any severe allergies and had only ever heard of anaphylactic shock on the telly on some of these shock horror gasp programmes.

Then we moved to the Netherlands and amongst the small team of people my husband was working with (about 10) we had two who had to carry around injections against AS (peanuts and wasps) and several who were allergic to cats!!! It was the first time I'd ever heard of anyone being allergic to peanuts. Funny how that seems to have become so prevalent in the last decade.

[contadina]

My sister was given antibiotics to treat an ear infection as a child and an allergic reaction caused her to develop neutrapinia (white blood cell count drops making it impossible to fight infections). She spent much of her childhood in hospitals, having blood transfusions, marrow transplants and still gets rushed in if a bug takes hold or septicemia sets in.

The rise in reactions to pharmaceuticals is on the rise, pushing the industry to develop or reinvent drugs to keep their profits rising. Add the mutation of germs to the equation and you have a very nasty vicious circle.

I have nine siblings and my mum, was very much of the throw them all together so they all get sick at once persuasion (aside from the one in hospital) and we all grew up with none of the ailments many of our contemporaries suffer from and so have never needed to go to doctors to fill up on antibiotics.

I'm not saying that everyone should boycott pharmaceuticals but I definitely think it should be a personal decision.