un-vaccinated children

[demi]

I haven't had chance to read all of this yet but it may be of interest to some of you - http://articles.mercola.com/sites/artic ... mbers.aspx For the record, I'm on the fence and that's why I'm following this thread. I'm also on the fence about the guy who wrote the article I've suggested.

i think this is a good idea. there has been no mayjor side effects for the flu vaccine ( i take it this is for swine flu ) but many children and pregnant women have died and many more hospitalized because of the flu virus. vaccinating parents to reduce the risk to their children seems like a smart thing to do. maybe they should be giving out the vaccines in schools too.

i got given the flu vaccine when i was pregnant and diddnt have any side effects what so ever, not even any pain on the site of the injection, which was somthing the doctor said can somtimes happen to some people.
better safe than sorry, i wouldnt risk my or my babys life due to crazy conspiricy theorys.

[Millymollymandy]

All I can say is that I have had tons of vaccines throughout my life from a baby to a child (where I had no choice) to an adult where I've willingly had all sorts for travelling and regularly have my tetanus.

I've not yet caught yellow fever, TB, smallpox, hepatitus, polio or any of the other things I've been vaccinated against, nor have I developed anything else as a result of them!

I'm all for vaccinations.

Maybe some of you who are not so keen would think again if you lived in a tropical country rife with deadly diseases?

[Crickleymal]

"The data was collected from parents with vaccine-free children via an internet questionnaire by vaccineinjury.info and Andreas Bachmair, a German classical homeopathic practitioner."

So that'll be a completely representative and unbiased sample with rigorous and consistent diagnostic criteria then... After all, what could be more reliable for resolving complex questions in epidemiology than an internet questionnaire?

Oops, I've just rolled my eyes so hard that one of them's fallen out.

Yes I wondered about that too. And of those vaccinated did any of them have homeopathic vaccines, the ones with nothing in them?

[JuzaMum]

I use homeopathic teething powders for my children and they seem to work very well and preferable I think to additive filled flavoured Calpol type stuff

JuzaMum

[JuzaMum]

i got given the flu vaccine when i was pregnant and diddnt have any side effects what so ever, not even any pain on the site of the injection, which was somthing the doctor said can somtimes happen to some people.
better safe than sorry, i wouldnt risk my or my babys life due to crazy conspiricy theorys.

I miscarried after having a flu vaccine so declined in my subsequent pregnancies. Then I had nasty 3 week flu when pregnant
If I was to have more children (I'm not) I would decline the vaccine again. It couldn't be tested on pregnant women so those recieving the vaccine whilst pregnant are effectively the test group

You have to make your choice for your individual circumstances

JuzaMum (currently nursing her freshly vaccinated baby)

[MKG]

In think that one of the problems is that the case for vaccination, when looked at purely in terms of direct prevention, is unassailable. Vaccines work, and very effectively. There is unarguable evidence for this.

However, there are a growing number of people who think that vaccines cause associated damage (in terms of epilepsy, allergies, diabetes - the list goes on) and that the number of people affected could be as high as 1 in 5 of children vaccinated. I think (THINK) this is overstating the case, but there is no hard and fast evidence either way. Lack of directly attributable evidence, rather than circumstantial evidence, does NOT, however, mean that there is nothing to worry about.

The scientific evidence says that vaccines are effective, and this can be demonstrated. The evidence of numbers says that vaccinated children are much less likely to contract the illness for which the vaccine was designed. Other evidence of numbers says that there are a number of illnesses which have massively increased since mass vaccination began - but, of course, there are other environmental factors to which this increase could be attributed.

The childhood diseases which are most in the spotlight as far as vaccinations are concerned can kill or severely damage children. But that's not at all guaranteed - most get over them, as I and a lot of other people here did. So, a decision has to be made. If your child contracts measles, for instance, the chances are that he/she will recover with no adverse effects. But there's a chance that won't happen. Unless you believe (and you may be right) that there is no risk attached to vaccination, then you are facing a similar situation - the chances are that the vaccination will work with no ill effects. But there's a chance that won't happen. It's the relative size of the gambles which is the issue, but we do not have definitive evidence of that where vaccine damage is concerned.

That's the situation in a nutshell and it's a decision that all parents must face. Until there is definitive (and independent) evidence showing that vaccine-associated damage is far less likely than disease-associated damage, then the parents are caught between a rock and a hard place, and no amount of assurance from anyone will help. Having taken my decisions a long time ago, I sympathise with anyone faced with the same choice.

Mike

[demi]

i got given the flu vaccine when i was pregnant and diddnt have any side effects what so ever, not even any pain on the site of the injection, which was somthing the doctor said can somtimes happen to some people.
better safe than sorry, i wouldnt risk my or my babys life due to crazy conspiricy theorys.

I miscarried after having a flu vaccine so declined in my subsequent pregnancies. Then I had nasty 3 week flu when pregnant
If I was to have more children (I'm not) I would decline the vaccine again. It couldn't be tested on pregnant women so those recieving the vaccine whilst pregnant are effectively the test group

You have to make your choice for your individual circumstances

JuzaMum (currently nursing her freshly vaccinated baby)

of course misscarrage is a tradgedy and a horiffic experiance to have to go though, but ( unless the post mortum proved ) there is nothing to say the vaccine was the cause. it is more probable that somthing else was the cause and you getting the vaccine just coincided with that which made you beileve it was because of the vaccine.
it is very easy for your brain to make connections between coincedental things when its looking for something to blame.

there is a famous latin phrase : post hoc ergo propter hoc
which means : after this therefor because of this


when you make a connection between two unrelated things only because one happened after the other, when in fact it was just a coincedance.

it is somthing that your brain does all the time.

The form of the post hoc fallacy can be expressed as follows:

A occurred, then B occurred.
Therefore, A caused B.
When B is undesirable, this pattern is often extended in reverse: Avoiding A will prevent B.




probably if you had had the flu vaccine during your later pregnancy you would have avoided the illness.
you were lucky it wasnt more scerious for you both.

[oldjerry]

But,Dunc,that'd be the rationality that gave us Capitalism,Stalinism and Eugenics,to name a few,as opposed tp the irrationality that gave us Shakespeare, Monet , Zappa et al.

What the heck is rational about Capitalism, Stalinism, or Eugenics? Just because people claim something is rational doesn't make it so. You have to look at the evidence - and looking at the evidence, those three have not exactly turned out well.

And art is obviously a completely different matter. I honestly can't believe you're even trying to make that argument... Just because I think we should try and be rational in solidly empirical matters of life and death doesn't mean I think we should be rational in absolutely all areas of life. That would be ridiculous. In fact, it would be completely irrational.

I invite you to extend your argument, abandon rationality in all aspects of life, and see how you get on...

I'm not suggesting irrationality as a shining path just pointing out that ,for some of us at least,it seems part of human makeup.I'm sure you can,infact probably have,put forward an overwhelming case for all children to be vaccinated,but clearly for a number of people,however stupid they may appear to the rational mind,it just doesn't seem right.The only way round this is for the State to use force.

And I'm not suggesting for a second that Capitalism,Stalinism etc are rational in any way,but for their proponents they certainly are which I suppose shows just how subjective rationalism can be.

[demi]

in some conrtys your child cannot start school without having had all the nessecery vaccinations.
i think this is somthing the rest of the world should follow.

[gregorach]

I'm sure you can,infact probably have,put forward an overwhelming case for all children to be vaccinated,but clearly for a number of people,however stupid they may appear to the rational mind,it just doesn't seem right.The only way round this is for the State to use force.

If you review my postings in this thread, I'm pretty sure you'll find that at no point have I actually advocated any sort of coercion. I've said that it's an interesting, difficult, and complex question for which I can see arguments on either side, I've put forward a number of arguments for why I think people should vaccinate, and I've raised a number of objections to the common arguments against vaccination, but I haven't actually come down firmly on the side of forcing anybody to do anything. As a determined non-parent, I don't really see it as my place to make that sort of decision.

I personally think that refusing vaccination because you care about your kid's health is silly, misinformed, and based on a dreadful lack of understanding about relative risk ratios, but hey - I'm not going to be the one sitting by a hospital bed (or buying a child-sized coffin) as a result. Knock yourselves out, but don't expect much sympathy from me should it all go horribly wrong. And the end of the day, there's only so much you can do to protect people from their own (or their parents') foolishness. The people I do have a lot of sympathy for are the parents of the kids who suffer (and / or die) because of other people's decisions not to vaccinate, but apparently many people are perfectly happy to risk other people's children over this sort of thing, and call it moral whilst they do so. It makes no sense to me, but that's nothing new...

About the only level of compulsion they I could possibly favour would be to force non-vaccinating parents to visit the hospital wards containing the kids suffering from the (admittedly rare) more serious effects of the diseases we so nearly consigned to the history books, and to attend their funerals should the worst come to the worst.

[demi]

and the very reason that these diseases are so rare in our society today is through mass vaccination!
you only need to look at africa to truly see the devistation these diseases cause when left uncontroled.
as long as people refuse vaccination it is leaving to door open for these diseases to return.

[JuzaMum]

i got given the flu vaccine when i was pregnant and diddnt have any side effects what so ever, not even any pain on the site of the injection, which was somthing the doctor said can somtimes happen to some people.
better safe than sorry, i wouldnt risk my or my babys life due to crazy conspiricy theorys.

I miscarried after having a flu vaccine so declined in my subsequent pregnancies. Then I had nasty 3 week flu when pregnant
If I was to have more children (I'm not) I would decline the vaccine again. It couldn't be tested on pregnant women so those recieving the vaccine whilst pregnant are effectively the test group

You have to make your choice for your individual circumstances

JuzaMum (currently nursing her freshly vaccinated baby)

of course misscarrage is a tradgedy and a horiffic experiance to have to go though, but ( unless the post mortum proved ) there is nothing to say the vaccine was the cause. it is more probable that somthing else was the cause and you getting the vaccine just coincided with that which made you beileve it was because of the vaccine.
it is very easy for your brain to make connections between coincedental things when its looking for something to blame.

there is a famous latin phrase : post hoc ergo propter hoc
which means : after this therefor because of this


when you make a connection between two unrelated things only because one happened after the other, when in fact it was just a coincedance.

it is somthing that your brain does all the time.

The form of the post hoc fallacy can be expressed as follows:

A occurred, then B occurred.
Therefore, A caused B.
When B is undesirable, this pattern is often extended in reverse: Avoiding A will prevent B.




probably if you had had the flu vaccine during your later pregnancy you would have avoided the illness.
you were lucky it wasnt more scerious for you both.

I don't know if the vaccine had any relation to the miscarriage or not but it wasn't a risk I was prepared to take again - and the vaccine may have been useless for the strain of flu I had anyway.

JuzaMum (with baby showing no ill effects from yesterdays jabs )

[trinder]

I don't have any strong point to make but saw this article and thought someone here might find it helpful
http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/rad ... -the-media

[demi]

took my 7 month old son to the doctorsfirst thing on tuesday morning as we've just emigrated and he needs to get extra vaccines.
they gave him the hepatitus B vaccine. he hardly flinched. later that day is was grumpy and crying a lot, but he has been teething this week too.
this morning we took him back to get his BCG for teberculossis. he screamed when they were giving it to him because they put it in slowly and it all swells up. but hes been fine all day since. and his first tooth has come through! so hopfully he will be more settled now as last night he was terrible and kept us awake for most of the night because of his teething!

we've to go back in a month to get the 2nd heb B vaccine, then again in 5 months after that.
and they give the MMR and boosters when hes 1 year old, same as in the UK.

its funny how nobody in macedonia has heard of or noticed any link between the MMR vaccine and autism, yet they get the same vaccine as in the UK. you'd think that if the MMR vaccine did cause autism it would be the same case world wide, and not just in the UK..... .......



@ trinder : good post, even though its someones blog it is evidently well researched with links to references. :)

[demi]

'Bad Science' is a good website from Dr. Ben Goldacre who you may have seen on the TV beofore.

here are a few articles:
http://www.badscience.net/index.php?s=vaccine+scares

and here:
http://www.badscience.net/category/vaccines/

he is a medical doctor and he wirtes a colum 'Bad Science' in The Gardian news papper.
he also has the book 'Bad Science' which i think should be mandetory as part of the cericulum in all high schools!
its bacically about how to spot all the BS out there. he talks about quacks like Gillian Mackieth, homeopathy, chineese medicine, alternitive medicine, vaccine scares,the placebo effect, how the media premote the public misunderstanding of science, and lots of other interesting stuff. here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bad_Science_(book)

if everybody read this book you would all see how much confusing misinformation there is out there and how to sift through the drivvel, be critical and spot quacks from a mile off.