What would you do, if your child...

[CFLarsen]

What would you do, if an unvaccinated child infected your own vaccinated children?

What would your reaction to the parents be?

(I'm assuming that parents here think that vaccination is a good thing...)

[ilk]

Am I the only person who thinks there is a logical flaw in the question?

[Wudang]

I'm not saying what I'd do

How would I feel? As I do about others who abrogate social responsibility - e.g. drunk drivers.

[CFLarsen]

Quote:

Originally posted by ilk
Am I the only person who thinks there is a logical flaw in the question?

What do you mean?

[richardm]

Quote:

Originally posted by CFLarsen
What do you mean?

Possibly ilk's thinking that if your child is vaccinated, then they shouldn't be infectable by an unvaccinated one.

[CFLarsen]

Quote:

Originally posted by Wudang
I'm not saying what I'd do

Confess!

Quote:

Originally posted by Wudang
How would I feel? As I do about others who abrogate social responsibility - e.g. drunk drivers.

Yeah, but in this case, your family - your children - would be put at risk.

[CFLarsen]

Quote:

Originally posted by richardm
Possibly ilk's thinking that if your child is vaccinated, then they shouldn't be infectable by an unvaccinated one.

That's not the case. Vaccinations don't give you 100% protection forever and ever.

But it's close, I admit...

[Wudang]

Quote:

Originally posted by CFLarsen

Yeah, but in this case, your family - your children - would be put at risk.

Exactly.

Apropos of nothing, my farming relatives know how to deal with foot and mouth.

[Rolfe]

Quote:

Originally posted by Wudang
Apropos of nothing, my farming relatives know how to deal with foot and mouth.

Hmmm, that's a contentious one. Coincidentally, I'm just sitting here rereading the transcript of a bunch of very forthright expert opinions on the 2001 débâcle in Britain, and anyone who thinks that one's cut and dried simply doesn't understand the question.

I think Claus perhaps means to say that one group of people who are supposed to be protected by herd immunity is the group in which, for whatever reason, the vaccine doesn't "take". So, if your child was in that group, and then became ill because the herd immunity was insufficient due to poor uptake of the vaccine, how would you feel?

Rolfe.

[CFLarsen]

Quote:

Originally posted by Rolfe
I think Claus perhaps means to say that one group of people who are supposed to be protected by herd immunity is the group in which, for whatever reason, the vaccine doesn't "take". So, if your child was in that group, and then became ill because the herd immunity was insufficient due to poor uptake of the vaccine, how would you feel?

Yes.

[H3LL]

Quote:

Originally posted by Rolfe
.....one group of people who are supposed to be protected by herd immunity is the group in which, for whatever reason, the vaccine doesn't "take". So, if your child was in that group, and then became ill because the herd immunity was insufficient due to poor uptake of the vaccine, how would you feel?

Angry and frustrated.

I'm assuming some disease that's quite dangerous here.

What to do? Haven't a clue? I can't see the (UK) law helping so it will have to be nothing. The carrier and their family will have enough troubles with their sick child anyway. Screaming abuse at the parents may feel good but what's it achieve?

Just keep spreading the word as best we can.



I have a mental image of CFL lurking in crowded areas with an umbrella like the one used on Georgi Markov but filled with vaccine instead of ricin.

[Capsid]

I'd be annoyed, but then I have kids who are fit and healthy and probably would come through an infection on top of which they have been vaccinated and the effects of an infection might be less severe.

However, if my kids were immunocompromised or could not be vaccinated because they were on immunosuppressive drugs or some other medical condition then I'd be really worried that an infection could be life threatening or cause serious complications that would effect their health and have consequences for the rest of their lives. In that case I think I would make the parents of the unvaccinated kids fully aware of the situation. This would hopefully give them a guilt complex and pressure them to get their kids vaccinated so they don't ruin other people's lives.

I read here that on average, one case [of measles] infects 15-20 other cases in a population with no immunity.

[Wudang]

Quote:

Originally posted by Rolfe
Hmmm, that's a contentious one.

Well, yes. Bad analogy. I was trying to hint that I would be very very angry.

[Rolfe]

Quote:

Originally posted by Capsid
However, if my kids were immunocompromised or could not be vaccinated because they were on immunosuppressive drugs or some other medical condition then I'd be really worried that an infection could be life threatening or cause serious complications that would effect their health and have consequences for the rest of their lives.

This has actually happened. Two boys living in London who had received kidney transplants and were on immunosuppressive drugs were infected in this way. Well, one boy was infected by an unvaccinated school-mate, and seems to have passed it to the other when they met at a renal clinic while he was still incubating the virus. One boy was blinded and the other is now confined to a wheelchair.

The blind boy was interviewed on last week's Horizon which went into this matter, and he essentially said his life had been ruined. Which didn't seem to cause the slightest bit of soul-searching in the self-righteous woman who started the whole scare - she can't see beyond her own son and her entirely unfounded conviction that the MMR caused his autism. Other people's children don't seem to matter to her.

Rolfe.

[CFLarsen]

Quote:

Originally posted by H3LL
I have a mental image of CFL lurking in crowded areas with an umbrella like the one used on Georgi Markov but filled with vaccine instead of ricin.

I use chemtrails. Much more efficient...

[HarryKeogh]

I'd knock on their door armed with a picture of my child lying sick in bed and offer my most sarcastic thank you.

[Chris Haynes]

Quote:

Originally posted by CFLarsen
What would you do, if an unvaccinated child infected your own vaccinated children?

What would your reaction to the parents be?

(I'm assuming that parents here think that vaccination is a good thing...)

Whenever there is a news story about the low vaccination rate this mom makes sure her story is also told:
http://www.metrokc.gov/health/immuni....htm#pertussis

You'll notice this and other stories are on a county public health information page.

[Rolfe]

Quote:

Originally posted by Hydrogen Cyanide
Whenever there is a news story about the low vaccination rate this mom makes sure her story is also told:
http://www.metrokc.gov/health/immuni....htm#pertussis

You'll notice this and other stories are on a county public health information page.

That's an excellent link, HC. Thank you.

Rolfe.

[anonimouse]

This really goes to a major part of the immunization debate - the concept of "informed choice".

Vaccine opponents never state that they oppose vaccines - rather, they claim that they are for informed choice. Essentially, vaccines should be optional, they say, because they do pose some known (and possibly unknown) risks and no parent should be compelled to vaccinate under those conditions.

Ok, fine. That's reasonable enough. (and in fact, most jurisdictions don't "mandate" vaccines - they simply require them for school entry...and many offer exemptions for personal or religious reasons)

(However, said vaccine opponents then trot out the whole "vaccines can cause autism/cancer/SIDS/learning disorders" line of reasoning - which basically makes "informed choice" moot. Because if I tell you that vaccinating your child may increase his or her risk of autism, you're not nearly as likely to do it - especially if that disease isn't endemic. That is, however, not necessarily germane to this discussion.)

So why is the concept of "informed choice" important to the OP's question? Because if one supports the idea of vaccination choice, then one can't be unspeakably angry at a parent who exercises their right to opt-out their children from a vaccination program. Sure, you can suggest that the parent should've vaccinated their child, but at the end of the day you accepted the premise that parents can choose not to vaccinate and the consequences that go along with it.

If your opinion is that parents should be required to vaccinate their child (other than for obvious medical reasons, like certain immune system disorders or serious prior reactions) then maybe you have a right to be more indignant.

So the bottom line is, well, it depends. My daughter got the chickenpox from (we believe) one of her daycare classmates who got it from his unvaccinated cousin. My little one's chickenpox was believed to be a factor in a nasty seizure (which was believed to ultimately be febrile) that put her in the hospital for a couple of days. But because I believe that parents are the ultimate arbiters of non-emergency medical treatment for their child, I realize that I'm angry at that parent for exercising their right - so either I accept the consequences of immunization exemptions or I fight against them. It's not as cut and dried as you might think.

[El Greco]

I guess I would kill them. All their offsprings and relatives too. They wouldn't give me much choice, would they ?

[CaveDave]

Quote:

Originally posted by Rolfe


The blind boy was interviewed on last week's Horizon which went into this matter, and he essentially said his life had been ruined. Which didn't seem to cause the slightest bit of soul-searching in the self-righteous woman who started the whole scare - she can't see beyond her own son and her entirely unfounded conviction that the MMR caused his autism. Other people's children don't seem to matter to her.

Rolfe.

My suspicion would be that anti-vax parents would be immune to guilt/sympathy/responsibility for anyone's children but their own: how else to explain the selfish choice to deny vaccination?

_____________

While I'm not convinced everything was done as well as it could have been, the Mary Mallin case ca100YA might be instructive.

Dave

[CaveDave]

Quote:

Originally posted by sodakboy93
This really goes to a major part of the immunization debate - the concept of "informed choice".

Vaccine opponents never state that they oppose vaccines - rather, they claim that they are for informed choice. Essentially, vaccines should be optional, they say, because they do pose some known (and possibly unknown) risks and no parent should be compelled to vaccinate under those conditions.

Ok, fine. That's reasonable enough. (and in fact, most jurisdictions don't "mandate" vaccines - they simply require them for school entry...and many offer exemptions for personal or religious reasons)

Perhaps, then, the other citizens of the society should be able to withdraw the benefits of their company by sanctioning the anti-vaxers to a reservation where they cannot harm the others? Just a thought to discuss.

Dave

[Lisa Simpson]

I was angry. But for the mother of the unvaccinated kid her principles were more important than my vaccinated kid getting the measles. What was I going to do? Beat her up? Force her to get her kids vaccinated?

[Dr. Imago]

Quote:

Originally posted by CFLarsen
That's not the case. Vaccinations don't give you 100% protection forever and ever.

But it's close, I admit...

Well, this depends on what you've been vaccinated against, and whether or not you still continue to have an individually detectable antibody level (i.e., titer) against whatever pathogen you may be challenged with.

It's an interesting point, though, because I think you (perhaps unintentionally) bring up a very critical issue, Claus, about "herd" protection and the "critical mass" required for a disease to spread with a population. For example, many of us who were born in the U.S. before 1977 were vaccinated against smallpox. After its eradication, the practice became to no longer vaccinate (as we all know from media reports) and this has left the entire population vulnerable to a biological attack with this agent. So, a reintroduciton of smallpox into the population would be devastating.

Some vaccinations, however, confer lifelong immunity. In the individual who continues to have a detectable antibody level against a pathogen, they cannot (technically) contract the disease - or, if they do, it will be an extremely mild form of it. Likewise, we can often assume that enough people remain protected, especially with continued childhood immunizations, that the disease would not be able to gain that "critical mass" required to propagate.

Therefore, we should worry when (1) our herd protection falls below that level which allows diseases to effectively propagate and (2) loss of our individual immunity against those pathogens we were vaccinated against in childhood and for which we may or may not get a booster in adulthood.

In that sense, it would be possible for an unvaccinated child (for example) to pass on a disease to an adult whose previous immunity to that pathogen was no longer effective.

And, yes, I'd personally be pissed at whichever parent refused to vaccinate their child if that happened. However, this would more likely be the result of a large population of children providing an effective vector for that illness, and I'd end up having to be pissed a lot of parents. So, it'd probably be more effective to direct my anger at whichever quack(s) advised them that they didn't need to vaccinate.

-TT

(edit: terrible, TERRIBLE grammar. Just terrible.)

[Jas]

Quote:

Originally posted by CFLarsen
What would you do, if an unvaccinated child infected your own vaccinated children?

How about an unvaccinated child coming into contact with yourself (or your partner), who was pregnant?

[Dragon]

Quote:

Originally posted by Rolfe
This has actually happened. Two boys living in London who had received kidney transplants and were on immunosuppressive drugs were infected in this way. Well, one boy was infected by an unvaccinated school-mate, and seems to have passed it to the other when they met at a renal clinic while he was still incubating the virus. One boy was blinded and the other is now confined to a wheelchair.

The blind boy was interviewed on last week's Horizon which went into this matter, and he essentially said his life had been ruined. Which didn't seem to cause the slightest bit of soul-searching in the self-righteous woman who started the whole scare - she can't see beyond her own son and her entirely unfounded conviction that the MMR caused his autism. Other people's children don't seem to matter to her.

Rolfe.

Yes, and reading this link still makes me angry. One day I hope that Wakefield will truly be held to account for the damage he's done.

[Barbrae]

or what about the vaccinated child passing along the illness to a pregnant woman, unvaccinated child, elderly individual, immunocompromised person. For instance, the case of varicella vaccine. Many cases of children contracting chicken pox fromt he vaccine have occured - what if they pass it along to the above groups? Or better yet, when polio was a live vaccine there were cases of the vaccine CAUSING polio in unvaccinated idividuals, right? What about them?? Or just last year when in the US the media was psychotic about how we all (especially children) were gonna die from the flu that year and woops the injectable vaccine was all used up so we best all get our kids on the new flumist vaccine. Our pediatricians office was booked solid just fro kids to get the new flumist vaccine - HOWEVER, the vaccine insert says that since it is a live vaccine it can be secreted through respiratory droplets for something like 28 days after administration and the vaccine should not be given to individuals who live with the above group. Interestingly though the doctors don't care about that little warning. I actually called our pediatrician to ask them about this because my daughter is in a class with a child who has diabetes and I found out the two kids that sit next to her had the flumist vaccine. I was told that the warnign about flumist is about if you LIVE with a person - apparently sitting next to in school, sharing drinks and school supplies for 9 hours a day doesn't have the same risk - give me a break. What about that? What if a vaccinated child gives the flu to a immunocomprimised child??

The fact is - there are risks to vaccination, real risks, sometimes serious risks and if a parent chooses to not vaccinate they are doing it because they believe they are doing the very best thing for their child and their family. They, just likt the pro-vaccinators, are making a decision based on love. The pro-vaccinators and the anti-vaccinators come from the same place, wanting what is best for their kids and this type of bashing against the anti-vaccinators does absolutly no good. If you want to promote vaccination then work to make a better vaccine - one that has less side effects, less added "junk", work to gain knowledge about groups of children who are at risk of adverse effects and work to get the information out in a non-judgemnetal way about the safety and efficacy of vaccines.

[Chris Haynes]

Very rare, not usually a problem if known since a bandage over the vaccinated could prevent spread (may have been a problem with smallpox vaccine, not really an issue with the chicken pox vaccine). The polio vaccine presently in use in the USA it is not even an issue since it is now the IPV.

So really, it usually those who scaremonger who would even think you could get a disease from someone who was vaccinated. It is truly sad and bizarre to read on some parenting forums some loon being afraid that a child that has been vaccinated with either DTaP or MMR could give her child measles, mumps or pertussis.

Edited to add, info page http://www.cdc.gov/nip/faqs/varicella-faqs.htm with this (bolding and italics added by me)

Quote:

For MMR, it is not a problem because there is no risk of transmission after vaccination. With varicella it is a little more complex. You have to use clinical judgment about what you think the rash looks like. Vaccine-associated varicella rashes tend to be mild, maculopapular lesions that are essentially noncommunicable. On the other hand, if the rash looks extensive, if it is vesicular, or you think the person might in fact have breakthrough varicella disease, the child could be infectious. It is possible to get infected with wild virus varicella after vaccination before the immune system has had a chance to mount an immune response to the vaccine. The bottom line is that if it looks like chickenpox, it should be treated like chickenpox. It would also depend on the policy of the day care/school.

[Chris Haynes]

Quote:

Originally posted by Barbrae
...The fact is - there are risks to vaccination, real risks, sometimes serious risks and if a parent chooses to not vaccinate they are doing it because they believe they are doing the very best thing for their child and their family. ...

They are usually doing due to warped perceptions of the risks, and due to some very very bad information out there. Here is a list of the risks of the vaccination versus the actual diseases:
http://www.metrokc.gov/health/immunization/compare.htm

By the way, be careful if you are in Indiana... they are presently experiencing an outbreak of measles because of someone traveling overseas brought it back:
http://www.wishtv.com/Global/story.a...0&nav=0Ra7ap3C

Also, everyone knows that pertussis is now at the highest its been since the NVIC folks started ... very deadly to babies:
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5403a4.htm

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/q..._uids=15545851

[Jyera]

Quote:

Originally posted by CFLarsen
What would you do, if an unvaccinated child infected your own vaccinated children?

What would your reaction to the parents be?

(I'm assuming that parents here think that vaccination is a good thing...)

My simple, immediate, reaction would be...
"Poor thing your child is not vaccinated. I hope he is okay.
Luckily my child is vaccinated."

Frankly I am those sort of people who are...
(1) aware of the benefit of vaccination. But as a child, I have had no power over what I'll get vaccinated for.
(2) but aren't too paraniod about getting ALL the vacinnation.
(3) Will accept vaccination which the governement & doctor mentioned as, either mandatory or commonly recommended to be administered on a national level.
(4) Unaware and unable to to tell, at this instance, what are ALL the vaccination I have had. And have they expired.
(5) Will not reject a "free" but "mandatory" vaccination.
(6) Follows schools' recommended requirement to get the child ready for the necessary vaccination required.

So I suppose I'm part of the "herd".

As such, IF my vaccinated child is "taken" by the disease due to an unvacinnated child, I think I would likely ...

(1) Blame the relevant authority for not making good public policies to encourage or mandate vaccination.
(2) Blame the relevant public health authority for not being able to control the spread of the disease. (regardless of whether they had sensible public vaccination policies)
(3) Blame the relevant public authority, such as school principals for not ensuring a sick child is not to send home and isolated.
(4) I'll also blame the parents of the unvaccinated child.

[Jyera]

However, Practically speaking,
blaming the child of the parent of the unvaccinated child could be tricky.

As, first of all, I might not know who gave it to my child.
If it is due, directly or indirectly, to a publicly known child who is branded as a "super-infector" there should have been sufficient public outcry to point out the irresponsibility of the indivdual.

IF the unvaccinated infector is a cousin, it is once again awkward.
As awkward as a simple incident of a young children playing with sharp objects and cause blinding during an accident.

[Barbrae]

also, how many of you are vaccinated for polio? Measles? Hep B?

When was YOUR last tetanus shot?

What about your folks? Look at all of you, walking around, unprotected, just ready to catch these diseases. Tut...tut...
When was the pertusiss booster you had? It is deadly to infants and as you know after the age of about 10 the vaccine wears off. So, if YOU give my child pertussis can I do to you what you wish to do to those who choose not to vaccinate?

[Yahweh]

Quote:

Originally posted by CFLarsen
What would you do, if an unvaccinated child infected your own vaccinated children?

Pay a visit to the doctor, pick up anti-biotics, put child on a soft-foods and semi-liquid diet, and encourage lots of sleep.

Quote:

What would your reaction to the parents be?

I'd say "get your kid vaccinated", or better yet "if your kid is sick, keep him at home, dont let him play with my kids".

[Jyera]

While I respect individualism, I think it is "wrong" to discard the social responsibility. Especially, in order to fulfill personal vainity and selfish needs.


So if the reason for not going for vaccination is an obviously selfish and vain one, I would be extremely pissed off.

Eg. some people opt-out of (free or relatively cheap) vaccination, NOT because they know the associated disease is rare.
But because they fear having a big scar due to the vaccination.
Or worse still, they had a big scar and feel bad about it, and decided they do not want their child to endup having the same ugly scar.

There is a need to "define" what is socially responsible"
What is socially responsible, in term of vacination, is best defined
through such things as, "Recommended list of vaccination". Or "Mandantory List of vaccination before starting school.".
Each community can choose their own.

It would be impossible to stop people from deviating from the recommendation, or to stop them circumvent the mandatory requirement.

But if they to do so, and then later cause problem to the community, they can be fairly reprimanded or punished in a socially justified fashion.

Let me illustrate more about "circumventing mandatory requirement".

It is NOT just about the people who do not vaccinate according to the mandatory requirement of the school.
It could also be the case of a school principal circumventing his own "mandatory requirement".
Eg. He may agree that a parent has a child highly vulnerable to the risk of a particular vaccination, and decide waive the mandatory requirement. But it would be at a risk of compromising his policies to protect the other children. Is he right to break his own rule? Only time will tell.

Interestingly, having a unvaccinated child in a school that mandates certain vaccination is helpful. Now it made some sense for the rest to be vaccinated. Someone in school is vulnerable to vaccination, thus better be safe. That child might be the next super-infector.

[Barbrae]

Quote:

Originally posted by Yahweh
Pay a visit to the doctor, pick up anti-biotics, put child on a soft-foods and semi-liquid diet, and encourage lots of sleep.

Antibiotics are for bacterial infections. The said diseases vaccinated for are viral.

[Perpetual Notion]

Quote:

Originally posted by Hydrogen Cyanide
They are usually doing due to warped perceptions of the risks, and due to some very very bad information out there. Here is a list of the risks of the vaccination versus the actual diseases:
http://www.metrokc.gov/health/immunization/compare.htm

Thanks for this site - I've been looking for something just like it for quite a while.

For the record, I've had my MMR, polio and Hep B vaccinations. I work in a hospital and have seen children hospitalized with measles who were once normal happy kids whose parents decided not to vaccinate. They also decided to send them to daycare centers which supported their decisions. The first such child I saw when I was an intern ended up blind after several days of high fever. I remember them saying that they couldn't know the extent of the brain damage, because she wasn't talking yet, so it was possible to fully assess it until she was older.

I can't speak to whether my parents are up to date on their tetanus shots, (I had mine in January), but I know for a fact that they had their polio because my mother still speaks of the vaccine as being a miracle. As a child she remembers spending summers indoors and staying out of the community pools for fear of contracting it. She had a friend who missed almost an entire year of school because she was in an Iron Lung. You better believe she had my @ss to the doctor for every freaking vaccine that came out and I will mine as well.

And you better believe I'd be angry at the person who doesn't vaccinate and then ends up causing her child and other children harm, but not near as angry as I am at people who spread lies about vaccines. They ought to come hang out on the peds unit at my hospital and see what a two year old with measles looks like. Maybe then they'd think twice.

[Chris Haynes]

Quote:

Originally posted by Barbrae
also, how many of you are vaccinated for polio? Measles? Hep B?

When was YOUR last tetanus shot?

What about your folks? Look at all of you, walking around, unprotected, just ready to catch these diseases. Tut...tut...
When was the pertusiss booster you had? It is deadly to infants and as you know after the age of about 10 the vaccine wears off. So, if YOU give my child pertussis can I do to you what you wish to do to those who choose not to vaccinate?

My last tetanus shot (dT) was just last February. Unfortunately there is no pertussis booster for adults, though one has just been approved for older children: http://www.medicalnewstoday.com/medi...p?newsid=25539

For the rest of my vaccine history, going by how they put it on my shot record... which I still have:

Smallpox:
23 Jan 58 (no take)
20 Mar 58
13 Aug 59
30 Mar 68
6 Apr 68
7 Sep 71
20 Jun 74

Typhoid:
18 Jul 59
26 Aug 59
31 Aug 59
6 Apr 68
14 Jun 74

Diptheria/Pertussis/Tetanus:
23 Jan 58
20 Feb 58
20 Mar 58
21 Jun 59
3 Aug 62

Diptheria/Tetanus:
30 Mar 68
14 Mar 74
?? Mar 85 (I stapled myself at work, so I went to the plant clinic)
?? Apr 95 (cut myself, so I went to a drop-in med clinic)
2 Feb 05 (because it was time, and I am a gardener)

Typhus:
13 Apr 68
18 May 68

Polio:
29 Jun 59
12 Oct 59
16 Aug 61
3 Aug 62

Yellow Fever (Panama and Venezuela):
26 Aug 59
3 May 68

Something called "Trivalent B" on 17 Jun 68 --- I have no idea what it is for(edited to add: It was a POLIO vaccine!).

I do vaguely remember getting a measles shot, but I don't think it was recorded in my "Department of Defense" certificate of vaccination (I was an Army brat)... so there may be others. You'll notice that in 1968 and 1974 there are several trips to the Army hospital for vaccinations --- those were just before a big move (in 1974 I went to the Ft. Clayton medical building on my own since I was a teenager, I actually interrupted the making of an Army medical training film to get into it just before the clinic closed -- they were blocking the entrance). I got the mumps the year that the vaccine became available. yuck ... I have also been vaccinated against influenza a couple of times.

All of my kids have all of required polio, MMR, HepB, HepA vaccines (county recommends HepA because this is an international port city) and are caught up on DTaP (dT for the boys, since they are presently too old for pertussis... oh, the oldest had a history of seizures so he never got a pertussis vaccine, he was born too soon for the DTaP, and he is in another high risk group so he got an influenza vaccine this year). The HiB vaccine came out with the second child, so he got that. The HepB came out when my daughter was born, so she got that... then the HiB, and the IPV for polio instead of OPV.

Unfortunately they ALL got the chicken pox about a year before the vaccine came out, even the 6 month old baby (so much for breast milk providing "natural immunization"... that was one miserable baby girl!).

I used to know a young man whose sister had chicken pox while he was still a fetus. He was terribly disabled. His muscle tone was so low that he was unable to cry as an infant. He was a sweet little boy, but his vocal motor function along with both his gross and fine motor skills were severely impacted. He was in the same special ed. program as my oldest son, but he had to stay in a self-contained program while my son became fully included in regular ed. program.

[CFLarsen]

Quote:

Originally posted by Barbrae
The fact is - there are risks to vaccination, real risks, sometimes serious risks and if a parent chooses to not vaccinate they are doing it because they believe they are doing the very best thing for their child and their family. They, just likt the pro-vaccinators, are making a decision based on love.

The problem is, that by not having their kids vaccinated, they are jeopardizing other people's kids. They can claim it's for love all they want, but that doesn't change the fact.

Do you think that a parent has the right to endanger the lives of other people's children?

Quote:

Originally posted by Barbrae
also, how many of you are vaccinated for polio? Measles? Hep B?

When was YOUR last tetanus shot?

When I moved to New York in 2000, I got every vaccine my doctor had, for one reason only: I knew I was moving to a huge metropolis, where a lot of people from all over the world would come.

[Chris Haynes]

Quote:

Originally posted by CFLarsen
..When I moved to New York in 2000, I got every vaccine my doctor had, for one reason only: I knew I was moving to a huge metropolis, where a lot of people from all over the world would come.

That is exactly why King County has suggested that kids get the HepA vaccine. This is a community with lots of shipping and people coming from all over. They have a pretty good website on vaccines: http://www.metrokc.gov/health/immuni...ldimmunity.htm

Also, I found this very interesting paper from Pediatrics about how to handle parents who will not vaccinate:
http://pediatrics.aappublications.or...ull/115/5/1428

[Jas]

Quote:

Originally posted by Barbrae
also, how many of you are vaccinated for polio? Measles? Hep B?

When was YOUR last tetanus shot?

All the 'typical' ones are up to date.

Don't have my passport with me, but I have just about everything, including some wierd ones, like yellow fever (was supposed to do the TranSiberian last year, fell through after I got the vaccs). One of the hep vaccines they do here in school (the std one, I can never remember offhand which one is which), the rest were done at a travel clinic last year.

I grew up on a ranch, and always managed to cut myself open on something, so was fairly certain that my tetanus shop was up to date, but sliced my hand up on a rusty umbrella in Croatia in August, so got a booster there just in case.

I also have rabies (worked at the humane society, mandatory).

As luck would have it, I seem to be in a meningitis outbreak area after the vaccine wears out, so I have that as well.