Why would you NOT vaccinate your baby?

I’m shocked every time I read about parents not vaccinating their precious babies. It makes no sense to me, I’m a scientist and an analyst, and through those rolls I’ve worked in human health risk assessment including toxicological research.

Here are a few reasons I believe childhood vaccinations (the NHS Childhood Immunisations, in the UK)?are in our best interest:

• Huge amounts of research go into every vaccination and medication before it reaches the stage of trials
• There are umpteen million hurdles with lots of testing before us humans are allowed to trial new vaccinations or medications
• Every board is paranoid. They don’t want to approve a drug or vaccination that might be met with criticism! They know us mere mortals love a reason for a scandal and will look for any needle in a haystack
• Let’s face it we all know the NHS is always strapped for cash, so they definitely don’t want to pay for population style vaccinations if they’re not 100000% sure. Seriously these vaccinations cost stupid-money a year, that’s a lot to be agreed and signed off!

Seriously though, I believe the above, but why would you not vaccinate your baby?

• vaccinations help keep us safe from certain terrible diseases and illnesses – polio, pneumococcal disease, meningitis, measles, mumps, rubella, are definitely not something we want in our population!
• I don’t want my teeny tiny daughter to suffer any illness, no sniffle, no cough, and definitely not anything I could protect her from!
• Mummy guilt?is terrible as it is, yes is ones about me. Imagine if I didn’t give my baby the immunisations and she got measles really badly, or any of these other potentially deadly diseases? I feel sick at the thought.
• children receive vaccinations when they are young to protect them when they are at their most vulnerable, when their immune systems have not yet developed (let’s face if adults couldn’t survive these… ?kiddies can’t either, especially with their less developed immune systems). And, come on, meningitis is the word which brings deep immense uncontrollable fear to every parent, we all try the glass test just to be sure.
• I trust the NHS. As a scientist I analyse everything, believe me it takes weeks for us to choose a TV unit, and a drawer full of paint testers to choose the colour for one room, but I wholeheartedly trust the NHS to protect my family and spend their money wisely on vaccinations which work and are doing as they say.

I acknowledge there are side effects, however, EVERYTHING has side effects! That Calpol you use to bring down baby’s temperature, to ease their suffering… Guess what, that leaflet you threw to the side as you grabbed that syringe, contained a huge list to potential side effects.

To those who ask ‘does the MMR not cause autism’… ‘that’ study by Wakefield was completely flawed, not robust and has been completely superseded by subsequent research, including?multiple studies in multiple countries, none of which substantiated those claims. ?I got rather into researching the MMR side of this ?and so I wrote a blog post just on it here: “The MMR Vaccine and Autism – 12 children is not enough”.

I’ve seen arguements that some parents don’t want to subject their babies to chemicals and ‘outside toxins’… Well I don’t really know where to start with that. Oh yes, so you exclusively breastfeed, don’t drink alcohol or take anything when you’re ill, and baby baths in just water. That’s fine. Now, you can’t possibly use nappy rash cream?or barrier cream either, can you? I assume you wash baby’s clothes after they’ve been worn? But do you wash baby’s clothes and blankets before they’re first used? … Oh and do you live near a road? Each of these subject baby to outside influences! Would you just argue black is white and white is black, and the earth is square? Child health is not a bandwagon, it’s much more serious!
Even just using basic common sense tells me that vaccines help our population, vaccines limit the effects of a disease if we do get it, and for goodness sake a robust study must contain more than 12 children, must have a control group and must not include untraceable (faked?) data!

I respect that everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but surely the experts know best? Surely all the research and boards these vaccinations pass tells you something? Surely the fact the government pays for EVERY child to have these tells you something? ?Surely the fact the General Medical Council, the British Medical Journal, the World Health Organisation, and many many many others have discredited Wakefields research and shown through robust studies that these are safe vaccines and in our best interests, tells you something?

Lynne x

Please note this is my opinion and I have provided the references I talk about at the bottom of this post. And, please have a read of my follow up post about MMR and Autism (The MMR Vacccine and Autism: 12 children is not enough)

References:

Autism Speaks website news:?No MMR-Autism Link in Large Study of Vaccinated vs. Unvaccinated Kids: https://www.autismspeaks.org/science/science-news/no-mmr-autism-link-large-study-vaccinated-vs-unvaccinated-kids

JAMA, 2015, The Journal of the American Medical Association, Autism Occurrence by MMR Vaccine Status Among US Children With Older Siblings With and Without Autism: http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=2275444

GMC, 2010, General Medical Council,?FITNESS TO PRACTISE PANEL HEARING
28 JANUARY 2010:?http://www.nhs.uk/news/2010/01January/Documents/FACTS%20WWSM%20280110%20final%20complete%20corrected.pdf

NHS News, 2010, Ruling on Doctor in MMR Scare😕http://www.nhs.uk/news/2010/01January/Documents/FACTS%20WWSM%20280110%20final%20complete%20corrected.pdf

WHO, 2003, World Health Organisation, MMR and Autism😕http://www.who.int/vaccine_safety/committee/topics/mmr/mmr_autism/en/

Wakefield, 1998, The Lancet,?Ileal-lymphoid-nodular hyperplasia, non-specific colitis, and pervasive developmental disorder in children😕http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(97)11096-0/abstract

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