Question for those who are pro vaccination

WriterMom

Thu, May 13 2010, 2:32 pm

Hashem_Yaazor wrote:

2. MMR currently cannot be separated.

That might depend where you are. I know of people who've had it done. You have to special order it, but it's possible. For adults who lack immunity to one of these only, they're routinely given just that one element.

Re: the wider question - I'm a selective vaxer. Not surprisingly, then, my answer about whether I'd give my own money to vax someone who wants to but doesn't have the money is "it depends." I don't consider the chicken pox vaccine to be a good thing for someone who is basically healthy, and neither does my doctor; so no, I wouldn't be interested in using money to pay for an unnecessary intervention that is not without risk. I believe it's important for people over puberty to have antibodies to mumps and rubella, and would happily pay for people to get those if money is the issue.

About the things in between, I believe there is no one right or wrong answer, that it is part judgment call, part belief, and of course part the circumstances of the individual child. I would not like parents to have to make this decision on the basis of money, though, so yes, I would be happy funding shots that I might not choose for my kids, because I think giving or withholding are both valid choices and cost shouldn't be a consideration.

chavs

Thu, May 13 2010, 3:33 pm

I believe they are as important and yes I would pay for someone elses child to be vaccinated. At some point they sold nappies and part of the money went to children in Africa who needed it, and I bought those nappies because of that very reason. Furthermore we pay taxes so our money goes to fund vaccinations for the UK population and I am pleased about that.
I have actually done my research and after careful deliberations came to the conclusion that the possible pros of vaccinating outweighs the possible cons of not vaccinating.

Andrew Wakefield who was the main author of an article written for The Lancet (a medical journal) was later discovered that he had received major funding from British trial lawyers looking for evidence against vaccine manufacturers. Furthermore 10 of the paper's twelve co-authors retracted its interpretation of an association between MMR vaccine and autism. It was also discovered that Wakefield had previously filed for a patent on a rival vaccine using technology that lacked scientific credibility, and that Wakefield knew but did not publish test results that contradicted his theory by showing that no measles virus was found in the children tested. He was also exposed as having manipulated patient data and misreported results in the paper creating the appearance of a link with autism. Finally The Lancet fully retracted the 1998 paper.

Since then large studies have been done by different organisations such as the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention, the NHS and The Cochrane Library amongst others.
None of them found a link between the vaccine and autism. The Cochrane Library's review also concluded that the vaccine has prevented diseases that still carry a heavy burden of death and complications, and that the lack of confidence in the vaccine has damaged public health.

Some info:

http://briandeer.com/mmr-lancet.htm

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content...../1293 (you have to become a member)

http://edition.cnn.com/2009/HE.....ines/

ftp://autism.uscfc.uscourts.go.....o.pdf

http://mrw.interscience.wiley.......html

http://www.nas.org.uk/nas/jsp/.....17709

Raisin

Thu, May 13 2010, 7:23 pm

see, the thing with vaccination, is that on an individual level your kid will very probably be fine if they are not vaccinated. Since most other people are vaccinated a kid nowadays is unlikely to catch polio, meningitis etc Although, as we can see this is no longer as true as it used to be.

So I don't think a child is in great danger by not being vaccinated. however, in some parts of the world where vaccination is not widespread and these diseases are common, a child is certainly better off being vaccinated. especially where there is no access to good hospital care for complications of common illnesses.

And on a public health level, it's a different story.

Tova

Thu, May 13 2010, 8:12 pm

Inspired wrote:

Would you "put your money where your mouth is"?

I don't follow your logic here. It reminds me of marina's e-bay-ing off her dressing tznius for week to see if people "put there money where their mouth is" about the importance of tznius.

[Or more recently - an e-mail going around that a partner in my office would shave off his mustache - that is very much a part of him - if we raised $X for United Way...like mah hakesher?]

There are plenty of things that I think are vitally important that I wouldn't pay for other's lack of.

Inspired

Fri, May 14 2010, 2:22 am

Tova wrote:

Inspired wrote:

Would you "put your money where your mouth is"?

You seemed to have missed the point, and some posts. In other threads posters have claimed that others should vax even if they don't personally want to out of concern for other people's children. I was wondering whether the people who say this would be willing to fund the elimination of this risk to their own children. Just how vital is it to them? If someone doesn't vax because they can't afford to they should be as important to vax as one's own children in the logic of those people.
This has nothing to do with mustaches or tznius, unless people were telling these people that they were harming others.

amother

Fri, May 14 2010, 7:58 am

Inspired wrote:

Is it so important to you that others vaccinate that if there was someone who would vaccinate but doesn't for lack of money would you pay for them to get vaccines for their child?

Do you think food, basic clothing, housing, medications for actual current illness come before vaccines or are vaccines as important as those?

inspired, I have put my money where my mouth is more than once

I am a pediatrician.
I have had patients who were either dropped from their insurance plans, lost their jobs (and hence their insurance), or had no insurance to begin with and worked out an out of pocket payment schedule with us. I work in a large practice, so I don't see every single one of these families, but of the ones I have seen, there have been two in the past year (or rather year and a half- since the recession in fall of 2008), who said they couldn't vaccinate because they couldn't afford the vaccines (vaccines are expensive if insurance is not paying!). I told them that it was no problem, the practice would cover the costs. I paid with my own visa.

So there you have it. I don't just "care" if it is easy for me. Can I afford to pay for the hundreds of thousands (hopefully not millions!) of unvaccinated kids across the country? Obviously not. but I do what I can when faced with the scenario.

Hashem_Yaazor

Fri, May 14 2010, 9:34 am

WriterMom wrote:

Hashem_Yaazor wrote:

2. MMR currently cannot be separated.

It was available, then Merck stopped making it. They did say they will resume due to interest, but I haven't heard that it's available again.

Oh, I edited out the post about rubella -- for some, they won't be immune to it, shot or not. That's why they want everyone over 1 to have that vaccine to lower the risk of pregnant women who aren't immune to get it.

Hashem_Yaazor

Fri, May 14 2010, 9:37 am

chavs wrote:

If we're going to discuss monetary influence, we might as well point out CDC's connection to vaccine patents...
Either way, there are other concerns besides autism in connection to vaccines...

Chayalle

Fri, May 14 2010, 10:29 am

Quote:

If one cannot afford to pay for vaccines the government will suplement the money for teh vaccination.

not true.

My insurance (until this year they finally changed it) covered only $500 per calendar year for well-baby. That means the well-baby max for my baby was depleted by the time she was 2 months old. And since most vaccinations are given the first year, I paid over $800 to have my DD vaccinated.

I asked my insurance why they don't cover more for well-baby at the time, and they said it was because most states have vaccination programs so it's not needed. (guess they got enough complaints that they finally changed it - too late for this DD).

The problem is, in NJ you only get state-funded vaccinations if you are on NJ care - meaning if you are income eligible, with pretty tight requirements. And there's no federal program here - it's left to the state. And since I wasn't eligible, I had no choice but to shell out the money and was just gasping financially.

So for those of us who work honest, on the books jobs, we shell out all over the place while our tax dollars fund programs only for those who don't pay taxes.

Chayalle

Fri, May 14 2010, 10:33 am

Quote:

Raisin wrote:
see, the thing with vaccination, is that on an individual level your kid will very probably be fine if they are not vaccinated. Since most other people are vaccinated a kid nowadays is unlikely to catch polio, meningitis etc Although, as we can see this is no longer as true as it used to be.

I think people of this generation do not appreciate what vaccinations have contributed to the world. My grandfather lost four siblings in a week to a small pox epidemic that swept thru Europe when he was a young boy. Vaccinations have all but eradicated this deadly disease...B"H.

Hashem_Yaazor

Fri, May 14 2010, 10:42 am

catonmylap wrote:

It is a public health hazard and it can affect those of us who vaccinate too. You vaccinate children at certain ages, so you can easily have a baby who hasn't been vaccinated yet who catches the disease or needs to be kept at home until it is clear that don't have it after being exposed.....

I think vaccinations should be available to everyone as part of national health care..

It's kind of a catch-22 though.
Babies have natural immunity from their mothers for a certain time period (via pregnancy and/or nursing) if their mothers have natural immunity. So if you don't eradicate a disease completely, babies are more at risk if their mother is vaccinated than if their mother had natural immunity.

Chayalle

Fri, May 14 2010, 11:15 am

Quote:

could you please explain this? Not sure I understand. Are you saying if a baby is being breastfeed the baby won't contract a contagious disease that is going around?