Another MMR article - Sunday Times

[twiglett]

message withdrawn

[Jimjams]

Posted it in the SN section yesterday. It is a very good article- one of the most sensible I've read for a while.

[twiglett]

message withdrawn

[Jimjams]

Yeah quite twiglett. My friend's little boy is in the film "hear the silence" tonight on channel 5. Her ds2 was developing normally. Had his MMR - within days had started screaming, started with massive diarrhoea (which continued for months) and lost speech (he had started)- she was told he would never speak again (but he did- he has lines in the film). Another friend's ds1 had the MMR and within 3 days had his first seizure, then began to regress and started with diarrhoea. And "the case is closed" -not worth investigating- yeah right- and lets just say the mother's didn't notice the diarrhoea or seizures before hand. Grrrr indeed! Sod the epidemeliogical studies (which as the article said can show whatever you want them to show) look at the children! So if it wasn't the MMR that caused the diarrhoea, seizures, lack of speech and regression then we know what it was.

[popsycal]

thanks for this article.....reminded me to book single jabs!

[Clarinet60]

Yes, I thought it was a great article too. I wished the writer had come down from the fence and told us what he had decided to do about his own child, but apart from that, it was a great account and I'll be keeping it.

[LucieB]

Here's an even better article www.guardian.co.uk/life/feature/story/0,13026,1103958,00.html

[Jimjams]

will reply to this when I have time. but all the studies quoted are flawed. Will take them one by one later.

[oliveoil]

Droile - agree, I even skipped to the end to see what he had decided. Dd had her MMR appointment yesterday but is full of a cold so I cancelled. In a way am glad she had a cold so I could continue to stick my head in the sand .

Annoys dh no end, says I am worrying unnecessarily and just to get the MMR over and done with.

No mumps vaccines in my area though (according to todler group research) so not sure on singles either aaaaaerrrghhhhhhhhh

[twiglett]

message withdrawn

[twiglett]

message withdrawn

[LucieB]

As has rightly been pointed out previously, it is very much a personal decision as to whether you give your child the MMR. I have a best friend who is a paediatrician and has seen some horrendous cases of measles, mumps and rubella in recent years. I very much doubt that there is some sort of government conspiracy nor is the pro-MMR debate a load of 'establishment bollocks'. There are good arguments on either side which are unfortunately becoming clouded with the larger issue of generally whether to vaccinate or not.

[bossykate]

i agree, lucieb, i don't think the consistent emphasis on a government conspiracy to which most members of the medical profession belong does much to enhance the credibility of the anti mmr campaign.

[LucieB]

I get the impression that most doctor's children have the MMR - or am I wrong?

[jinglesaur]

No idea lucieb.

When I was agonising over whether DS2 should have the MMR, my GP said that speaking as a doctor she had no hesitation in recommending it but speaking as a mother she understood completely my reluctance and would be the same herself...

[Jimjambells]

Reply to the guardian studies. I don;t necessarily think there is a govt conspiracy. i don't think doctors are out to dmage children. i do think a lot of drs have problems listening to parents (see end of the bit below), and I do think the absolute "goodness" of vaccinations is beyond questioning in too many minds.


OK articles one by one

This is a good long article setting out some of the problems with the Danish study:

www.whale.to/a/bradstreet.html

All the Danish study reveals is that MMR is not a cause for all autism. Any idiot knows that. The "anti" mmr group suspect it may be involved in some way in about 10% of autism cases.

OK next the Finnish study. The Peltola work (he?s interesting as he is very pro vaccination but even he said he wasn?t convinced by meningitis C vaccine- anyway a digression). This one really is a bit of a joke as the authors tested the wrong hypothesis. For starters they only looked at general adverse reactions (the study was carried out before the Wakefield paper) and they only looked for acute reactions. Autism is not an acute reaction (especially if it takes years to get a dx) It?s a bit awkward that this study was actually part funded by Merck who manufacture the MMR.

Another link here:

www.garynull.com/Documents/AutismFinnishStudy.htm

Next the north London paper. This is Brent Taylors work. In fact this paper did find a steep increase in autism rates, around the time of the introduction of the MMR. It also found there was increased parental concern after 6 months- but said this was due to dx difficulties. The study missed out children who were included in the catch up campaign- this meant that it looked as though the increase in autism rates began before the introduction of the MMR- when in fact if you included these children it coincided.. In the conclusion of this paper the author s state that their work doesn?t rule out the possibility that a small group of children may be affected adversely by the MMR- this is what we should be trying to identify. We?re back to the same point as before- everyone knows its safe for the majority of children. That?s not the question being asked.

Next the GP consultation. Bit weird this one- no increase in consultations 6 months after the jab. Hmmm would anyone expect there to be? My GP has never referred me to anything to do w th autism. My HV referred me to SALT, We were referred to a paed by an ear nose and throat surgeon and by SALT. We didn?t go anywhere near the GP. I did a quick straw pole on this wth friends. And on an autism list Some went to their GP?s many didn?t.

Next the 200 children in Stafford and London. I;m not sure which paper this means. I think he means the chakrabati paper- although the children were not divided into 2 groups at all. It looked at pre and post MMR introduction rates ?w hich is slightly different. Anyway assuming it is this paper:They made a series of rather simplistic assumptions and basically went through each one refuting it. The problem with it is that their reasoning is flawed. So flawed I can?t be bothered to go through it., Good link here giving details though:

66.70.140.217/a/thrower.html#PART%20C

Next California. I?m guessing this was the 2001 paper. Again lots of problems- to be fair acknoweldeged in the paper. Buit it assumes a simple linear relationship between susceptibility and MMR which isn?t necessarily the case. The main problem here is that is was trumpeted as "proving" various things it didn?t.

I haven?t gone into all the problems with these papers as it would be too long. But hopefully the links will give you some idea that they don?t really prove much other than the MMR is safe for most children. Well yes it is. Which is fine providing your child is one of the most, and would be more reassuring if we had some ideas of the numbers involved. To answer the questions over MMR someone is going to have to look at the children concerned. One thing that has always struck me is that when MMR was introduced the vaccination schedule was changed and children were given thimerosil containing jabs at 2,3 and 4 months rather than over the course of the first year. Could this have an effect? Who knows?

Other problems I have with the article. Well he attacks Paul Shattock for not publishing his work, He hasn?t published yet because his data is kind of preliminary. Look what happened to Wakefield on publication of early data, I think the whole thing is too hot to handle. Anyway Shattock?s work is open to scrutiny here:

osiris.sunderland.ac.uk/autism/aru.htm

He also buys into this whole "oh autism only becomes apparent at 18 months and the parents didn?t notice ? they?re only mother?s after all" Frankly this arrogant pile of claptrap is all too common. Signs of autism are there far earlier which can be seen on reflection. I was pretty certain by 4 months that ds2 was not autistic (using the insight I had gained with ds1- I knew what to look for- at 4 months ds2 copied me- autis don?t). At 15 months he passed the CHAT test which means that he certainly was showing no signs of autism then. DS1 on the other hand did show signs. He also regressed (helped along the way by illness and antibiotics) but he showed sensory problems from a fairly early age. I believe he was pushed further along the spectrum by his illness and the drugs, but he was showing risk signs as a baby. And this whole arrogance is something that myself and my friend?s come across regularly. I was told that I was imagining my son trying to talk and of course he didn?t have verbal dyspraxia ? a year later he was dxed with verbal dyspraxia. My friend took her daughter (with known kidney problems) to her dr because she was putting on weight and was worried she was retaining water due to kidney difficulties0- was told of course she wasn?t she was eating stuff without her mother knowing (although she is learning disabled and incapable of stealing food). A week later she was hospitalised, 6 weeks later she had a kidney scan- her right kidney isn?t working at all. Given my experiences I have no reason to doubt the mothers. They live with their child, I?m sure they are sane reasonable women capable of noticing major changes. Remember these mothers were not anti-vaccinators- they took their children to be vaccinated.

Whoops bit of a rant there. Anyway scientific summary of the MMR position is:

1. its safe for the majority of children
   
2. It may not be safe for some children

[Jimjambells]

it's abit like the whole birth thing. Midwives prefer natural deliveries, (as they see lots of lovely births) obstetricians would prefer c-sections as they only see ropey births. Dr's see the serious complications of childhood diseases, but not the usual course of the disease, and very few of them have much to do with autism.

[twiglett]

message withdrawn

[FairyMum]

I thought there were continuing research into vaccinations and also the MMR? There are limits to how much money you should spend on researching the link between autism and MMR. There has been lots of research into it and they have not found a link.

[bossykate]

the trouble with this "debate" (and not just here on mumsnet but also in the wider community) is that each side casts itself as Galileo and the other as The Pope.

[Jimjambells]

And FM the long message below explains why those studies not finding a link are worth jack shit. ie they were all a total waste of money. There's nothing wrong with examining the children themselves.

The majority of people will vaccinate their kids with absolutely no problems. They can then go through life happy in the knowledge that there is nothing to worry about with the MMR if they so choose. They can tut tut when parents choose not to vaccinate their kids with MMR, and moan that its putting thier kids at risk (although quite how if these things work as they're meant to I'm not sure) Alternatively - whilst public confidence is so low- which it is- and whilst the scientific jury is still out on the MMR- which it is-single vaccines could be provided by the dept of health so that everyone could have a choice, rather than just the people who can afford it. Hey presto the threat of the measles epidemic which is always being bandied about would disappear immediately.

The only thing I do not understand in this whole argument is why people cannot understand that although their kid was OK with the MMR Josephine Blogg's kid down the road (or Rosemary kessicks for that reason she's a sane stong woman) may not be.

[berries]

I refused to let my dd have MMR in 96, when there had only been slight speculation about the link between mmr and bowel problems (no mention of autism in those days) as she has 3 aunties with crones disease (although they say there's no genetic component). DD2 hasn't had it either. The more research I have done into it, the more convinced I am that my children would have been in the 'at risk' category. I do NOT think most children are at risk, but do think a small percentage are. I am very angry at the governments choice to stop singles in an attempt to 'force' people to have the mmr. I think this step results in people not vaccinating at all and therefore leaves children in a more vulnerable position than they would have been previously. My dh has always been stongly pro vaccination, but even he has finally agreed that in our situation he is glad the children didn;t have it (and jimjams, a lot of your help there, pointing us to the right sources etc).
What I would like to know is why, if there is a very small, unproven, risk of vcjd being passed in blood products is the government taking steps to ensure these products aren't used, when there is exactly the same 'evidence' of a small risk with the mmr, but that warrants no action. Seems to me that they have taken a strong stand on this but won't back down for fear of looking foolish, when if they could do more investigation they may be able to provide a checklist of children who MAY be better off with singles.
BTW definately wouldn;t give MMR OR single measles vaccine within 6 months of them having chicken pox and I'm sure there's some sort of link there. Would like toknow how the varicella vaccintation is intended to be given.

BTW children have had all other vacs (although wouldn;t give pertussis knowing what I do know) and this may account for a happy child that slept peacefully at 7 weeks turning into a miserable child that didn't sleep for 2.5 years and developed chronic eczma, but I still believe that giving those vacs is right (I've been to Gambia & the incidence (and results) of polio there is horrendous.

Sorry this is a long post, guess I just wanted to say my piece.

[FairyMum]

Jimjams,I do not believe that is true at all and I don't find the links and your sources very re-assuring. For example this Gary Null person seems to be generally very anti modern medicine. I didn't even bother reading "death by modern medicine" because it smells too much of conspiracy theory to me.
Of course I know that some children might react negatively to the MMR and other vaccines. I weight that up with the risk of children badly affected by measles and I will take that minute risk.
I can understand why some people choose not to vaccinate, but I think this mass-hysteria surrounding the MMR is very worrying.

[FairyMum]

Jimjams,I do not believe that is true at all and I don't find the links and your sources very re-assuring. For example this Gary Null person seems to be generally very anti modern medicine. I didn't even bother reading "death by modern medicine" because it smells too much of conspiracy theory to me.
Of course I know that some children might react negatively to the MMR and other vaccines. I weight that up with the risk of children badly affected by measles and I will take that minute risk.
I can understand why some people choose not to vaccinate, but I think this mass-hysteria surrounding the MMR is very worrying.

[Jimjambells]

FM the mass hysteria surrounding MMR would disappear if the govt allowed single jabs. And next time the news in on watch closely- they will give the figures for MMR rates of vaccination then go on about measles outbreaks. What they don't tell you is how many people are chosing single vaccines. The lowest rates of MMR uptake are areas full of yummy mummy's quite able to afford single vaccines- I would be interested to know what the overall vaccination rate for say measles is in those areas. if it's close to 95% there shouldn't be any hysteria about measles outbreaks.

Personally I don't care about MMR policy to be honest- other than to feel that singles should be available as a choice for everyone. There's enough information out there for people to make up thier own mind- I hoipe those who cant afford it can get hold of them somehow if that is their choice. yes some of the sources I quoted in the link were fairly anti vaccine. I only quoted them because I couldn't be arsed to go line by line through the papers pointing out where they were bollards- when someone else had done it before. Someone's overall views doesn't affect their ability to point out if someone has messed up the stats. The papers are fine as far as they go, but the do not prove MMR safety for every child, so its a pity that they claim to (or what more often happens is that people who should know better claim they do).

What bothers me really is that out there there are families whose lives and whose futures may well have been destroyed by the MMR - and if you watched the film you will know whay autism does to a family. if - just if- the chance of a normal life has been taken away from them because of autism shouldn't they receive compensation? After all they did their civic duty- for what- to be ridiculed when their child was damaged. To date I have only met 2 people who claim to have MMR damaged children (despite meeting a lot of autistic parents). I only know one of these well. She is one of the most amazing people I know. As well as being a single mum, looking after 2 disabled kids (her eldest has DS) she has still found time to write 2 books, run a telephone help line and speak at conferences. Her son changed dramatically following the MMR- both with bowel changes and a severe autistic regression. And yet she is ridiculed and told she didn't notice her son was autistic (never worked out how they explain those who regress after the boosters at 4- even most paeds can recognise non-verbal autism by 4 for god's sake).

Maybe smething else did happen to her son within days of receiving the MMR. Who knows? But surely the possible link should be investigated with a view to providing adequae compensation should it be proven.

berries- that's a good point about vCJD. The scientist who first raised concerns has said publically that he was treated very like AW when he first suggested a link.

The Sunday Times article said that plans for varivax have been shelved