

Have you changed your mind about MMR?

(58 Posts)
coorong Thu 25-Apr-13 13:10:06

I'm interested. We're you worried about MMR 10 years ago but changed your mind? Like Sophie Hearwood on today's guardian who wishes she'd vaccinated her daughter 10 years ago.


LaVolcan Thu 09-May-13 18:54:20

what happened to scarlet fever?

Or bubonic plague?

Although there are still instances of this around. However, medical historians question whether it's the same disease because the symptoms now don't match the decriptions given in the Middle Ages of the disease. Unless they find some way of extracting information about the disease from known plague pits I doubt whether we will ever know whether it is the same.

LeonieDelt Thu 09-May-13 18:56:42

nope, have not changed my mind about MMR. My children will not have it, full stop.

bruffin Thu 09-May-13 19:52:55

Frontdoorstep said there was a decline in measles not measles deaths. The hpa figures go back to 1940 not the introduction of vaccination which was 1968.
Measles problems are not just death but deafness pneumonia brain damage from encephilitis etc. The worst year for measles was 1961.

Scarlet fever still exists and can still be nasty, my bil had it and was very ill for weeks but thankfully antibiotics have helped to make it a less serious disease.
Bubonic plague still exists today and is treated by antibiotics but there isva vaccine for those going to risky areas.

LaVolcan Thu 09-May-13 20:08:09

Yes, Bruffin, bubonic plague does still exist, but as I said, there is doubt about whether it's the same disease or whether it was bubonic plague and not some other plague which killed vast numbers in the Middle Ages.

There have been outbreaks throughout history but by about the 18th Century it was regarded as having disappeared from Europe. That disappearance was neither vaccine, nor antibiotics. (From what I recall of my history lessons the Great Fire of London was supposed to have stopped the last UK outbreak.)

bruffin Thu 09-May-13 20:25:42

According to the programme i was watching yesterday on History Channel yesterday bubonic plague was caused by aliens coming down in bronze space ships and spraying everyone with some sort of gas grin
I have no idea why we havent had an epidemic but the sorces Frontdoorstep quotes are just as fanciful as the ufo theory above

bruffin Thu 09-May-13 20:32:32
LaVolcan Thu 09-May-13 20:39:54

Frontdoorstep doesn't actually quote any sources, so we don't know whether they are fanciful or not.

The history of the bubonic plague, or whether it was something else or how it was transmitted is fascinating and still the subject of much debate.

The worst year for measles since 1940 was 1961. The interesting question to me is why this happened then, and broke what was a downward trend.

LaVolcan Thu 09-May-13 20:45:39

by the way they have extracted dna from middle age plague victims and traced the epidemics path

They admit it's much more complicated than they thought. They mention how "One of these two types [of bacterium], which are thought to have contributed significantly to the catastrophic course of the plague in the 14th century, most probably no longer exists today." which begs the question why and how it/they disappeared.

WouldBeHarrietVane Thu 09-May-13 20:52:29


And Amazingmum how ironic that you are blaming an unvaccinated child for being a potential risk to you when you yourself were an unvaccinated child. You could have checked your own immune status on childhood vax before you got pg - begore getting pg I asked my GP to check my immunity to rubella eg, which he did.

bruffin Thu 09-May-13 21:22:54

It wasnt a downward trend the lowest rate was in 1946 prior to vaccination. It goes in peaks and troughs.

amazingmumof6 Thu 09-May-13 23:17:52

wouldbeharriet - hindsight is 20/20, thanks

amazingmumof6 Thu 09-May-13 23:52:27

and precisely, that is the problem, that we sometimes don't know or even if vaxed we don't think we could be not immune!

ironic or not I thought I was vaxed as that is what my mum remembered originally! the blood test only checks for rubella, so it never occurred to anyone to check for measles - why would I have? I though I was immune!

so when I found about that problem I was furious at the whole situation, but I wasn't blaming the child!
so no need to be catty!

interesting how you picked upon the "ironic" thing rather than the fact that I could have lost a child, potentially, due to multiple oversights and how terrible it was to go through that. well done you (!)

I had the MMR last Friday, just to be safe, if there's a next time (pg) and anyway to protect others as well as myself and my immediate family!

Frontdoorstep Fri 10-May-13 08:32:12

Yes amazingmumof6, a case of the pot calling the kettle black I think! It still comes down, then, to me risking my child to protect you and I have a huge problem with this. You weren't at risk due to multiple oversights, just two oversights, that of your mum and that of yourself. Why should I be risking my child to deal with these oversights.

Rightly or wrongly I'm not worried about the diseases and call me irresponsible or selfish or both I'm not risking my child for someone else so I've not changed my mind bout mmr, I was never going to do it (nothing to do with Wakefield) and I'm still not.

LaVolcan Fri 10-May-13 08:49:14

I find it astonishing that one man, i.e. Wakefield, apparently turned a whole generation off vaccination. If it was so, then I think that the fear must have existed beforehand.

LeonieDelt Fri 10-May-13 09:49:02

The fear existed beforehand. It wasnt "just Wakefield."

also, he didnt publish just one (since retracted) paper - he has published a lot of science that still stands, bullshit politics aside.

LaVolcan Fri 10-May-13 09:53:44

Quite so Leonie. And nor has that fear gone away.

Tabitha8 Fri 10-May-13 19:03:24

Ah, but the press have been blamed for publishing Andrew Wakefield's concerns. (Obviously, parents aren't supposed to be told about such concerns..... hmm)

magdalen Thu 23-May-13 18:25:21

It's quite instructive to look at the HPA figures from here

1. In 1949-1958 measles cases rise (on figures for the previous decade), and then remain much the same for the next decade (1959-1968) at about 4 million cases. The deaths however fall, initially by 70% then again by 47% of this already much reduced number. What could have happened? Could the fact that the NHS and the Welfare State were created in 1948. Suddenly you have health care for all, free at the point of use. So deaths, unsurprisingly fall when free health care is available. Note, however that the number of deaths in the decade 1959-1968 were still 865 and cases were over 4 million. 

2. Then in 1969-1978 the cases fall dramatically from 4 million to just shy of 1.5 million and the deaths fall too, though the rate of deaths falls by a much smaller amount. What happened to cause this dramatic fall in measles cases? When was the measles vaccine introduced? That'd be 1968, wouldn't it? In the following decade 1979-1988 there was again a drop in measles cases, as the vaccination programme proved effective. 

3. In the decade 1989-1998 cases and deaths both fell again, from 837,424 to 106,210. What happenned in 1988? Well, the MMR vaccine was introduced. The deaths in fell from 140 to just 18, though it is worth noting that the death rate remained almost exactly the same (though admittedly, thanks to vaccination, the numbers are getting pretty small by now).

4. In the decade 1999-2008 cases fell again (good old vaccination) to "just" 29,694 cases and a mere eight deaths, which is actually a rise in the death rate but the figures are so low I'd hate to draw any conclusions.  

What the figures are going to look like for 2009-2018, I will be interested to see.

monkey36 Wed 29-May-13 20:25:42

Hi - I did not change my mind about the MMR vaccine as I was adamant that I would give my DS (now 13) the singles. I did the whole lot except for the last mumps, which I could not get as the company making MUMVAX had stopped production. So a year ago, I took the plunge and let my DS have the MMR so he would have the additional MUMPs element. He was and is absolutely fine. No side effects or anything, BUT I was annoyed that I was effectively forced down this route. I am pro vaccine just not pro MMR. However, I have stopped worrying about the risks of getting MUMPs for a boy. I don't plan to give him a second MMR booster as he has had singles x2 for measles and Rubellas and 1x single for the Mumps and 1x MMR. Does anyone out there think that I need to administer a second MMR...

WouldBeHarrietVane Wed 29-May-13 20:31:21

Monkey for about £75 you can check whether he is immune to mumps. As he's had both the other jabs twice - a single and mmr component of each, he should be immune to those. For £175 irrc you can check immunity to all three. Baby jabs offs the tests I think and probably other places do too.

WouldBeHarrietVane Wed 29-May-13 20:32:25

Just reread - if he's had everything twice I wouldn't give another mmr!

monkey36 Wed 29-May-13 20:38:49

Thanks WouldbeHarrietvane. I'll get a blood test,

Skygirls Wed 29-May-13 20:54:42

WouldbeHarriet, why wouldn't you give another MMR?

Just wondering.... My DS1 had singles of rubella and measles but no mumps because of no vaccine. Then at 3.5 years, gave him an MMR. So he's had 2x measles, 2x rubella but only 1x mumps.

The GP reckons I should give him another MMR to cover for the mumps. I still haven't done this but am reading this thread to give me clarity. I don't want him to catch mumps, but really feel another MMR is a bit ott.

WouldBeHarrietVane Wed 29-May-13 20:56:00

Sky in your case I would if there wasn't full mumps immunity, but I would check immunity first, then jab if it wasn't shown up on the test.

WouldBeHarrietVane Wed 29-May-13 20:58:12

We've only had single measles - DS is almost 2. I intend to do mmr just before school and then test for mumps immunity after that. If he isn't immune to mumps I will give him a second mmr before he starts secondary school.

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