Human belief (non-religious) vs. fact

[chrisch]

Folllowing on from the evolution thread I noticed this today on the beeb.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/4311613.stm

How many more studies will it take to "prove" no link between MMR and autism?

Since you cannot prove a negative there will always be some people that cannot deal with what everyone else accepts. (I believe there is still a "flat earth society" although maybe somewhat light hearted these days!) The "moon landing hoax" (also featured on YD the worlds best website) earlier is an example.

I find it sad kids are at risk because worthless shite papers like the Daily Mail stir up "campaigns" with the cynical intent of increasing their circulation. But that would be harder to prove than the MMR link.... just my belief!!

We're a funny old lot us...

Chris

[MATTBIN]

MMR - a very emotive subject, from a personal viewpoint I would like to see the Parents/Children given the option of either a multi-jab or the single jab so that immunisation levels could be achieved whilst maintaining personal choice as to how it is administered. The danger at the moment is that MMR isnt being taken up as parents, rightly, are concerned that their children are 'safe' and as you say its very difficult to prove a negative, so why not offer both?
Cost? Probably. Should childrens' welfare and parental concern be ruled by costs, sadly they always will be and its just a matter of what the cost implications are, I suspect if both options were of a simialr finacial cost both would be readily available and parents could choose what they prefered. So what we have now is the worsst of both worlds, parents choose not to use MMR due to their concers and health authorities wont fund the other option.
I also believe that the single vacines arent licensed in the UK, although you can get them if you go 'private'. Hmmm!

Matt

[chrisch]

Originally Posted by MATTBIN

...a very emotive subject,....

There's the key. Ilogical captain!

Chris
PS agree with your post 100% Matt.

[SoggyFox]

IIRC on radio 4 this morning, they were talking about how the classification for Autism had been altered, giving a rise in the number of reported cases. So while the number of cases of autism has risen at the same time as the MMR jab was being used they aren't related. Seems to be a confusion between medicine and statistics.

So while our mass media run around like headless chickens predicting doom and gloom, the truth is sadly ignored.

[abucksdiver]

Unfortunately, often it is the way that these scientific studies are funded that cause some of the distrust... "A recent study, funded by the company that makes drug x, says that drug x is safe..."
If the study was funded by an independant group from both sides of the arguement, then maybe they would be held in better regard...

Andrew

[aclivity]

We opted to have single jabs - at our own cost - rather than the combined ones.

Reasons:
1. Combined live vaccines are not allowed on racehorses. If it's good enough for Shergar it's good enough for me.
2. There is no 2
3. We decided what level of risk we were ready to accept. If it was for me, I would have a much higher tolerance to risk levels; for a 13 month old child in my care I have an extremely low tolerance to risk.

It's not really a very compelling or conclusive argument, is it! If we hadn't had the money available at the time, or it was more expensive than it was, we may have required a greater justification but as it turned out, 2 succesive redundancy payments in 2 years left enough in the pot.

Is this a question of belief? Or proof? I think it's a straight risk analysis. The risk may have an extremely low likelihood but a huge impact. I, for one, will think long and hard about the effect these results from Japan have on the likelihood element of the risk before deciding whether future children have the singles or the combined. But I won't be swayed by the Daily Mail, that's for certain!

[DaveB]

I understand one of the potential problems with going down the choice route is that because the single vaccinations are separated by time, there is a greater risk of being infected by the disease that the “last” jab protects against (as you are effectively vaccinating at a later age). So statistically you would be guaranteeing a higher incident rate, which would not be responsible policy.

I think that some of the risk assessment that is quoted is somewhat biased, of course the absolute safest option is to be the only kid not vaccinated at all – you have none of the slight risk associated with the vaccination, and no one to catch anything from.

[MATTBIN]

Originally Posted by DaveB

I understand one of the potential problems with going down the choice route is that because the single vaccinations are separated by time, there is a greater risk of being infected by the disease that the “last” jab protects against (as you are effectively vaccinating at a later age). So statistically you would be guaranteeing a higher incident rate, which would not be responsible policy.

I think that some of the risk assessment that is quoted is somewhat biased, of course the absolute safest option is to be the only kid not vaccinated at all – you have none of the slight risk associated with the vaccination, and no one to catch anything from.

Dave the first jab in a single protects, just not 100%, it needs boosting so you need 6 injections. MMR is a two jab package too, so it isnt fully effective until jab 2 is administered either. Its a risk analysis thing, do you risk the sprog getting Mumps etc doing a single jab or do you risk autism etc from the MMR jab (if it does cause Autism - jury still out). I believe the parents should be allowed to make the choice on this one, rather than yes or no to a jab at all, which is what's happening at the moment.

Matt

[Mr T.]

Not having kids, I'm probably not beet placed to sponsor any advice here other than to say, like religion, I trust you all to make your own decisions based on best available science/info, your own beliefs and what you think is best for your child.

May we none of us ever fall victim to this dreadful disease!

[Spike Jackson]

If I may be allowed to play devil's advocate, and bearing in mind I have very little direct knowledge of vaccinations in people but a fair amount of knowledge of vaccinations in animals:

All vaccines are proteins. Any time you inject a protein into a person or an animal you run a tiny chance of inducing an anaphylactic reaction (think severe nut allergies) The more often you inject that person the greater the risk becomes owing to the repeated exposure to the protein and the chance that the body becomes sensitised.

I would not be at all surprised if hte risk of anaphylaxis in a child given 6 injections was greater than the risk of autism in a child given the combined jab.

At the same time, even if it only had to happen to ONE child that is one child to many especially if it is your own.