to jab or not to jab

Hi. my nine month old son yesterday has just been diagnosed with rubella. i took him to the doctors on tuesday and was told by a stand in doctor that he had never seen rubella and told me to go and look on google for some photos which resembled harrys rash! which quite frankly infuriated me. i stormed out of the docs and several hours later harry was still very much so covered in a full body rash, was listless and had a temperature of almost 40 (even after calpol) by this time i was concerned about septacemia or menningitis. the surgery was fully booked but i told them about his temp and how angry i was about the pervious doctor and i wanted a second opinion. a doctor told me to bring him in at luchtime and he would see my son on his lunch hour. took one look at harry and concluded he had rubella. he went through the motions of tumbler test, cappilary reflex tests etc to rule out bacterial infections,he then informed me that rubella was now rare due to 12 month immunisationsm and had to report it to the health authorities who have to investigate every new case and are coming next week to take swabs from harry. later today i found out of 3 other babies that also have rubella. the doctor said this is because lots of mothers are choosing not to give their children the MMR jab, due to the MMR 'scandal.' im pretty annoyed that because some people decide not to immunise their children, they have subsequently given my son an entirely preventable illness. harry was just 8 weeks from his jabs. now he has had rubella and mumps, and the doctor now says harry will have the anti body for both i am wondering wether to give him the MMR and am intersted in mums opinions and wether they did or did not give their kids the jab.

Hi there.

this is such an emotive subject, no mum wants to put her child at risk and whilst there seems to be no scientific evidence linking MMR and autism, autism is more scary and hence the knee jerk reaction to reject the combined vaccine from many cautious parents.

However, what I understand is that to not jab the risks of measles, Mumps and Rubella is so much higher than the risk of autism if the child is injected. Although measles, mumps and rubella are treatable, they are very unpleasant illnesses, whilst Autism, to my knowledge is not treatable.

I personally, will go for MMR for my daughter. I believe you can only make the best choice on the info available, and if there is no scientific proof of a danger with the combined jab, what else can you do but provide as much proven protection as you can. I think any journalist/ scientist/ professional who makes a statement relating to the saftey of children, need to do so responsibly as the drive to protect our children can make us very vulnerable to mass panic.

PS- I hope your baby is recovering and I can't belive the service you received from the first doctor, expecting you to diagnose a serious illness, you should complain to medical council/ ombudsman.

Hi Ellie

im sure i saw something on the news last week about the journalist who started the whole thing had had been fired from his job due to him having zero evidence to back up the autism claims.

it makes me feel sick just thinking about harry having any injections let alone the suggestion of thought that something terrible might go wrong with the mmr.

i think i will be giving harry the mmr out of sheer responsibilty and not wanting to see any child unessesarily suffer like harry did when he had rubella.

it makes me angry that the press were so careless with the wording and it has had such a massive impact that there is now more and more rubella outbreaks which was at one pointon the verge of being iradicated.

i have spoken to one woman who snarled at me saying i was putting my child at risk by giving the mmr, but surely exposing them to the diseases is just as irresponsible? but then i felt mortified to think giving him the jab was wrong.

harry got the least serious out of the 3 getting rublella but he was still very poorly with it. there is no treatment for rubella.what about the nippers with lower immunity? there are lots of potential complications that come with such diseases, such as phnuemonia, etc so i think people dismissing it as 'just spots' is an innacurate and dangerous knowledge of the disease. on the other hand,autism is for life and rubella is for a week.

as for the doctor who told me to look up the rash on the internet, he was my sons GP but i have since informed the surgery that i no longer want him seeing my son, simply because he dismissed harrys rash as viral,did no tumbler test, capillary reflex test, nothing, even when he had a temperature of 40 and was listless and pale, which is also sypmtomatic of far more dangerous things; septacemia and meningitis, and as everyone knows, timing is crucial.
i rasied these points when i complained about it, whoever i doubt anything will be done.

like you said, based on the knowledge and no direct proven link, i will give him the MMR. im just trying to do the best for my boy, its what were all doing.

To be honest I think anyone taking the decision not to immunise their children is totally irresponsible. As you have found out Kathy, it is not just a case of protecting your own children but for the protection of other peoples who may not yet have had their jabs or may be unable to have them for medical reasons. The tenuous links between the MMR and autism are causing a revival of serious diseases that had been almost eradicated and I think it is disgusting that the media made such a big deal about one questionable piece of reasearch. Sorry for the rant, but it's something I feel really strongly about!

I agree sarah, its not fair to inflict these ilnesses on other kids. harry has his sceduled jabs in october and we will go ahead and give him the jabs as i agree its irresponsible to do otherwise.

I know this discussion was a while back but I am due to have my sons mmr done this week and am quite concerned about it. I do wonder about these women who claim the mmr jab caused autism in their children, if it was my child I would know it was the vaccine that caused it and I think these women knew their own children. Just because our useless government cant find a link it does not mean that there isn't one. On top of all this controversy there is about the mmr, instead of comming up with a vaccine that all parents feel comfortable with they give the pneumonia jab at the same time. That is 4 mild doses of dangerous deseases at the same time. It does not make sence to me. My nephew has just been in hospital for 4 days after having these jabs, his symptoms started within hours of the vaccine, he was rushed to hospital, kept on a drip and used as a pin cussion. I will be getting the vaccinations for my son (not together) but I am far from convinced that the mmr is the safest option.