Should parents be held legally responsible for not vaccinating their children?

[wasabi]

there is lots of precedence. Courts have overruled stupid/religious parents on medical matters before, children shouldn't suffer because of their parents.Well in the case of MMR there hasn't been any evidence of the latter.


Pirates and global warming. Also kids regularly consume it, they put everything in their mouths. I would suggest if your wanting to draw correlations between such things, use examples which have already shown a linkage, such as mercury or lead.There are lots of points of research for this, I took part in some at uni as part of my neuroscience studies, one major problem is the moving target definition of autism, as I mentioned before even something that has been a staple of diagnosis such as Aspergers is been redefined.

The attitude of, if it can't be ruled out, then we shouldn't do it, isn't correct at all. It has been looked at a little bit and no evidence found. Remember the only evidence ever put forward wasn't just wrong, it was immoral (ethics violation) and fraudulently wrong. By a man who stood to profit from it. Those are my polite words about him too, if we had criminal prosecution for such things, he should have a life sentence.

You can't stop something good, just because there is a baseless correlation, with zero evidence of causality.

You mention a big legal / political factor here though - precedent. Slippery slope once you start forced medical treatment. I agree MMR is the logical course of action to take and statistically beneficial. I have an issue with the NHS forcing people to consume medicine. Scary over-reaching of state power vis-à-vis individual. For this reason I still think punishment for parents should child come to significant harm by not receiving medication is a more appropriate legal remedy.

[TheAnimus]

You mention a big legal / political factor here though - precedent. Slippery slope once you start forced medical treatment. I agree MMR is the logical course of action to take and statistically beneficial. I have an issue with the NHS forcing people to consume medicine. Scary over-reaching of state power vis-à-vis individual. For this reason I still think punishment for parents should child come to significant harm by not receiving medication is a more appropriate legal remedy.

Well this one springs to mind from last year:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/20...er-time-tumour
The mother felt so strongly about it, she absconded with child.

There was a case a while back I remember reading about, the parents of a child didn't believe in letting the child live, because you know, sky fairy stuff. The judge ruled the child should be given blood or whatever it was.

[billythewiz]

you've got vaccine X, this kills 0.001% of those who are given it.
We can identify 80% of the 'at risk' group who will die from it, so we don't give it to them,
that means 0.00002% of people who are given the vaccination will die.

20% of 0.001 is 0.0002, not 0.00002. Your calculation is out by a factor of 10, that's 1000% out !
How do we identify 80% ? Name any vaccine where we are able to (accurately) identify any. You are dreaming.

Now in this case even if the disease only kills 0.001% of people, the same as the vaccination, by having the entire healthy hurd immunised, we have a net total of fewer deaths.

Ahh, the myth of herd immunity. Originally they thought that 68% vaccination rates would achieve it. Here is a paper from 2001 claiming that just 80% vaccination rates are required for measles herd immunity. Now they demand 95%.
As vaccines rates were hit and herd immunity wasn't achieved the required level was raised and raised. The scientific term for this methodology is called "making it up as you go along".

Are you asking me to take the perspective of the disease damaged or the vaccine damaged ?

Well in the case of MMR there hasn't been any evidence of the latter.

Not just evidence but categoric proof. The Poling and Mojabi cases were conceded, uncontested by the US goverment scientists. They didn't even bother to try and oppose the judgement.
Robert Warrington
Hannah Poling
Valentino Bocca
Baily Banks
Ryan Mojabi

Please, no more bollox claims plucked out of thin air.

I don't know how many generations of my ancestors have been fighting off measles. Many thousand I expect. Aluminium has virtually no way of entering the human body. The gut doesn't absorb it and it is harmlessly excreted, which is a good thing because it is extremely neurotoxic. And yet now (for just one generation) we inject it into the blood stream of babies and autism in boys is now 1 in 30 that would be 3,000,000 in 100,000,000, not just one.

kids regularly consume it, they put everything in their mouths. I would suggest if your wanting to draw correlations between such things, use examples which have already shown a linkage, such as mercury or lead.

Oh please. http://emedicine.medscape.com/article/165315-overview
"only 0.3% of orally administered aluminum is absorbed via the GI tract ... with intravenously infused aluminum, 40% is retained in adults and up to 75% is retained in neonates ... accumulation causes morbidity and mortality through various mechanisms"

until the causes of autism are understood, nothing (not even vaccines) can be ruled out.
Unfortunately there is no research being done to fine the causes of autism.

The attitude of, if it can't be ruled out, then we shouldn't do it, isn't correct at all.

Which is fine because that isn't what I said. When we know the causes we will have ruled out everything else. Until then there are no sacred cows. The studies done by the drug companies are shockingly bad. If for no other reason, anything they don't like they don't publish. The stuff they do publish is all epidemiological, i.e. correlation without causation and virtually every trial has been criticised (often for its design).

the only evidence ever put forward

More bollox plucked out of the air. In addition to the 5 proven cases about, here are a dozen more pieces of evidence

wasn't just wrong, it was immoral (ethics violation) and fraudulently wrong.

And the GMC's kangaroo court has since been reprimanded.
http://vactruth.com/2012/03/11/gener...uncil-recants/
"a study performed by a team of doctors at Wake Forest University in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, involved 275 children that confirmed Dr. Wakefield’s findings regarding bowel disease and the measles virus. Here are the results: 70 out of 82 children tested positive for the measles virus, but just not any ordinary measles virus."

Those are my polite words about him too, if we had criminal prosecution for such things, he should have a life sentence.

And this illustrated why you chose to avoid so many of the scientific points. You prefer ad hominem. It certainly is easie

You can't stop something good, just because there is a baseless correlation, with zero evidence of causality.

You keep plucking them out of thin air. See the North Carolina study above.

[TeePee]

Be careful with your links, chap. Many of them quote Andrew Wakefield, and one lists him as an MD, despite him being struck off for this fraud.

[peterb]

Be careful with your links, chap. Many of them quote Andrew Wakefield, and one lists him as an MD, despite him being struck off for this fraud.

Indeed. This whole case rests largely on the discredited Simon Wakefield who was planning to 'create' a new class of disease. He published the original paper, but failed to disclose conflict of interest. Subsequent researchers were unable to re-create his findings.

The (subsequently withdrawn) paper he published caused a media storm in the UK and caused a low initial take up of the MMR vaccine, until an investigative journalist started taking a closer look at the facts.

Wakefield and two others subsequently appeared before the UK's General Medical Council, and he was struck off the Medical Register for serious professional misconduct. Although the GMC was criticsised for the way the tribunal was held, Wakefield's striking off was upheld.

He continues to zealously maintain he his right, despite that fact that the majority if medical opinion refutes this.

Wikipedia contains considerable more information, much of which is cited back to reputable sources.

[wasabi]

Well this one springs to mind from last year:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/20...er-time-tumour
The mother felt so strongly about it, she absconded with child.

There was a case a while back I remember reading about, the parents of a child didn't believe in letting the child live, because you know, sky fairy stuff. The judge ruled the child should be given blood or whatever it was.

Slippery slopes again. In the case you report, there was a clear immediate danger to the child's life. But that sets the precedent for this and so on...

In this case, it is a (finger in the air maths) one in five thousand risk of death by not taking the MMR jab. Yes, I'll straight up say it could mean unnecessary deaths, but we're talking a million new kids every year. Giving the state that kind of power over an individual's body is to my view a thin end of the wedge precedent for other treatments.

[DanceswithUnix]

Only just read this thread.

Interesting that people are making medical arguments rather than one that I think it fairly overriding.

Politicians are, frankly, not people I want to decide what goes in my body or that of my children. For starters, some of them believe in homeopathy. Once injected, you can't un-inject someone, so it has to be entered into willingly.

So far my kids have had everything offered, but there must be a right to refuse.

[Mrs Hex]

Ok so I am 'experimenting' on my son? You assume I did no research before enrolling him? That is presumptive, egotistical and patronizing.

My father is a doctor, my mother also works for the NHS, I have relatives with doctorates in the field of paediatrics. I have a husband who believes firmly in research before agreeing to something like this.

If parents do not agree to do this then data cannot be gathered. My son will have his immunity tested and if he is not immune as a result of these jabs they will arrange extra immunisations so he is MORE protected. And Hepatitis is on the rise.

I want my baby protected from these illnesses. Therefore if he contracts them he will not be as ill and hopefully will not suffer any long term or permanent effects.

We eradicated small pox and I wish we could do the same for these.

It seems to me we are taking stupid risks because the success of vaccination programs have allowed us to feel that they are no longer necessary. I find it deeply disturbing that this feeling of safety allows us as a race to decree we can afford to take the risk.

[CAT-THE-FIFTH]

ANY medical treatment can have side effects.

What people need to balance, WITH ANY MEDICAL treatment or procedure,are the effects of either having or not having it.

Are you more likely to die or get disabled as result of either having it or not having it??

These decisions should be down to doctors,who can make an informed decision based on available evidence,as the NHS is a public service whose cost is paid by all of us. If the parents have relevant concerns based on proper research,they should be forwarded to the doctors,who can take this into consideration,or request a second opinion,etc.

It is NOT a private medical service where people can make random decisions based on whatever DM article they read and then expect the NHS to make up for those very same decisions,if it ends up causing more harm than good.
What people don't understand is that it ends up draining resources from the treatment of other patients too.

If this is not what people want,and they want to make decisions not based on evidence,then if their children,get the illness,and it can be proved that the vaccine would have been:
1.)Fine for their children
2.)Would have helped them against the illness

then I support,they be made to pay for the treatment out of their own pockets and/or take some legal blame for it too.

The NHS is not perfect,and it does get things wrong but some of the people in the UK should try a third world medical system and realise how lucky they are to be living here,where in the former case operations and treatments can bankrupt families,and treatable diseases are rife.



People do also need to consider this point too.

My son had a severe reaction to his DTP vaccination. He's now severely disabled. Are those two things related ? I don't know, there's never been any investigation of any kind. It could have been TheAnimus's pirates for all anyone knows.
So when it came to my second child, my wife (a Biochemist who worked for Merck - the MMR manufacturer) asked if it would be better to not use the 3in1 DTP that my son had, but to instead wait for the new 5in1 that didn't contain mercury or the old pertussis vaccine (that had a happy history of causing brain damage). The GP didn't know what to say.

Similarly, at age five, she asked "if it would be possible to use the Tetanus booster that doesn't contain pertussis ?"
She got a definitive answer to that one, "Oh no, that's just for teenagers !".
Wife - "It says on the data sheet that it's licensed from the age of 6."
GP - "Wot ? Oh, err, does it .... ?"
Wife - "Given the family history of severe reaction to the DTP, that was probably to the pertussis component, would it be safer to delay the Tetanus booster, (bad), and avoid the pertussis all together, or would it be better to take the risk with the pertussis in order to get the benefit of the Tetanus booster now ?"
At least our GP was honest enough to say she didn't know. She couldn't know, there haven't been any trials to answer questions like this.

So where do compulsory vaccines fit with my family ?

Sorry to hear that,but as with any medical procedure or treatment governments have to balance the risk and the benefits and the longterm costs. Ultimately,it is a case of a lowest common denominator,as the NHS is that,so ultimately you do really need to consider that.

You don't get the best treatment on the NHS or any national health service in most cases,just the most cost effective or what is deemed to have the best overall benefit for most people.

I think the only way any of us could get the best treatment,probably would be privately.

So ultimately you need to argue your case against not having certain treatments with the doctors,and probably not having anything as a alternative unless you pay out of your pocket for it. Whether the doctors will agree or not is one thing,but just as the probability of a doctor giving wrong advice is there,there is also the probability the patient is also making a wrong decision too.

Given the ridiculous witch hunt of Wakefield et al.,
given that GSK asked for and was given indemnity from prosecution, before it was willing to supply the first version of MMR,
given that the first version of MMR was withdrawn for causing too many cases of meningitis,
given that both GSK and the British government knew the risk of meningitis before the original MMR was introduced,
given that the General Medical Council has now been reprimanded for the way it handled the case of Wakefield et al.,
given that we continue to have vaccines forced upon us, only for them to be subsequently withdrawn for being unsafe (recent swine flu),

and given that doctors and science researchers are frightened to say anything negative about any vaccine, in case they lose their entire career ....

I now trust drug company research on vaccines as much as I trust oil company research on climate change.

Unfortunately fear (and it's fear of a very real danger) extends to academic researchers. They don't have to work for Big Pharma. If a University researcher criticises a vaccine they will still lose their job as their grants dry up, journals refuse to publish their work, colleagues stop collaborating with them, etc.

The only research that is still able to able to criticise vaccines is epidemiological studies done in Maths departments. Unfortunately most of these show that autism is inversely proportional to pirate attacks and vaccine usage is proportional to global warming.

Today there is no research being done into the causes is autism. There is a lot being done to show that vaccines are perfectly safe.

This seems rather melodramatic to say the least.

[dcwt2010]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-22354895

"Now experts believe there are more than one million schoolchildren in England alone who are not protected against the disease and the government has launched a £20m catch-up campaign in light of the Swansea measles epidemic, which has seen more than 1,000 cases."

I'm sorry, but this is just ridiculous. I don't want anyone to suffer but I hope the cases spread so that people are reminded just how awful measles is; people have simply forgotten because of how effective vaccinations have been.

[fuddam]

I'm sorry, but this is just ridiculous. I don't want anyone to suffer but I hope the cases spread so that people are reminded just how awful measles is; people have simply forgotten because of how effective vaccinations have been.

lol. Have you had measles? I have, so have all my siblings and my parents. In bed for a few days, a fever etc, then right as rain.

If the argument being used here is that despite some people having adverse reactions to (eg MMR) vaccinations, this must be weighed against the greater good of the general population, one could also argue that the chances of anyone going blind/dying from measles is also very rare and that must be weighed against the general population not having any real consequence from it.



I'm not against vaccinations.
I'm against excessive vaccination.

[Willzzz]

I'm against excessive vaccination.

You mean vaccinating the same person for the same thing more than once?

[Smudger]

I think people are confusing Measles with German Measles. German Measles (Rubella) is pretty mild, Proper Measles is quite severe.

Doesn't Measles sound stupid if you keep saying it?

[Mother]

Anyone remember this http://scienceinsociety.northwestern...mide/title-tba My point is people dont just take the governments word anymore that it's safe and are wary about immunisation these days.

[ajones]

There have been (as Mother has reminded us) serious issues with vaccinations in our history, so the parent(s) should be able to make an educated decision based upon advice as necessary. This isn't a dictatorship.

If you want to force vaccination, then let's force everything else. Mandatory monitoring for any minor in the street so that they don't accidentally hurt themselves = no unaccompanied person(s) below the age of 16 ...? Let's go to the extreme, if a person commits a crime, then that's the parents fault too for not instilling a socially acceptable set of morals!

RE the OP.

No, IMHO I don't think parent should be held legally accountable... It's their decision at the end of the day as to what they believe is best for their child.

What they need to do is accept the responsibility for whatever decision they make. What get's my feckles up is those folks complaining now that it's taking too long to get the vaccination done - talk about locking the barn door!

[Willzzz]

I don't think mandatory vaccinations are that bad, at least it's a binary thing. It's only when you get into grey areas that things become tricky.