Immunisation

So, the other concern is, is at the moment I've found a lot of parents are quite wary about giving the six-in-one or the five-in-one and then the meningitis C with it. And I felt often it just takes quite a lot of reassurance. Some of them don't necessarily seem to be aware that we actually are giving the same vaccines that they were before. It's just in a different form. And it's 'oh isn't that a lot to be giving at the same time?' It's like well we have been doing that for years and just explaining that. Often it just needs a few minutes of time and, and just addressing their concerns and making sure they've got the correct information which often they don't. And sometimes that's all it needs, not always but often if they do have a chat with myself or the health visitor or with the immunisations nurse you know often it will correct their misconceptions and there are quite a lot out there unfortunately. I've found that. There are a lot of people who just, particularly from the media, have, have just picked up what they want to hear and ignored the rest and that's then [pause] made them choose what may not necessarily be the right thing.
 

Well it was when my eldest daughter was born which was twelve years ago now and I contacted a birth group for support with a home delivery. And after she was born the lady, the midwife who ran the birth group asked me if I'd considered vaccinations and at that point I hadn't really thought about it. I was just going to go along with the flow really and have her vaccinated. And she gave me some information to read. And it really all followed from that. 

I read that which sort of sewed a seed of doubt in my mind. It was books written by various doctors and articles interviewing parents whose children had been damaged from being what they believed from, from the vaccines. And I just really started to seek out as much information as I could.
 

And then our little boy was born and I had the same reservations but again went straight back to this lady at Great Ormond Street. She reiterated everything she'd said before and also I was interested in finding out if there was any more data, has anything happened because there's 3 ' years difference between the two. And she was just able to tell me exactly what the, the current sort of comment was on it and stuff and, and also it wasn't just her giving me the facts, she was also talking to me as a mother as well. She's got children of her own and she was talking to me from that perspective. So I kind of felt, unlike with our local doctor who I, you know, other people were commenting, 'Oh they will just give you the party line,' I felt as if she was telling me exactly what all the facts were as well as the fact she was a mother and she was also being honest with me about how she felt about it.

But I think I really needed to hear the way that this lady spoke, it was very much a case of, you know, her comments seemed to be along the lines of that, you could give one child a ham sandwich and they'll be perfectly fine, you can another child a ham sandwich and they might have reaction to that. So there's always going to be this possibility that a small percentage of children might have a reaction, but like they might do to anything you might cook for them or something. But, that over-ridingly it's safe.

And she was, you know, very sort of from a sort of top overview telling me about the information that's coming from the States and various other countries and how many countries are actually using the MMR and how many years they've been using the MMR and that, you know, there is not a link, that, you know, and I think I needed to hear someone in her position saying, 'There is not a link between the MMR and autism.' And, so I think that's, like I say, and I think it was having that initial conversation where she said that, that really kind of tipped me over to think, 'Yeah, OK, I think we're going to go with doing this.'
 

So I went back to my GP and he was extremely helpful. And he did give me the number of a paediatric immunologist. And the person I spoke to, called me back very quickly and he was, basically, he was able to provide me with enough information, to make what I feel was the right decision. Firstly, because I'd found out the facts and I can't remember who told me this, but the five-in-one injection, has only been around for a few months. But apparently, a very similar form have been used in Canada, for about seven years, so it wasn't as if this was a new vaccination and no one really knew what was going, you know, what reaction it could have. It had been tried and tested somewhere else for some time, although it wasn't identical. 

The other thing was the fact that which was key, was the fact that if you only have two out of the three sets, you really can't, it's not as if you can say, well that almost covers you, the third is just a safety check. You know, you cannot say that you've got sufficient cover after having two. So they always recommend that you have all three, if you possibly can. So that was really helpful. And a third thing was, that he reiterated the fact that any severe reaction would happen very quickly. So I would actually be in hospital at that time.

I had a five-minute, less than ten-minute call, with this paediatric immunologist, and it just was like a breath of fresh air. It was a huge relief because I felt I could then, make a, the best decision that I could make, under the circumstances, being always aware that there was a risk and it actually went extremely well. So and I'm very pleased that I went ahead and actually I'm, I'm pleased that I made the decision. And I'm pleased that it went well at the hospital and that's she's now protected against those illnesses.
 

He was someone, I, with [my son] being premature I saw a consultant, when he first came out of hospital, every two months, then every four months, then every six months. So a doctor that had worked with [my son] in hospital, so someone that knew me and knew [my son]. And I knew he had kids. And he didn't think twice in saying, 'Get it done'.

Did you ask him if he'd done that with his own children?

Yes, yes.

Did that make a difference?

It made a difference to me. I just talked to not lots of doctors, but I just thought, 'He's a really smart guy' you know. I mean he's a consultant for premature babies, he's so smart. I just don't believe in my heart that doctors would give you that information if for one minute they thought it would cause a problem. And I do believe that. I mean he's a very smart guy. And I think if he believed that maybe there are problems he would just say, 'It's your choice. I can't say'. But he did actually really promote it and said, 'It's really important that he gets it'. I mean it was still ultimately my choice, but I felt like he, you know, he's a smart guy, he works in the field, he works with babies all the time and I'm sure he sees the problems of not immunising children.
 

What were the doctor, your doctor at the time or the health visitors, what were they saying?

I found them quite matter of fact. It was almost as though it was a topic that wasn't necessarily up for discussion. They were far more ready to outline the positives of having the vaccination than not having. To me, the health visitor's issue was either immunisation or not, not how to immunise. That didn't seem to come into the equation.

And for you it was the how to was the important thing?

It was, yes, absolutely. But then that made me think, well perhaps, you know, there are, they're taking this line because they are convinced that there is no real link with autism and therefore it's not a consideration for them. So it's just an awful lot to take on, take in, and an awful lot going on and it's hard to know, you know, when you're not medically minded, how to reach the decision.

I suppose so because, thinking about it, if I had been able to go to the GP that I'd had prior to leaving the UK, who had delivered me and so I had known all my life, I think if I'd have had a chat with him, it sounds silly to say whatever his opinion would have been I would have shared, but I would certainly have respected, yeah, most definitely. Because I would feel that he's, you know, he's the expert, he's better placed than I am to come to a decision.
 

We have a very supportive surgery. The nurse there was very happy to talk to us. I think there is, I suspect the GPs feel that there isn't any case to answer and that MMR is safe and for many children it probably is. But they were open-minded, they were happy to talk to us, and we have had absolutely no pressure at all from them to vaccinate any further. They understood our concerns, they understood our reasoning for the decisions we took, and have, if not, I wouldn't go so far to say that they've been supportive, but have been understanding.

But many times we had done far more research. And at the end of the day a GP is a general practitioner, they can't be expected to be experts in every field. But what frustrates me is when you get to see somebody who is sometimes an expert in a particular field and they are still very reluctant to acknowledge bowel damage, that lactose intolerance truly exists and that both children had had it from birth, which we are led to believe is very unusual.

So there was a, you know, we felt quite rebutted a number of times. But in many ways it, it worked well for us because it gave us a natural scepticism about I guess the medical profession. And so that's what drove us to then do our own research and do the amount of research we did. Whereas, you know, maybe if people had just said, 'Oh, yes, you're right' or, 'you need to do this' we wouldn't have actually been driven. But because we were being, I guess people just didn't know that much or, you know, if they did, they didn't have the depth of information that we actually felt we had to do ourselves. It was up to us to make that choice for our children, it was up to us to do that research. So that's the path we led.
 

And I think also, I found, what I found particularly disturbing was that when I did try to discuss it with any health professional they were very dismissive and just wanted really not to be having the conversation. And I found that, that seemed to answer a question in itself that, 'What were they covering up? You know, if there's, if there's nothing wrong, why won't they discuss it openly, you know, with me?' So, you know, I found that, you know, gave me more answers than actually discussion, discussing it.