Immunisation

And the measles, I was, you know, just concerned from a social standpoint that basically people need to be vaccinated in order to keep these diseases under control for the good of everybody, not just, you know, for your own child. And I did feel that I had a social responsibility element to that, and that as a parent I would be very angry if my daughter was in a nursery with a lot of children who hadn't been vaccinated and it became an issue. I mean hopefully she'll be all right, having been vaccinated. But I, I think it's, you know, if the health was there and the preventative health was there, that you should take it up, provided you feel it's safe for your, you know, for your child.
 

I know that these diseases, these childhood diseases I know are very uncomfortable, serious but not very dangerous, but that they can have some complications which are rare but which then are very problematic. So, there's, this on the one hand, so it's, if you catch these diseases, guaranteed discomfort and a small risk of having something very serious. And then on the other hand there's the vaccinations, for which mostly there is very little risk attached. So it seems to me that apart from the, for the MMR, it seems to me that it's completely clear-cut. Is, it's an advance that we can have these vaccinations and it's not only for the child but it's also for the population. It's, civic duty to have a child vaccinated because the risks of complications also, I understand, are if, conditional on catching these diseases, the risk of complication is probably higher if a child is malnourished or living in less good conditions. So all these factors combine together. So I think that for a number of children having, it, it's not so much to prevent themselves from having the complications, it's because in the society at large it's necessary that everybody has it.  

It's a public duty, a civic duty, but on the other hand if you're convinced that, or if you know somebody who's had very, very adverse reaction, or if you're convinced that you're going to have a very adverse reaction, then it makes perfect sense not to have your child immunised. Statistics are a very good thing but you know, it's your own child and you don't want, if, your gut feeling is that it entails a very important risk, then, well, if, if it had been my gut feeling I certainly wouldn't have done it. But my gut feeling was that on the basis of the information that I had it, it didn't entail a very important risk.
 

I think also I, it's a, I see it as a little bit of a, as a responsibility to, it's not just about your child. You know, it's one of these things that it's like the Prisoner's Dilemma, if we all stop vaccinating, vaccinating these diseases would come back within, you know, within years we'd be, we'd be back to sort of Victorian kind of children falling ill from all these communicable, and I don't, I'm not sure, I think people seem to have a, sometimes a bit of a short memory about how much child, childhood health has improved in the UK and how large a part in, you know, injections have played immunisations have played in that. And, yeah, it's a shame, which just shows you how, you know, we're living in such kind of privileged times that we can even afford to think about, you know, whether or not to get our kids injections. Because before this, when, you know, it was just a real privilege to be able to protect your child like that.
 

I believe there's some evidence that these diseases were actually beginning to die out and lessen anyway. And I personally feel that perhaps the, there should be education for parents in actually helping to boost the children's immune systems and actually putting energies into that and, and good hygiene and so on, so that the community benefits that way. I can, I can fully see, I know people have used the argument to say that, you know, 'Okay, so you're actually benefiting from us having our children immunised because that's keeping the disease rate lower'. But I've balanced that as I've said with the fact that I believe that the, that the diseases were, although still about, still around, people are getting them less anyway.
 

Father' You know you're meant to have a peck of dirt a day just to keep that immune system ticking over, and one of these things that they think about these allergies and increase of asthma and eczema and all the rest of it, there's either one theory is that the immune system is being overworked because it's being made sensitive by these vaccines or it's being under worked because of the vaccine. So we have an immune system, presumably if we look after it correctly it should work, and these vaccines could be the dampening down the effect or aggravating, neither are entirely, advantageous.
 

Mother' So we're not, at least I'm not ruling it out forever. But I'm certainly ruling out what's available in its current form. Because I do think our child will be and you believe he would be at serious risk. We've had one child who's definitely had a profound reaction, that's going to affect him and family life for the rest of his and our lives. And frankly our older child we think escaped by a hair's breath, to be truthful. We're not about to take a chance with any more of them.  

This is our belief, the risk of far more adverse reaction from the vaccine is an awful lot greater. So you just support their immune system and we do believe profoundly in homeopathy as well. I would almost certainly, under the guidance of a professional highly qualified homeopathic, I'd probably try and treat the child homoeopathically, which is also supporting the immune system and that's actually aiding the immune system to fight off the disease, rather than artificially suppressing and dealing with the symptoms.

We try to make sure we're looking and I'm going to take further advice from our nutritionist as he gets older in terms of really, really good quality supplement agents to make sure that his immune system is supported as fully as it can be. But we're taking the approach to try not to be too afraid of letting him be ill. There really is a strain of thought that people shouldn't be ill at all and if you're not ill you're never going to build up an immune response. You're not actually going to build a healthy immune system. So we're trying to look at it that he's actually going to need to go through some illnesses to build up a healthy immune response and we're trying, we're trying to support his immune system so that he can fight off illness. 

And making sure that he has adequate nutrition, adequate, and given the state of fruit and vegetables now you have got to supplement I'm afraid because even organic food the soil is seriously denatured and our uptake of a lot of stuff is, a lot of vitamins and minerals used to come through the soil and the soil is so denatured that you're not going to get that. So you do need to look at good quality, and I'm afraid you're looking at more expensive supplements because they are more bio-available. So we are taking advice from our nutritionist. I've already taken advice from him, I'll be reviewing things as the baby gets older. 

Breast feeding is a very good way to confer immunity as well and this is a person who really has struggled with that one [laughs]. I didn't actually manage to feed the other two at all but I really, really, really tried hard and I managed with this baby. 
 

Our view, having done the research we've done, is that there are some children who should not have vaccinations at all. And I think those children, it may, it is a subgroup, but it's not clear to me is how big that subgroup is at the moment. I know many children who've had the triple jab, who've had other jabs without problems, and I perfectly accept that, you know, for many children it is fine. I would like to make sure that parents know what the side effects are and I do feel strongly that they're not informed about that.  

There are known side effects to all vaccinations. That's a stated fact and that's, you know, normally in the literature that should accompany any vaccination. So I think what we decided was that knowing the bowel problems our son had, had we felt that, that was really a contraindication for him having certainly the triple jab. But also after further research we decided that even the single measles jab would be too dangerous, based on his condition. And that was why we decided not to vaccinate any further at all. On the basis that we do believe that there are some children who should not have any vaccinations at all. For many it is fine, it is safe. We have a lot of friends who've come to me for advice on vaccination and I have said they have to make that choice themselves based on how well they feel their child is and whether, you know, they are able to take those vaccinations. So I'm certainly not dead set against vaccinations. I just think that parents should have all the information, know that there are actually side effects that can come from any vaccination, and obviously to make sure that if they are vaccinating their child that the child is in the best health state to take that vaccination.