How can I justify vaccinating my son when I have seen first-hand the terrible side-effects vaccinations can potentially cause.

By trusting statistics - which I understand can be hard to do.

Vast, vast numbers of children have the MMR. A very few of them will have adverse reactions like the one you described.

It's natural to take more note of the effects on your nephew than on children you don't know, but ask yourself how much weight you'd have placed on this one point of data if he hadn't been your nephew, but just one child you read about on the internet. It's the same amount of data with the same validity and relevance - but obviously your nephew is going to have more impact to your gut feelings. It's important (IMO) to try to put gut feelings aside and approach this logically. Yes, it can be very hard to do that - but it's in your child's best interest to do so.

Having said that, one thing to ask your doctor is whether your nephew's reaction could be relevant in terms of genetics: is it possible that he has a genetic trait making the reaction more likely? If so, can your children be tested for the same trait, given their close genetic relationship to your nephew?

As for the controversy around the MMR - I thought most of that had died down now, fortunately, at least around the Andrew Wakefield issue. Vaccination rates are still worryingly low in some places, but I believe they're gradually recovering.

Go with the vaccinations, without a doubt. There is a lot of bad information being spread around out there by a very vocal minority about the risks of vaccinations. The truth is, the risks are very low, and there isn't any conclusive evidence that there is any connection between vaccinations and autism. Many of those against vaccinations point out that the first signs of autism occurred shortly after getting vaccinated. Well, it also turns out that this is just the time of life that signs of autism typically start showing up, vaccinations or not - correlation does not imply causation.

At the end of the day, the tiny risk involved with getting vaccinated is well worth it for the diseases & illnesses they are preventing.

Reference: Wired Article

You should all buy yourselves a copy of Bad Science by Ben Goldacre.

Many of the scare stories about vaccines are questionable. In general the media does not explain science clearly leaving lots of scared moms around.

http://www.badscience.net/

Vaccines have changed the world for the better.

Please get your kids vaccinated.

• When you get vaccinated, there is a small chance that you won't actually develop immunity to whatever the vaccine is for.

• However, this is usually not a problem since if everyone gets the vaccine, then most people will actually be immune. The disease won't spread if there is one person who is not immune as it needs interpersonal contact from two people who are not immune to spread. Since most people are immune, this is very rare. Thus, the few people that do not develop immunity will not have a chance to get the disease and be safe anyway. (This is called the "herd immunity").

• However, if more and more people are avoiding vaccines because they're scared of them, then there are more and more people who are not immune to the disease around. Thus, the herd immunity is reduced and EVERYONE is at a greater risk, even people who get the vaccines.

So: please do your part for everyone and let's stop the spread of disease. Get your kids vaccinated for theirs and everyone's sake!

I suggest you look through some of the medical literature available. Asking others for what is essentially subjective advice isn't a good idea.

From a medical study I found using Google:

The study is particularly notable for its size (based on nearly 700,000 children under 6 years). They report that the risk of febrile seizures is increased almost sixfold on the day of diphtheria, tetanus, and pertussis (DTP) receipt and drops off to a negligible increase thereafter. For measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR), the effect is not seen until the 2nd week after receipt of the vaccine, where the risk is increased nearly threefold. They are also able to provide estimates of how many additional febrile seizures will occur as a result of vaccination with DTP (6 to 9 in 100,000) and MMR (25 to 34 in 100,000).

So yes, there's some risk involved. Read the study and consider the risks involved versus the risk of contracting MMR later in life.

When I asked my daughter's pediatrician about this before the shot, she said that the whole scare about MMR vaccine was based on a highly flawed and long since discredited study somewhere (I think she said Canada) but now has a life of its own just like many myths that get perpetuated by the media or other ways.

I didn't independently try to verify what she said because I figured regardless, the benefits outweigh the risks, but anyway you might want to dig to see whether our pediatrician's information is useful.

I know some people try to hedge risk by spreading out shots - I don't know whether that's a scientifically valid approach or not.

A recent issue of Wired Magazine had a very good article exploring the Anti-Vaccination lobbies in the US and UK.

I'll start by saying, "Definitely vaccinate!"

That out of the way, I've heard more anecdotal tales of children having bad reactions to vaccines than I feel like studies suggest there should be. The one that stands out most is a case in the small rural county where I live where a girl started showing symptoms of autism at a young age immediately after receiving a vaccine. That could, of course, be coincidental, since that's about when Autism symptoms normally manifest anyway. What sets this one apart is that after several years the family paid out of pocket for an expensive procedure to remove mercury from their by-then 12-year-old daughter's body that insurance wouldn't cover because they said there was statistically no way a vaccine could be involved. The treatment resulted in immediate improvements and an almost-complete recovery in the girl.

It's cases like this, where acting as though the problem is really caused by a vaccine yields a treatment that actually works, that lead me to believe there may be something to this. Add to that the fact that drug companies have the discretion to only publish results from trials that show favorable results. Any link between a vaccine and autism would generally have to come from an independent, government-funded study.

And yet I still say you should vaccinate. Why? I can't cite anything because it's been a while, but when we were first investigating the issue for our own children I remember three things that stood out:

1. The statistics show that disease they prevent and the chance to catch it is generally still worse than the possible side-effects. The odds of a vaccine causing autism are much, much lower than the odds your child would catch or propogate a possibly deadly disease without the vaccine.
2. The problem is not with the vaccines, but with the preservatives (namely mercury), and even then it's only when you get too many at one time.
3. The Mercury-based thimerosal perservative is being phased out, and shouldn't be present at all in the vaccines used for children.

So, always always get the vaccination. But if the doctor wants to administer 3 in the same day, you may want to accept just one of them and politely ask for a short delay on the other two. Come back next week, next month, or even the next checkup and get the others then.

My wife is a pediatrician and we know of no other pediatricians (at least in this area) who have not vaccinated their own children... Take that for whatever its worth.

Personally, I felt bad having my son get some vaccinations. He's 18 months old now, so he's had a few.

I felt that he shouldn't because of some of these horror stories. But at the end of the day, I felt that there was a bit of peer pressure and lots of examples of good stories (eg. kids not getting sick, etc). Also, the fear factor of 'no vacinaction means my son has a higher possibility of getting something, later on' scared me too.

Nothing scientific there, so sorry about that. But that was my personal dilema involved with this.

I personally feel that all kids should be vaccinated. Yes, there are definite risks with vaccinating, but without them, we are bringing back diseases such as polio which I feel are much more scary than a small needle.

But if you are truly nervous about them, then just do your research as other people have suggested, weigh your options and show your doctor that you've done your homework. My brother & sister in law delayed all of my nieces' vaccinations for over a year because they wanted to give her time for her immune system to fully develop before they subjected her to any vaccinations. They presented all of their information to their family doctor, who was not happy about it, but he agreed with them since they knew what they were talking about.

I have been vaccinating my boys, but I do plan on delaying the MMR shot as long as I can, since I have heard many stories of bad reactions to it.

Good luck!

One of the better books on the subject is The Vaccine Book, by Dr. Sears. He doesn't take sides. He just presents the information about the vaccines, what goes into making them, what they do and don't do, and any possible proven side effects. He also updates the book regularly on his website.

Here's the website: http://www.askdrsears.com/thevaccinebook/index.asp

If the other children your child will meet have been vaccinated, then vaccinations will have less benefit for your child.

However I feel that it is my duty to reduce the risk of my child spreading something that could be fatal to another child.

I'm neither for nor against vaccinations but I am for making INFORMED DESCISIONS. I think that everyone knows the BENEFIT of vaccination so I won't go into that. Here are a few links from the "other" side of the coin.

Once again... when I do research I try to take everything with a "grain of salt" and consider the sources, the data, etc. I just like to hear both sides of everything and make my own decision...

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2001/08/18/vaccine-myths.aspx

(Note: You might have to register to (free) to see the article... but I just read "around" the annoying popup.)

http://www.mercola.com/article/vaccines/legally_avoid_shots.htm

An VERY interesting read that talks about how to properly and RESPONSIBLY deal with doctors, teachers, etc IF you decide to delay or avoid vaccination of your child.

From the article:

As you read this work and put its principles into practice, there are two basic axioms you never want to forget. They are the rock upon which all your actions are based.

1. Nobody, anywhere or any time and under any circumstances has the right or power in this country to immunize you or your children against your will and conviction. If they attempt to do so, you can legally charge them with "assault with a deadly weapon" and have the full resources of our laws behind you.

2. At all times in attempting to avoid unwanted immunization, you have the Law of the Land behind you. Those who would try to vaccinate you against your will are on very shaky ground. Into every compulsory immunization law in America are written legal exceptions and waivers which are there specifically to protect you from the attempted tyranny of officialdom. It is not only your right, but your obligation to use them, if this is what your conscience tells you.

I choose to vaccinate my older son but i did give him the MMR seperatly, the single mumps vaccine is no longer avavilable, so i am currently undecided on giving my younger son the combined MMR or to vaccinate him with Measles an Rubella at 13 months and then give him the combined vaccination at a around the age of 10.