Why did I refuse MMR?

[Guest guest]

" She was ill for a week, ate little and drank lots of water. I gave her

paracetamol to keep her temperature down. Ella found the school's letter,

which her father and I were still considering, and started to fill in the

attached form herself. " Please, Mum. Come on, I don't want to get any more

of these horrible, old-fashioned illnesses. "

" That's us decided, then. After a decade of pondering, I think we might have

learnt our lesson. "

What a truly dreadful article. Suggests to me that she was never happy with

her original decision not to vaccinate if she can feel this guilty. Sad.

Love, light and peace,

Sue

" It is not unfair to conclude that medicine is the only branch of science

that has based its structure on opinions and suppositions rather than on

laws and principles. " - Vithoulkas, " The Science of Homoeopathy " .

MMRcontactnetworkUK - putting non-vaccinating

UK parents looking for naturally acquired immunity for their children in

touch with each other

Imperfectly_Natural_Parents_UK - for all

imperfectly natural parents everywhere!

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Why did I refuse MMR?

Sophie Radice made a decision not to vaccinate her daughter. But when Ella

caught mumps aged 10, she had to face the consequences. And oh, the shame of

it...

15 February 2005

Two months ago, my 10-year-old daughter woke up and said that she felt like

she had been punched very hard in the jaw. I am of the " let's get up and

have breakfast and see how you feel after that " school of parenting, rather

than a " you just stay in bed and I will bring you a little something on a

tray " type. But when I saw that one side of her face was swollen, giving my

daughter the look of a lop-sided hamster, I agreed that it was probably best

to get her off to the doctor as soon as possible.

The GP tried hard not to be judgmental, but I felt a wave of shame when she

told me that Ella probably had mumps. She saw from our notes that we had not

given her the MMR triple booster and I explained, slightly defensively, that

we had taken a decision not to give her the vaccine. Her older brother had

contracted a nasty case of measles a couple of weeks after his MMR, and

although such a reaction is rare, after extensive debate my partner and I

felt that it was best not to risk the same problem with his sister.

Although the vaccination was only introduced in 1988, mumps has already been

banished to the past as firmly as whooping cough or rickets. Of course,

those of us who decide not to give their child MMR and then don't go on to

have all three vaccines separately are relying on the fact that other

parents will continue with the vaccine. Now I realise that opting out has

consequences.

Our doctor gently reminded me that there was something of a mumps epidemic

in Britain, although for the moment it is confined mostly to the university

student population who are too old to have had their MMR. However, there is

no reason why a 10-year old who has not been protected against the disease

should not get it, particularly if she has been in contact with this age

group.

We were told to inform the school, which we duly did, and I also felt

obliged to ring and confess to the parents of other children in her class

before the letter went round telling everyone of my laxity - although

thankfully they didn't name and shame. Having been told that mumps is most

contagious from two days before symptoms begin to six days after they end, I

also thought of Ella's gym class teacher, a pregnant friend and a friend

with premature twins whom we had visited the week before. I tried to

pre-empt their anger by apologising so profusely that they couldn't get a

word in edgeways. My mother, usually so supportive of my parenting, was

appalled that I had not given Ella her MMR, something I hoped I wouldn't

have to confess to. I had to agree with her when she said: " What parents

would give in some parts of the world for the chance of that vaccine. "

Mumps is caused by a virus that usually spreads through saliva. The virus

can be passed to other people by sneezing, coughing or using the same

drinking glass as the infected person. The incubation period for mumps can

last between 12 and 25 days, but the average is 16 to 18 days. Mumps can

infect many parts of the body, especially the parotid salivary glands, which

are found towards the back of each cheek in the area between the ear and

jaw. There is no treatment except bed rest and trying to lower the high

temperature that results from the illness. The most serious repercussions

involve possible infection of other organs. In 20 to 30 per cent of the

cases of adult men with mumps, the disease infects the testicles, causing

swelling (orchitis) and running the risk of sterility. Serious complications

can lead to encephalitis (inflammation of the brain), meningitis

(inflammation of the lining of the brain and spinal cord) and deafness.

Before the MMR vaccine was introduced, mumps was the commonest cause of

viral meningitis. Mumps can also cause women problems with their ovaries and

spontaneous abortion early in pregnancy.

My doctor wasn't exaggerating when she described the increase in mumps cases

as an epidemic, either, according to Dr Ramsay, who monitors cases of

mumps for the Health Protection Agency. " The term 'outbreak' implies that

mumps has occurred in localised areas, whereas cases of mumps have risen

right across England and Wales, " she says. In the first four weeks of 2005

there were 4,891 notifications for mumps; in the same period last year,

there were only 358 cases. Suspected cases are at their highest for 15

years - and, after laboratory testing, between 60 and 75 per cent of

notifications are being confirmed as genuine cases. While two-thirds of

cases are in patients between the ages of 15 and 24, children whose parents

have refused the MMR vaccination, often because of fears over the connection

with autism, are also vulnerable to infection.

Dr Ramsay explains that teenagers and young adults are getting mumps because

these age groups tend to live closely together, particularly in

universities. " We believe the number of cases have increased more steeply in

recent weeks because many of the young adults born between 1981 and 1989 are

now at university. This age group was too old to be offered the MMR vaccine,

so many will not have received any mumps-containing vaccine, although some

may have received one dose of MMR vaccine. As the susceptible group is quite

large, we do not expect the number of cases of mumps to reduce in the near

future. "

Even those who were young enough to have had the first lot of MMR vaccine

may not have followed through with a second. In 1996, it became clear that

it wasn't enough for people to have one jab to protect them and that it was

important to have two.

As concerns about a possible epidemic grow, vaccination programmes have been

set up in some schools and university towns, advising students to have an

MMR jab. The response has been good. At Kingston University, where there

have been 21 suspected cases of the viral infection, 548 vaccinations have

been carried out in the last few weeks.

The daughter of a friend of mine who is in the most susceptible age group

asked if I could find out if she could have a separate " mumps " vaccine

rather than having the MMR vaccine. After all, her mother paid for separate

measles and rubella vaccines for her sister. A spokesperson for the Health

Protection Agency said that it was not possible to do this because there

isn't a single mumps vaccine licensed for use in the UK.

I received a letter from my daughter's primary school saying that it was

going to start an MMR vaccination programme. Was it just because of Ella? As

far as I know, there weren't any other cases in our area. I still have no

idea how she caught mumps.

She was ill for a week, ate little and drank lots of water. I gave her

paracetamol to keep her temperature down. Ella found the school's letter,

which her father and I were still considering, and started to fill in the

attached form herself. " Please, Mum. Come on, I don't want to get any more

of these horrible, old-fashioned illnesses. "

That's us decided, then. After a decade of pondering, I think we might have

learnt our lesson.