UK Court Orders Two Sisters Must Receive MMR Vaccine 699
rnws writes "The BBC reports that an English High Court judge has ruled that sisters aged 15 and 11 must have the MMR vaccine even though they and their mother do not want it. The High Court decision, made last month, came after the girls' father brought a case seeking vaccination. When outlining her decision in the latest case, Mrs Justice Theis emphasized it was a specific case 'only concerned with the welfare needs of these children', but lawyers say as one of a series it confirms there is no longer any debate about the benefits of the vaccine."
Finally killed that autism theory? (Score:5, Interesting)
my wife works as a medical technician (Score:0, Interesting)
and she has seen perfectly healthy people die solely as a result of receiving the vaccine.
in this case if adverse effects happen to these girls, the judge needs to be prosecuted.
Re:Good. (Score:4, Interesting)
Both of my kids, when they were in the age range 4-7. Neither were scared of needles, and the doctor gives you a jelly bean.
Re:Good. (Score:1, Interesting)
...the mother is practicing child abuse, especially against the 11 year old.
I actually do medical research for a living. One of the things that continues to surprise me is how much there is that we don't know about (preventing) infectious diseases. Of course, some topics (e.g. the human immune system) are incredibly difficult and it will be many decades before we have anything approaching a solid understanding. But I also see a lot of low hanging fruit - where the technology now exists to answer some important questions - but where there's not a whole lot actually being done.
And, as far as I can tell, the main limitation is money: if some government or other were to wade in and say "Here's a trillion dollars (i.e., the cost of the Iraq war), now go out and get some answers - then it would actually be possible to get some answers".
For example, let's say we really believe that this "herd immunity" thing is important - that we want as much as possible of our population to be immune to the measles. Well, how long does the effect of the vaccination last? Should we also be (re)vaccinating adults. And, if so, how often? And And what about early detection? Could we simply put up a "measles detector" in every school so that when some kid walks in the door shedding infectious measles viruses then the alarm goes off and the kid can be quarantined?
And what about diseases which are not well controlled by vaccines - e.g. colds, flu, tuberculosis. Can we understand more about how they are transmitted? Suppose someone with the flu sneezes in a crowded subway car , or nightclub, or classroom, etc. What fraction of the surrounding people will breathe in the aerosoled virus particles and get sick?
You'd think that by now science would have a clear answer to these kinds of questions. After all, they're basic questions affecting the health of most of the people on the planet. And I don't want to imply that there's been no research whatsoever on these topics. But what's surprising to me is that there hasn't been enough research to really settle the matter. There's still a lot of uncertainty even among serious scientists.
So, yeah, it's "child abuse" if one lttle girl somewhere doesn't get a measles vaccine. But what about all those ultra-rich investment bankers who couldn't possibly afford to pay more tax to fund the research that would actually answer these questions? Or what about the average slashdotter? So you think this infectious disease stuff is important? Well, how much have you donated yourself in support of such research? Or, when it comes right down to it, maybe you don't believe in science yourself? You don't believe that the knowledge gained from more scientific research would actually reduce the incidence of infectious disease in the world?
Re:Good. (Score:5, Interesting)
I went through a weird stage between the ages of roughly 7 and say, 16 where I was extremely uncomfortable with needles. Then I had to get a lot of blood drawn for some tests, and something just clicked, and I was like "this is no big deal. Sure, its uncomfortable, but its not really scary". It was a good time for it to happen to, because the nurse that was taking my blood was semi-incompitant or something, and had to stab me about 30 times to get a vein.
The best trick with kids, especially boys, is to take a friend of theirs when it's time to get a shot. They'll want to look tough in front of the friend, so no freaking out, no crying. Once they've been through it once without acting like the world is going to end they have that something click which you're describing. From that point on, you don't the friend anymore, it won't be a big deal.
Re:Good. (Score:5, Interesting)
The reason that most kids and later adults who are afraid of needles is because they were lied to when they got their first injection/venipuncture. If they're told "Don't worry, this won't hurt." in the misguided belief that they'll relax so it'll hurt less, then the surprise becomes a lifelong aversion. If however the provider was honest and says "This will hurt, but only for a little bit" and ideally bribes them with candy after, then you're golden.
I have absolutely no proof for this theory, it's purely anecdotal, but it seems sound, and at any rate, I always tell a kid something will hurt if it MIGHT, let alone will. I never lie to a pediatric patient.
Re:my wife works as a medical technician (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Good. (Score:5, Interesting)
Yep. I remember one kid who kept asking, "Will it hurt? Will it hurt?" and his mother kept saying, "No, not a bit, honey" and the like, and the kid clearly wasn't buying it. So I looked him in the eye and said, "This is going to hurt worse than anything you've ever felt in your life. It's going to hurt worse than anything you've ever imagined in your life. It's terrible. You'll be screaming. It will feel like your arm is getting chewed off by a wolf ..." While he was giggling, I gave him the shot and he barely even noticed it. I'm willing to bet he was a lot less fearful the next time he went in.
Re:Good. (Score:3, Interesting)
I recommend that people look at the data provided about chicken pox. Take the data from those that support use of the vaccine. Don't just take their conclusion. Look at their data. The data doesn't support universal use of the vaccine. It supports use of the vaccine in high risk patients and adults. Use in children actually increases the individual's risk because the vaccine is well documented as not offering life long immunity. By pushing the risk of infection from childhood to adulthood, the vaccine may be producing as much as a 10x greater risk. The data also shows cases of shingles increasing with the increased use of the vaccine.
Interestingly enough, the chicken pox vaccine is also a shingles vaccine, so the typical scare tactic of telling people that if they don't get the vaccine, they will get shingles is an outright lie. Not only does childhood vaccination not offer protection against shingles, adult vaccination can be used as a vaccine against shingles irrelevant of whether you were vaccinated against chicken pox, or gained immunity by catching the disease.
Re: Good. (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Let's take a moment to check the science here.. (Score:5, Interesting)
It just so happens that diagnosis follows vaccination, but why blame vaccination when it might so easily (in the absence of evidence to say otherwise) be - second or first hand smoking during development, or alcohol, or perfume / makeup of the mother, or audio frequencies coming from the TV into the womb, or vibrations during driving, or electro magnetic interference from powerlines, or too much / little sunshine, or vitamin / mineral deficiency, or radon gas, or lack of stimulus or over stimulus etc.
Anti vaxxers have latched onto vaccination because of Andrew Wakefield. Ironically Wakefield was fraudulently attempting to discredit MMR because he had his own measles vaccine which he hope to cash-in on in the aftermath. The one good thing to come from it is that the supposed link between Autism and vaccination was exhaustively studied and no link was found. It's safe to say there isn't one and never was. It's far more likely that improved diagnosis, earlier screening and a lack of critical thinking has created the link in some people's minds.
Re:Good. (Score:5, Interesting)
No actually you're both correct. A virus is a virus. The body's immune response determines how much you're knocked about. I had influenza too. I caught it from my sister who was hospitalised because of it. For me it felt like a common cold. It wasn't worth the trip to the doctor except for the whole sister going to hospital bit so I went and had a blood test done which gave the same results as my sister.
For me it was like a cold that took longer than normal to shake. I also get my flu shot every year now (because my company sponsors it).
Anti-vaccine is intellectual laziness (Score:4, Interesting)
We get all these people who think that vaccines are linked to autism because one discredited scientsts said it was, so we get all this controvercy over vaccines. But what about all the other crap we're putting into our bodies? Hormones in the water supply. Industrial pollutants. Even intentional fluoridation, which has been correlated with lower IQ. But do these people rally against this stuff? No, because it takes too much work. It's easier to go on about government conspiracies and skip going to the doctor.