Swine Flu

We are not vaccinating our children at the moment, and this somewhat controversial blog posting (which no doubt will get some criticism) details the reasons why.

Please note that it is NOT saying that people should not have the vaccine, or have their children vaccinated. I am simply stating the special circumstances in which our children are not.

Different circumstances would have applied to my late partner, whose heart disease was of such severity that her immune system was totally compromised and any additional impact of a vaccine, however slight, (or for that matter even a common cold) could have tipped the balance, and accordingly her doctors never suggested it to her.

Last Friday, we received a letter in the post, informing us of the need for children at a local school, which I will designate School X, year ten, to have Tamiflu at Le bas Centre on Saturday, and for those children who did not receive Tamiflu, to stay away from school until Wednesday. I think it is only fair to detail a small part of our thinking on vaccinations, by way of explanation.

Our son (who is at School X) has siblings who are both on the autistic spectrum, and he himself has had a diagnosis of aspergers. We have noted in the past, that with our children, particularly two of them, there appears to be a degree in which their immune systems are compromised, and they can react badly to vaccinations.

While the vaccination programme is safe, we do not accept that it is within the bounds of probability that it is 100% safe, and the lack of proper information about small subgroups or individuals experiencing side-effects (or for that matter the protocols for VAERS and giving patients vaccine batch numbers) suggest that the complete scientific picture is not available (studies of side effects, sample sizes, statistical measures as one would find in, for example, a peer reviewed medical publication).

This is understandable because if 99% of the population benefit from the vaccination programme, political considerations make it expedient to use the vaccine; it would be foolish not to. But that does not mean that there are not a small percentage in the population who may be at risk from side effects, and accordingly, on our judgement that our son may be in a risky population for the same, he will not be participating in the programme.

In addition, in the past, on one occasion (in 1989), a batch of vaccine given to our eldest son was withdrawn on safety grounds. When we tried to get hold of details, not only was no adverse reaction noted (which he had), but also when the hospital records finally came up with a batch number and manufacturer, it turned out that it was a different manufacturer who had provided that batch number. With such inept record keeping, unless it has improved (and I'd like to know how well batch numbers are recorded against individuals in this mass programme), I have very little faith in the ability of the authorities to keep good enough records to provide a profile of the kind of group that is at risk from adverse reactions.