@ Wirihanasouth: "Would anyone care to provide further comment on how homeopathic immunisation works"

Yes, it's quite simple: it doesn't. Unless, that is, you somehow think that injecting water into your arm will stop you getting measles.

When will people finally understand? Homeopathy: It's. Just. Water.

My children were at immunisation age in the mid-1990s. The oldest one had no reactions. The youngest one reacted to his MMR jab. He screamed non-stop and head-clutched for most of a day - I guess that this was brain-swelling. When I rang my doctor's office, they said it was no big deal, did not wish me to bring him back in and I would bet $10 that it was not recorded on any sort of register as an adverse reaction. When his next MMR jab became due, I explained his last reaction and asked if it was possible to omit the measles part and have the rest, or to have some sort of immunity test to see if it was needed. No, it was all or none. I chose none. What else could I choose? If those in authority want parents to be compliant, being honest about side-effects, taking them seriously, keeping accurate account of side effects and providing alternatives where there is a reaction to one of the components of multiple vaccines might engender some trust. And don't tell me I'm to blame. The child has grown up to be just fine, by the way.

I'm interested in the comments re homeopathic immunisation. Would anyone care to provide further comment on how homeopathic immunisation works, and any experience they have had of receiving this type of immunisation, or of having given it to their child/ren? Thanks.

sceptic #110

"I wish there was one killer, bite-sized argument that showed one side was right" I agree, but unfortunately there is no "bite-sized argument" for either view, its not as simple as that..... 'HEALTH' is not a topic to be taken lightly, one cannot be indolent when making these decisions, and one cannot make their decision simply on the beliefs someone else holds. It is great that you have carried out your own research regarding this topic and you are probably one of only a few who commented on this article. But many people make the mistake of believing you can expect to read one book and a couple of articles on vaccines and have all of your questions completely catered for, you cannot, WHY? Because vaccines rely on a belief system, and to realize the truth behind them one must take apart that belief system. There are many studies that must be carried out to answer all of the questions behind vaccines/drugs but they are often turned down by various authoritative departments or if they do get carried out very few people will be aware if the results.

For example you may find interesting the findings of Prof Frank Shann who stated that:

"Too many parents and health workers think that infection is bad, infection causes fever, and that therefore fever is bad. In fact, fever is often a beneficial host response to infection, and moderate fever improves immunity. Therefore, it may not be a good idea to give drugs that reduce temperature to patients with severe infection. I have recently reviewed 1 the results of 9 controlled trials in mammals of the effect of paracetamol or aspirin on mortality or virus excretion. Four trials found that aspirin increased mortality in bacterial or viral infection.

Viral shedding was increased by paracetamol or aspirin in 3 studies, possibly increased in one, and not affected in two (one used only pharyngeal washings, and one had only 9 subjects in the aspirin and placebo groups).

One study found that antibody production was impaired by both paracetamol and aspirin, but no effect on antibody production was detected in the study with only 9 subjects in the aspirin and placebo groups.

This evidence suggests that aspirin and paracetamol increase mortality in severe infection, and that they may prolong the infection and reduce the antibody response in mild disease."

And he goes to to conclude that: "Indeed, paracetamol may decrease the antibody response to infection, and increase morbidity and mortality in severe infection. It should be explained to parents that fever is usually a helpful response to infection, and that paracetamol should be used to reduce discomfort, but not to treat fever. "

In some ways Shann is contradicting his own findings, what about the child with meningitis, or a sever seasonal flu?? They all start off with a sniffle, a headache, cough?? But by treating them with drugs such as pamol one does two things, masks potentially vital symptoms until it is too late and increases the immune systems vulnerability. However he has highlighted a very important point about fevers and the dangers of drugs such as pamol and yet VERY FEW PEOPLE KNOW THIS, let alone doctors!

Back to the vaccine debate, if you are requiring some solid medical evidence I suggest Sherri Tenpenny's resources. She recently wrote about the vaccine argument...

" I always find it interesting that a discussion over the topic of vaccination can become "heated" and "volatile". Why is that?....would the same debate rage over an antibiotic or an antihypertensive medicine if there was evidence that it was causing harm?

Highly doubtful. It would be removed promptly from the market if deaths resulted from its use. Even if deaths were suspected to be caused by a medication, we stop using it until we prove it is safe.

Not so with a vaccine. We keep using it until we can "prove" it is causing harm.

Why the double standard?"

"I would need to research the issue full time for a long time" And there are people out there who have done just this, I find their resources very useful. Perhaps you could read Peter and Hilary Butler's books? Or you could take a look at some of Mayer Eisenstein's (MD, JD, MPH) work.

"If I'm convinced that ordeal by fire will drive away the demons that are causing my child's fever, or I try and drown them out with a ducking stool then society rightly steps in" And yes this is true, sometimes society will step in and sometimes they might have the 'right'. But asking for a reasonable 'line' is sadly impossible, we are a screwed up society. I give you the example of the 'smoker'; plunket nurses, doctors, medical researches and the government constantly tell us that smoking is harmful to those around us. "Secondary smoke kills" "It doesn't matter if you smoke outside the toxins are in your cloths, they linger on you and in your car". Yet no one will take the 'smokers' child away from them despite that child being in direct contact with deadly toxins on a daily basis... see, society's logic is screwed up, so how can one trust the majorities opinion? We cannot.

"Statistics have shown that when presented with a new, different, challenging idea, 96% of people will spend their time and energy defending their current beliefs and only 4% will embrace the idea as something to seriously consider. " - Sherri Tenpenny

And if after all your research you still feel you would prefer to vaccinate your child, then that's fine, that is YOUR opinion. You have the right to choose, and it should stay that way for everyone.

@BX

"You can find all the answers to your questions by doing a little bit of your own reading and researching, try looking somewhere rather than your GPs office :)" You'd be surprised the dark corners of the Internet I hang out in.

"An open mind is one of the greatest assets a human being can have. Unfortunately today's 'society' is very close minded and I think it is extremely sad that there are people out there who will only ever believe in that of the majority...." The problem here is that there are so many things that one could believe. How to filter it all in a reasonable amount of time. I've dedicated a lot of hours to reading up on vaccination, most of it taking anti-vax websites like mothering.com as a starting point. To understand their argument sufficiently to say with any confidence at all that they are right and conventional scientific opinion it wrong I would need to research the issue full time for a long time. I can't do that, and neither can the vast majority of the population. I wish there was one killer, bite-sized argument that showed one side was right, and the other is wrong, but I have yet to see one. If you could perhaps point to one that would be super.

"Just because the majority believes in something does not make it correct." For sure, but neither is it relevant. The question here is whether the majority, believing somebody elses belief system is harmful should do anything about it. This isn't a claim to a God's eye view for the majority. Presumably we all agree that there are limits to how much freedom we give other people to believe stuff we think is wrong. If I'm convinced that ordeal by fire will drive away the demons that are causing my childs fever, or I try and drown them out with a ducking stool then society rightly steps in. The only question is where the line is. I take it nobody is claiming that they have an absolute right to harm their children, or anybody elses children?

sceptic #110

You can find all the answers to your questions by doing a little bit of your own reading and researching, try looking somewhere rather than your GPs office :)

An open mind is one of the greatest assets a human being can have. Unfortunately today's 'society' is very close minded and I think it is extremely sad that there are people out there who will only ever believe in that of the majority....

"Surely there are limits to how far we humour peoples beliefs when we, as a society, believe that their beliefs have potentially fatal consequences."

Just because the majority believes in something does not make it correct.

It's funny that the comments on this article just prove their point. Stuff is popular with middle class demographics so no surprises there, here are just the first few:

"Come on, be honest and let us know how many of the reported cases are children that have had one or both of the jabs. 99% would be my guess." - They have let us know, stop expressing your opinion and start researching.

"If even one case of measles is considered and epidemic, and the vaccine is 90 - 95 % effective (which I don't think it is), then we are never going to not have measles epidemics. So how are parents to blame for a vaccine which doesn't provide life-long immunity in 100% of people?" - Thresholds for heard immunity are 83%-94% (The ministry has said 95% to ensure this) and they have dropped to 86% and (what a coincidence!) we are starting to get an outbreak. What variable has changed here? And you "don't think it is", OK statistical study versus Natasha's unfounded opinion.

"I have worked with many special needs children over the years and have listened to the heart-breaking stories of parents who have made such claims who have been fobbed off with all sorts of reasons why there child suddenly started having seizures or who were perfectly well until they were immunized and then developed serious problems.I would also like to question why the alternative homeopathic vaccination program that was available 20 years ago, which I used successfully, has been removed from the market?" - Oh those evil doctors fobbing off the claims of parents, they should have used a treatment that have been proven time and time and time again to be ineffective instead. So you found their stories and the placebo effect compelling, that tells us a lot about you BS filter.

You people, you're putting your children's lives on the line with no critical thinking going on at all. Worse of all your poor decision making skills are causing damage to others through a lack of herd immunity. Extraordinary claims need extraordinary evidence and saying that a population would be BETTER OVERALL if unvaccinated is very extraordinary.

@BX

"In that case I would also say that the parents who only vaccinate their children and believe that this is enough to protect them against these childhood diseases should be labeled child abusers." I guess it would depend on the size of the effect. They aren't really going out of their way to avoid government health policy, or are they? I mean, if there was some kind of healthy eating class that every child in the country was supposed to go to and you decided that your kids wouldn't be going then that might start to fall into the same category. It's another version of the homeopath parents whose belief in homeopathy allowed their kid to die from eczema. Surely there are limits to how far we humour peoples beliefs when we, as a society, believe that their beliefs have potentially fatal consequences. To an extent it comes down to whether we respect peoples right to cause their children harm. Our tolerance varies a lot (and not necessarily rationally) depending on why they're doing it.

"Parents who allow their children's natural immune systems to be crippled by unhealthy eating and poor lifestyle choices, parents who blindly suppress their children's fevers and fill their bodies with endless amounts of antibiotics and paracetamol completely dis-arming the immune system... these parents are by far doing more damage than the parent who chooses not to vaccinate and instead aids their child's immune system using far more successful approaches." You have evidence for this? Paracetamol completely disarms the immune system? I've given my son paracetamol when he's had a mild fever and he still got better, why if he had no immune system? You are wildly exaggerating in excess of anything you can plausibly believe let alone back up. If the illness lasts a few hours longer, but he's comfortable then that seems to me like a sufficiently good thing to justify using it.

"What everyday parents are told they should feed their children is appalling, dairy products to no end, white bread, processed foods, chemicals instead of sugar to make 'healthier' drinks! Most the stuff with heart foundation ticks and 'low-fat' labels are ACTUALLY BAD FOR YOU!! Look into the studies, who funds the tests and trials that tell is the food is good??" So you know what food is good and bad without a study? Or you KNOW that if a study says something is 'good' but is funded by somebody 'bad' then the truth must be opposite to the findings of the study? Surely chemicals instead of sugar is 'diet' drinks rather than 'health' drinks?

Colin #106

In that case I would also say that the parents who only vaccinate their children and believe that this is enough to protect them against these childhood diseases should be labeled child abusers.

Parents who allow their children's natural immune systems to be crippled by unhealthy eating and poor lifestyle choices, parents who blindly suppress their children's fevers and fill their bodies with endless amounts of antibiotics and paracetamol completely dis-arming the immune system... these parents are by far doing more damage than the parent who chooses not to vaccinate and instead aids their child's immune system using far more successful approaches.

What everyday parents are told they should feed their children is appalling, dairy products to no end, white bread, processed foods, chemicals instead of sugar to make 'healthier' drinks! Most the stuff with heart foundation ticks and 'low-fat' labels are ACTUALLY BAD FOR YOU!! Look into the studies, who funds the tests and trials that tell is the food is good??

Claiming someone is a child abuser is a huge statement to make and should not be used lightly as I believe you and so many others do over this issue. Health cannot be put down to a simple 'prick'

@Kell - yes I looked at your graph...not that I needed to, I've seen it before - and if you re-read my second post you'll see why I think your graph is irrelevant. I'm controlling for variables and assessing the impact of of the vaccine - not anything else. But please answer my question - what happen specifically in the late 60's to cause a 99% reduction in a disease which had been stable for over 20 years? and why the increase immediate succeeding a year in which the vaccine was not available?