Decision to be made

butterflylady

Evening all,

I'm hoping for some advice/opinions on savings decision.

Between myself and my OH we have approx £6000 of debt on credit cards and a loan. We also have a 1 year old son.

Hes at the age now when the MMR keeps being mentioned (i'm not asking for medicial advice!!!!). Having heard the scare stories I am reluctant to have this and have looked into paying private for him to have the single jabs.

Having read into both, I can see there are positives and negatives to both.

The single jabs will come in at some where between £600 - £700. I have managed to save £500 so far towards them.

But I can't help thinking its a lot of money, it would pay off one of the credit cards with a little left to go towards the other one.

I really want to do whats best for my son, but I just don't know what to do!!

Any help/advice would be gratefully received.

NUFCnutter

I have three children, all three have had the MMR, none of them have had any side effects (apart from my youngest who had a nasty bruise on her leg). I have many friends with children, not one has been affected by the MMR. Did you know that the original study that caused all the problems was done on 12 children who already had autism when the study began? I think you are better off spending the money on your debt. I can understand your worry, when my eldest had her MMR 9 years ago the scare was just in its infancy, but my health visitor showed me the copies of the Lancet (the doctors medical journal) which showed counter studies which showed the MMR to be safe.

I would say go for the free jab.

Hope this helps.

jenjade

if you belive it is what is best for you son than that is what you need to do!
i don;'t believe that is what is best but as you said you are not looking for medical advice so i would say if you can afford it and belive it is what is best do what you heart tells you to do for your son

sallyx

Very Hard one...Yes it would be lovely to pay off some of that debt! However I was in the same position as you and decided (yes some will say Im putting my daughter at risk) to not vacinate at all at the moment. I have a family member who had the MMR and overnight turned into a completely different child. There is no explanation for this other than the MMR and this is the reason I refuse to give it to my daughter.
Back to the Debt v Jab debate though, only you know whats best for you and your son. Personally if you have already saved the money and have questioned the MMR then you have pretty much made up your mind??

butterflylady

Thank you for your responses.

Its great to get other opinions. My OH is yet to read the paper work on both opinions, though I beleive that he is in favour of the single jabs as thats what his sister did with her daugther.

Its a really hard decision to make as there is no tracing on the single jabs so no way to no if they have been kept in the proper way, so they might not be effective. But my little man has his own personality already, so do I risk him losing that?

Gemmzie

Health is always of the utmost importance, more than money

10past6

It's the should I turn right or turn left scenario, no one knows what to do for the best.

There is a huge difference between getting into debt by buying a T.V or paying for a holiday to getting into debt where a family's health is concerned.

flippy178

We chose single jabs for our DS who is now six. We didn't have to pay for all jabs in advance, only one at a time. It was about £90 per jab when we started, £140 now. You could check with the healthcare centre about how you can pay for them.

The three jabs are spread out over six months. Then you have to do the boosters. Your child has six jabs rather than two with MMR which can make it a difficult process.

chal

I looked into the whole MMR thing and decided there was no risk. As someone above said, the story that started the scares was in no way a valid study.

As someone else said above, a family member changed into a completely different child following the MMR jab - there's no way to test objectively if a) the jab was the cause, or b) if the jab was the cause, if it would have happened with individual jabs too.

I would also say that any perceived risk from the jab is dwarfed by the risk taken in not vaccinating at all.

What the World Health Organisation has to say on the matter:
http://http://www.who.int/vaccine_safety/topics/mmr/mmr_autism/en/

GACVS (Global Advisory Committee on Vaccine Safety) also concluded that there is no evidence to support the routine use of monovalent measles, mumps and rubella vaccines over the combined vaccine, a strategy which would put children at increased risk of incomplete immunization. Thus, GACVS recommends that there should be no change in current vaccination practices with MMR.

iwanttosavemoney2008

all three of my children have had are having (the youngest is just 12 weeks) with no side effects.

my brothers child did have a reaction though (an allergy) and had to go in to hospital for half a day but she was then given single injections for the others

i would say have the first lot if there are any reactions then you will get the single ones on the nhs anyway

the autism scare was never proved has never been backed up and was flawed to start with. even parents of those in the study now admit that the signs of autsim were there before the jabs.

SingleSue

My youngest son was developing normally, was starting to talk (mama, dada) and taking an interest in the world...then he had the MMR. Within a very short space of time he stopped talking, stopped taking an interest and became very closed off...he was eventually diagnosed complex autistic at age 5 (took longer because he was so complex and so not easy to put in the right 'box'. The first suggestion we had that he may be autistic was when he was 18 months old). We didn't allow him to have the booster.

My middle son was also developing normally, had the MMR and became the child from hell, extremely violent and aggressive. This then got worse when he had the booster jab at age 5 - He was diagnosed with Aspergers at age nearly 6.

My eldest son had the MMR and booster and is fine although it seems to have completely failed to take with him as he still got mumps at age 11!

If I had another child now, I would def opt for the single jabs.

Tempered with that though, I think the MMR may not be the complete cause of autism but in those who already have a genetic risk of autism, it somehow switches the gene on.