Parents refuse to vaccinate, son nearly dies from tetanus

[mr friendly guy]

http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/201 ... 776327.htm

Parents' fear of vaccinations nearly killed their son
By Emma Wynne Auckland parents Ian and Linda Williams thought they had made an informed choice not to vaccinate their children, but after their son ended up in intensive care with a tetanus infection they realised they had made a terrible mistake.

"The mistake that we made was that we underestimated the diseases and we totally over-estimated the adverse reactions", says father Ian Williams, who is speaking publicly of his family's ordeal in an effort to warn other parents about the dangers of not immunising their children.

Minor cut, major infection

It started when seven-year-old Alijah got a small cut on the bottom of his foot in December 2012.

"Of course we didn't think it was too serious, it was just a little cut but a couple of days later he started getting symptoms like a stroke on the side of his face," Mr Williams says.

"A couple of days later during the night he started to get cramps across his face. His face would contort and he was in a lot of pain."

After 24 hours in Auckland's Starship Children's hospital, the doctors diagnosed Alijah with tetanus, and he was taken to intensive care.

Mr Williams recalls his son's agony, "It's a terrible thing... Your whole body arches, your arms go up in the air."

"It's like getting cramp but it's everywhere, across the face as well. They are so tight your jaw locks."

"The tetanus bacterium makes a toxin that attacks the nerves."

"It got so bad they put him in an induced coma just to put him out of his misery."

Ian and his wife were asked to leave the room as doctors cut a hole in Alijah's throat so a life support tube could be inserted, and Alijah was heavily sedated for the next three weeks to allow his body to heal.

"We felt terrible."

"He was in such pain due to us and our decision-making process so that's why we went to the papers in New Zealand - we just wanted to get our experience out there."

"It was very obvious we had made a mistake."

Deciding not to vaccinate

As well as Alijah, the Williams have a nine-year-old son and a two-year-old daughter, and Ian Williamson says they did their own research and decided not to vaccinate their children.

"My wife was very against it for her own reasons," he says.

"I have a science degree and my wife since then has got a science degree as a midwife. I was open to both ideas so I looked into it."

If you google vaccines you get a lot of pros and a lot of cons, and you start to read all the cons and they start to weigh on you and you start to believe all the things that are said.

"It looks like a fifty-fifty argument."

Williams says that he was influenced by stories he read on the internet that the MMR (Measles, mumps and rubella) vaccine was linked to children developing autism; that they contain mercury and aluminium and that vaccines are promoted by drug companies purely for profit.

"There are a number of myths out there, and it's really easy to get sucked in."

"As soon as they said it was tetanus my other two kids were vaccinated the very next day, against all childhood diseases."

Speaking out

The Williams' also took the unusual step of going public about what had happened to Alijah.

Ian Williams says he wants to help other parents who he thinks may be as overwhelmed as he was by the conflicting information about vaccines that is published online.

"No one wants to hurt their kids; we didn't want to hurt our kid of course.

"The main research that you should do as a parent when you're looking at vaccination, the easiest and the clearest thing you could do would be to survey doctors and ask them if they are pro or anti vaccines.

"What you will find is that almost all of them are. Then ask yourself the question, why is that?

"Once you see one of these diseases, they are terrible. Children die from these diseases."

"The mistake that we made was that we underestimated the diseases and we totally over-estimated the adverse reactions [to vaccines]"

Huge response

Despite the often highly-charged and polarised debate around childhood immunisations, Ian Williams says he's been happy to speak out and that the response to Alijah's story has been very positive.

"We've had a very big reaction in New Zealand. Alijah was on the front page of two of our biggest papers and doctors have been putting up his picture in their rooms and say families have been coming in and getting their kids vaccinated.

"There has actually been a small percentage increase in New Zealand's vaccination rates [since the story was published in January].

"That's why we did it. I'm happy to be the poster boy for vaccination."

Six months on, Alijah is recovering well.

"After three weeks in intensive care he gradually came out of it," Williams says.

"They gave him less and less drugs and his nerves started to heal."

When he came out of his heavy sedation, Alijah had to learn to walk and eat again.

"He's fine now and all you can see now is some scarring on his throat from the tracheotomy, he'll probably have that his whole life.

"It's a small price to pay. Ten per cent of all people with tetanus die."

What type of science graduate thinks reading some articles from google (and from anti-vaxer sites no doubt) is more reliable than peer reviewed articles?

[Aaron MkII]

The kind that sees he's made a mistake and has decided to try and make sure others don't do the same.

[The Grim Squeaker]

Vaccination? You don't vaccinate in advance for Tetanus (at least in ISrael and the UK), you get the vaccine every few years if there's any cut.

(It's sort ofa vaccine, I guess. I may be quibbling, it's jus tthat vaccones in this context are "1 time injection early in life", Tetanus only lasts 3-5 years, and I'd get the shot updated whenever I got a cut . (IE, more like treatment/medicine per injury unless it'd been a short time).

Anti vaccinators in this context usually regards one time life long treatments. (Not treatment for an injury. That's worse. You know, like not getting medical treatment).

[Aaron MkII]

IIRC ours got it as part of the work up for school, they are 10 and 12 but obviously I'm a canuck.

Then you just get it every few years. My gp asks me about it every once and a whie.

[salm]

"I have a science degree and my wife since then has got a science degree as a midwife. I was open to both ideas so I looked into it."

Midwife is considered a science degree?

[Lagmonster]

His credentials are not really important; I've worked for men who are leaders in their particular field of research, but who are ignorant in many other subjects.

Parenting, more than many things in my opinion, can really expose you to the largest flaws in your thinking; I spent plenty of money on 'safety' equipment for my baby that, in retrospect, I realize I never used or would have ever needed, but standing there with a package in my hand and worries in my head, I had been fooled into thinking that I was doing the best thing for my baby - and all because of common psychological pitfalls we all fall into. Even when you consider yourself a skeptic and an educated person, you will be surprised at how convinced you can be of your bad decisions. Granted, you're less likely to make tragic or lethally bad decisions if you're smart and careful.

[PainRack]

To be a midwife, you need a degree, nursing credits tends to shorten the course for most universities.

Unless its a nursing midwife degree, she probably wasn't exposed to the full vagaries of science and public health the title suggests.

http://www.city.ac.uk/courses/undergrad ... e-detail=1

Of course, there's also throwbacks where midwifery are diplomas, but even here, midwives are adv diploma in nursing, midwifery.

The real issue is pretending to have expertise in something you're not. You know what they say. A little knowledge can be pretty dangerous.


http://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/prev ... n-schedule
The last jab the kid would had received for tetanus was 3 years ago.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Vaccination? You don't vaccinate in advance for Tetanus (at least in ISrael and the UK), you get the vaccine every few years if there's any cut.

What the hell? It's part of the TDAP and every time I get the damned thing every ten years my arm swells up.

[Zaune]

I don't think I've ever actually had a tetanus vaccination. I think the British practice is to administer it reactively, after exposure to an infection vector like getting gashed by something rusty, rather than routinely to the general population.

[Knife]

Kids get the DTap, I do believe it is recommended every 5 years, so pretty much at birth (6 months I believe) and again at 5 (school shots). At age 10 they can get the TDap which is recommended every 10 years. So, in the USA, it is a vaccine.

[mr friendly guy]

Vaccination? You don't vaccinate in advance for Tetanus (at least in ISrael and the UK), you get the vaccine every few years if there's any cut.

(It's sort ofa vaccine, I guess. I may be quibbling, it's jus tthat vaccones in this context are "1 time injection early in life", Tetanus only lasts 3-5 years, and I'd get the shot updated whenever I got a cut . (IE, more like treatment/medicine per injury unless it'd been a short time).

Anti vaccinators in this context usually regards one time life long treatments. (Not treatment for an injury. That's worse. You know, like not getting medical treatment).

The flu vaccine only lasts for one year ie even shorter than tetanus, although its because the flu mutates each year. So I think this is just minor quibble.

[mr friendly guy]

His credentials are not really important; I've worked for men who are leaders in their particular field of research, but who are ignorant in many other subjects.
.

That's true, but I would have thought this guy with a science degree at least understood the concepts of empiricism (which should be universal across all scientific fields). One can rant about vaccines containing the oh so dangerous substances of mercury and aluminium, but at the end of the day if your observations do not show adverse effects from vaccines despite it supposedly containing these dangerous substances, then your hypothesis is simply wrong.

[Mr. Coffee]

Friendly, did you even read Lagmonster's post? Try reading the stuff he wrote after the first sentence you quoted and you'll see that he explained it quite clearly that being a parent can have one hell of an effect on your decision making.

[mr friendly guy]

Friendly, did you even read Lagmonster's post? Try reading the stuff he wrote after the first sentence you quoted and you'll see that he explained it quite clearly that being a parent can have one hell of an effect on your decision making.

I did. I didn't particularly disagree with the second part of his post (ie being a parent can affect the decision making), which is why I didn't reply to that part. The first part however I am somewhat dubious whether what Lagmonster said could be completely extrapolated to this case (ie being an expert in one field but ignorant in another), which is why I answered the way I did.

[Mr. Coffee]

Friendly, did you even read Lagmonster's post? Try reading the stuff he wrote after the first sentence you quoted and you'll see that he explained it quite clearly that being a parent can have one hell of an effect on your decision making.

I did. I didn't particularly disagree with the second part of his post (ie being a parent can affect the decision making), which is why I didn't reply to that part. The first part however I am somewhat dubious whether what Lagmonster said could be completely extrapolated to this case (ie being an expert in one field but ignorant in another), which is why I answered the way I did.

Just because you have a degreee doesn't mean you're smart, just means you're educated. Combine first time parent stupidity with it and it makes perfect sense, guy.

[mr friendly guy]

Just because you have a degreee doesn't mean you're smart, just means you're educated. Combine first time parent stupidity with it and it makes perfect sense, guy.

You are most probably right. It just bugs me somewhat that someone passed a science degree without actually understanding the basics of how to evaluate a scientific claim (that is, do the observations match the predictions of the anti-vaccine or pro-vaccine side, or to put it another way, which side do the statistics support). In this regard, one doesn't need to be an expert in medical science to do that.

[Broomstick]

Vaccination? You don't vaccinate in advance for Tetanus (at least in ISrael and the UK), you get the vaccine every few years if there's any cut.

(It's sort ofa vaccine, I guess. I may be quibbling, it's jus tthat vaccones in this context are "1 time injection early in life", Tetanus only lasts 3-5 years, and I'd get the shot updated whenever I got a cut . (IE, more like treatment/medicine per injury unless it'd been a short time).

No, the tetanus vaccine really is a vaccine. The periodic re-jabs are technically called "boosters". It's the same thing, although the dosage may be different for the initial stick vs. subsequent ones. And they re-stick you after an injury just to make sure your immune system is awake. It's all vaccine, though.

You're supposed to get the initial tetanus vaccine in early childhood, then re-vaccinate every 5-10 years, and after an applicable injury. In the US, it's often combined with a pertussis (a.k.a. "whooping cough") booster for the routine sticks. Last got mine in 2008.

It used to be thought that vaccines provided lifetime immunity, but in actual practice 10 years at most is what you get unless you're either exposed to the disease "in the wild" or get a booster.

[PainRack]

Let me repost this again.
http://www.health.govt.nz/our-work/prev ... n-schedule

This is the NZ immunization schedule.

The National Immunisation Schedule


Age

Diseases covered and vaccines



6 weeks
Diphtheria/Tetanus/Pertussis/Polio/Hepatitis B/Haemophilus influenzae type b
1 injection (INFANRIX® -hexa)
Pneumococcal
1 injection (SYNFLORIX®)

3 months
Diphtheria/Tetanus/Pertussis/Polio/Hepatitis B/Haemophilus influenzae type b
1 injection (INFANRIX® -hexa)
Pneumococcal
1 injection (SYNFLORIX®)

5 months
Diphtheria/Tetanus/Pertussis/Polio/Hepatitis B/Haemophilus influenzae type b
1 injection (INFANRIX® -hexa)
Pneumococcal
1 injection (SYNFLORIX®)

15 months
Haemophilus influenzae type b
1 injection (Act-HIB)
Measles/Mumps/Rubella
1 injection (M-M-R® ll)
Pneumococcal
1 injection (SYNFLORIX®)

4 years
Diphtheria/Tetanus/Pertussis/Polio
1 injection (INFANRIX™-IPV)
Measles/Mumps/Rubella
1 injection (M-M-R® ll)

11 years
Tetanus/Diphtheria/Pertussis
1 injection (BOOSTRIX™)

12 years
girls only
Human papillomavirus
3 doses given over 6 months (GARDASIL®)

45 years
Diphtheria/Tetanus
1 injection (ADT™ Booster)

65 years
Diphtheria/Tetanus
1 injection (ADT™ Booster)
Influenza
1 Injection (annually)

The last jab the kid should had received was 3 years ago, since the boy was 7 years old at the time of the incident and the last tetanus jab scheduled is 4.

[salm]

Just because you have a degreee doesn't mean you're smart, just means you're educated. Combine first time parent stupidity with it and it makes perfect sense, guy.

You are most probably right. It just bugs me somewhat that someone passed a science degree without actually understanding the basics of how to evaluate a scientific claim (that is, do the observations match the predictions of the anti-vaccine or pro-vaccine side, or to put it another way, which side do the statistics support). In this regard, one doesn't need to be an expert in medical science to do that.

I know plenty of full blown chemists and biologists (Masters and PHDs) who have no basic understanding of the scientific method. They work according to it every day because the job/university requries them to do so but when you talk to them about it they have no idea why they are working the way they are.

As far as I´ve found out it is not taught an university or at least it´s not a compulsory subject. At least not in Germany. It´s really strange since it´s not that hard to understand and therefore wouldn´t cost a lot of resources while probably being very valuable for a scientific education.

[mr friendly guy]

That's strange considering I remember being taught the method in high school, although I don't recall them saying its the scientific method, merely these are the steps science goes through.

[PeZook]

I was never taught the formal scientific method either, yet my degree is technically classed MSc. I had a full-blown philosophy course, too, which somehow managed not to touch it at all.

[salm]

That's strange considering I remember being taught the method in high school, although I don't recall them saying its the scientific method, merely these are the steps science goes through.

I think something like that is probably done here as well. They undrestand it on a "gut level". What is lacking is a clear and concrete form of understanding. The sort of understanding you need to put your ways of thinking into words.

[Lagmonster]

It's also worth mentioning that in a lab, it's possible that the senior researcher, the junior sub-assistant monkey groomer, the media liaison, and quite possibly the HR manager all have degrees in "science" to some stretch of fancy, but that doesn't make them scientists, or give any indication as to how sharp their criticial thinking skills are, or how prone they are to be sucked in by the percieved trustworthiness or sincerity of the person selling the idea.

The guy in the OP says his wife is a midwife who was "very" against vaccination for "her own reasons", which kinda makes me suspicious that the husband didn't look into it as thoroughly as you'd think or he claims, and let his trust his wife's professional opinion tip the scale rather than any serious evaluation of the claims.

[His Divine Shadow]

Tetanus shots are given to most kids here and to everyone who are doing their conscription. I think here the accepted timespan for booster shots is 10 years though, which is longer than what most here say.

[Irbis]

Yeah, I got tetanus shots in Poland, in elementary school, too. It was in dying days of the communism era, though, when every school used to have its own doctor, no idea how it is now.