I still come across parents, who for one reason or another, decide against immunising their children. It’s one of our routine history question, so we ask about it, irrespective of the cause for which they are seeing us. I do spend some time trying to persuade them to change their mind and immunise their children. Some prefer to vaccinate their children by separate vaccines as opposed to combined ones.
The reasons they give are various. MMR-autism link, too much mercury in combined vaccines, illnesses are not that common now, so why vaccinate etc. etc. Last one just makes me tear out my hair, as the illnesses are much less due to vaccinations in the first place!
Firstly talking about the scare that was caused by ‘you know who’. It’s clear now that it was total rubbish and led to lot of unnecessary sufferings and even deaths. http://popo.sfsu.edu/~zan/Files/godlee_smith_2011_wakefields%20article%20linking%20mmr%20vaccine%20and%20autism%20was%20fraudulent.pdf
There is clear evidence that there is no link. http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa021134#t=article
Recently i came across a well educated family, who were worried about high Mercury content in combined vaccines. Thiomersal is an organic, mercury-containing compound added to some vaccines as a preservative. It is the most widely-used preservative for vaccines that are provided in multi-dose vials. There is no evidence to suggest that the amount of Thiomersal used in vaccines poses a health risk. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/hcp/patient-ed/conversations/downloads/vacsafe-thimerosal-color-office.pdf
I can keep on writing about it but this page from WHO sums it up nicely http://www.who.int/features/qa/84/en/
I also advocate Chicken Pox vaccine, which is not yet available via NHS in UK http://ramnikm.sg-host.com/2016/06/05/chicken-pox-vaccine/
