Discussion - when is a bad batch a bad batch

[3monkeys]

On a more mainstream forum I visit but dont post on anymore they are discussing a vaccine reaction that is being put down to a "bad batch". Apparently the batch has been recalled.

I dont know if I buy into the bad batch thing though.

Surely all vaccines are manufacturered to the same guidelines so the vaccine I get is the same as you get 1 year later. And more importantly the same one that was tested and passed for use in the first place.

So how do they get a bad batch. Isnt it a worry that there is such a thing.

Anyway, I would love to hear opinions on what they think of the whole "bad batch" theory.

[ZGT Mummy]

I just read that thread and what an awful reaction. I wonder what else is going on inside those poor little kids' bodies? And just to make matters even worse they've been put on antibiotics! What for?!?!? :confused:

I don't have enough knowledge of procedures etc to make too many comments on the whole "bad batch" thing apart from a couple of points.

Firstly how is it that there can be a bad batch as, like you say, they should all be manufactured in exactly the same way time and again so that every single vial is identical. Surely if there is discrepancy then it would not be the same vaccination?

Secondly, didn't they say that this was the new one (don't even know which one but the one they've now combined a load more into)? Isn't that a cause for further concern?

Thridly, I find it so frustrating that as parents we are led to believe that these so-called adverse reactions are "OK". Most of you probably wouldn't have taken that, but sadly I was one of those who did swallow everything I was told by the powers that be. My son had a nasty reaction after his 3 month jabs but I was assured that whilst it was an adverse reaction it was OK. He'd be OK.....eventually. Well thank whatever greater being you believe in that so far he does seem to be OK. It's the same as c-sections. They are major abdominal surgery and IMO should only be used where the alternative is impending death for either mum or baby. Yet how often is it casually thrown into a conversation that X was born by c-section and no one gasps and thinks it must've been a life or death situation. Because doctors have downplayed the enormity of the surgery they have become so commonplace as to not elicit a frightened response from the general public. And don't even get me started on elective CS :mad: When I was in labour with #1 my OB came in at 4pm (hmmm, rather close to knock-off time wouldn't you say) and told me that I wasn't dilating (no wonder with an epidural in, lying on the bed, with a 9lb posterior baby) so lets just go to theatre. I asked if my baby was OK. The reply was, yes he's doing just fine, heartbeat is great, you're fine too, but lets just do this before anything bad happens :confused: :confused: :confused: :confused:. Sadly I'd been so conditioned by society that I believed that a CS was the best course of action for me and my baby :(.

So back to the bad batch thing, I think we are so conditioned these days that to hear that there was a bad batch that was recalled actually seems like GOOD news. In that they've realised and are now recalling. No one stops to think about the wider issues such as why was there a bad batch, what effects does this bad batch have on children, either immediate or longer lasting, will they even have gained any immunity from this vaccination or was it just a pointless exercise?

Further to that, we are so conditioned that we don't even report these adverse reactions because they are so "normal".

Gosh there's just issue after issue arising from all this isn't there?

Can you tell my kids are having a nap and I have a wee bit of time to type out my thoughts. It's so refreshing to be able to be so "controversial" knowing that there won't be an idiot on the other end coming back at me telling me that I'm endangering her child and that I must foresake my own children's safety to ensure her's are safe :eek:

Oops, spoke to soon, baby is a-screamin' :giggle:

[3monkeys]

ZGT Mummy I TOTALLY get what you are saying. I wa thinking the same thoughts. I just dont get how this can be considered ok. It makes me think of the bad batch of vaccines that were the cause of the recent CHCH measles "epidemic".

IMO it sounds like a cop out and there is a far bigger picture.

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

got a link?

[Karamea]

http://www2.everybody.co.nz/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=1781604&page=1

[ZGT Mummy]

OK just a wee bit more than my 2 cents worth....

Adding on to this is when is a reaction an adverse one or a "normal" one?

When I was in my teens I had my tetanus booster. My arm (the one that was jabbed) was paralysed/numb for about 4 days and I had some odd numb/tingling type feelings down that side of my body too. When I mentioned this to the nurse I was told that loads of others also had similar issues and not to worry it's pretty normal and would go away soon. I wouldn't have classed this as normal?

When DS1 had his three month vaccinations he developed a very high (40) fever and cried pretty much non-stop for 3 days, and was unsettled for the rest of that week. He previously was a model, perfect, textbook baby. Again, it's normal, I was told. Again, I personally don't think it's normal.

Who defines "normal"? Who's definition of normal should be used? Just because loads of other people react in the same way, should it still be classed as normal?

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

Normal is when it happens to lots of people.... :giggle:

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

http://www2.everybody.co.nz/forum/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=1781604&page=1


Decided not to look. I'm just "that" far off burnout right now.

I'm seriously at the point of just wanting to chuck the whole vaccines thing in....

I'm in that funk where I feel that the world is populated with functional illiterates who just about deserve everything they walk into. After all, they all know everything. don't they!!!

[TanyaL]

Decided not to look. I'm just "that" far off burnout right now.

I'm seriously at the point of just wanting to chuck the whole vaccines thing in....

I'm in that funk where I feel that the world is populated with functional illiterates who just about deserve everything they walk into. After all, they all know everything. don't they!!!

:bighug:I know I'm not the only parent grateful for your voice. My son's health is significantly better than it would've been had I vaccinated him, and your voice in making me re-think (okay, think critically for the first time :o) the issue was one of the critical factors.

[Sarah]

Decided not to look. I'm just "that" far off burnout right now.

I'm seriously at the point of just wanting to chuck the whole vaccines thing in....

I'm in that funk where I feel that the world is populated with functional illiterates who just about deserve everything they walk into. After all, they all know everything. don't they!!!

If it was as simple as "it's OK" if you decide to vaccinate and it is also "OK" if you dont'. But its not. Those of us who, through extensive research, and often a hell of alot of soul searching decide against it are treated as the "illiterates". I have spent more time actually 'caring' for my girls when they have been sick than any doctor (or some parents) ever have. I know many parents who just "give 'em some pamol and stick them into bed". No monitoring, no sitting up all night getting them to drink fluids, getting them to eat the right foods etc. Yet I am the one who is left defending myself when I am asked "why didn't you take your kid to the doctors?", when they have a fever. Like I am some sort or lazy, uncaring mother.
Hillary, all I can say is if you decide to 'chuck the whole vaccines thing in.." there is no hope for me:(. I have only been researching seriously for the last year, and I must admit, have had days where I think how do I do this and retain my sanity - well whats left of it anyway:D. But I know what you mean, sometimes you just need to focus on something else for a while:)

[Momtezuma Tuatara]

I've been doing this for near on 30 years. so it's inevitable I'll have days like this. I actually take solice, on days like yesterday, and today, of a letter written by a famour American doctor Oliver Wendell Holmes, who tried to pursuade his colleagues to wash their hands, and stop killing mothers from Puerperal Fever.

He failed and got angry beyond frothing description, and wrote some really interesting documents on it.

In the end, he wrote a widely circulated letter in 1855, to his peers declaring that he no longer had any stomach for their stupidity and would simply back out of medicine.

Yet, he had no peer at the time. All the rest were utter total idiots.

but every now and again, I read that letter and think... "I know JUST how he feels."

He wrote:
I do not expect ever to return to this subject. There is a point of mental saturation, beyond which argument cannot be forced without breeding impatient, if not harsh feelings towards those who refuse to be convinced. If I have so far manifested neither, it is well to stop here, and leave the rest to those younger friends who may have more stomach for the dregs of a stale argument.

Later on he says...
I am too much in earnest for either humility or vanity, but I do entreat those who hold the keys of life and death, to listen to me also for this once. I ask no personal favor; but I beg to be heard, in behalf of the women whose lives are at stake, until some stronger voice shall plead for them... let it be remembered that this is no subject to be smoothed over by nicely adjusted phrases of half-assent and half censure divided between the parties... If I have been hasty, presumptuous, ill-informed, illogical; if my array of facts means nothing; if there is no reason for any caution in the view of these facts; let me be told so, on such authority that I must believe it, and I will be silent henceforth, recognizing that my mind is in a state of disorganization. ... If I am wrong, let me be put down by such a rebuke as no rash declaimer has received since there has been a public opinion in the medical profession of America; if I am right, let doctrines which lead to professional homicide be no longer taught from the chairs of those two great Institutions. Indifference will not do here; our Journalists and committees have no right to take up their pages with minute anatomy and tediously detailed cases, which it is a question whether or not the 'black-death' of child-bed is to be scattered broadcast by the agency of the mother's friend and adviser. Let the men who mould opinions look to it; if there is any voluntary blindness, any interested oversight, any culpable negligence, even, in such a matter, and the facts shall reach the public ear; the pestilence-carrier of the lying-in-chamber must look to God for pardon, for man will never forgive him.

they ignored him, and continued to teach and practice, death and murder (professional homicide) for decades more....

I'll have another related rant when I do a book review here on a book I'm reading right now.