Re: USA source of monovalent MMR equivalents??

[Karen]

DS is now 3 and just had his first MMR a few eeks ago. Our family dr was
trying to get the individual vaccines for a year and was never able to.
We took ds to a pediatrician for his 3 yr check-up and they also checked
into the individual vaccines for us and found out that only the Rubella
is available separately (because they need it to give to adult women as
per the pregnancy issues w/ rubella), and the company which manufactured
the separate vaccines is not making them any more, so only the
combination is available. That's what the ped said. So we went ahead and
got the MMR, but only the MMR and have no reactions to report.

-Karen, mom to Henry-

[Robyn Kozierok]

In article >, Richard > wrote:
>Thanks, Karen. :( At least we (just barely) escaped the new
>combined five-component pertussis-diphtheria-tetanus-inactivated
>poliomyelitis-Haemophilus b conjugate vaccine.

I'll probably be sorry I asked, but what is the advantage of / obsession
with uncombined vaccines? The above combination represented 3 jabs for
my kids, and I'm sure *they* would have preferred a single shot. They had
them all at the same time anyhow, so in our case it would have been just
less pain, unless there is some disadvantage to mixing them in one shot
that goes beyond having to get them all at once. I presume there is
some theory that it is safer to get them in separate jabs, possibly at
separate times? Is there any research to support this? We're done with
vaccinations for a couple of years now, so this is mostly just curiosity.

Thanks,
--Robyn (mommy to Ryan 9/93 and Matthew 6/96 and Evan 3/01)

[Michelle J. Haines]

In article >,
says...
> In article >, Richard > wrote:
> >Thanks, Karen. :( At least we (just barely) escaped the new
> >combined five-component pertussis-diphtheria-tetanus-inactivated
> >poliomyelitis-Haemophilus b conjugate vaccine.
>
> I'll probably be sorry I asked, but what is the advantage of / obsession
> with uncombined vaccines? The above combination represented 3 jabs for
> my kids, and I'm sure *they* would have preferred a single shot.

No kidding. I think Gareth was at four shots for his first ones --
DTaP, IP, Comvax (Hep B and Hib), and Prevnar. This with get Theona
down to two -- the new combination, Hib, and Prevnar. It's too bad
they couldn't put Hib in the combination since they have it combined
with HepB in one vaccine, but hey, it's still one less stick.

Michelle
Flutist

--
In my heart. By my side.
Never apart. AP with Pride!
Katrina Marie (10/19/96)
Xander Ryan (09/22/98 - 02/23/99)
Gareth Xander (07/17/00)
Zachary Mitchell (01/12/94, began fostering 09/05/01)
Theona Alexis (06/03/03)

[Karen]

Our own personal reasoning, based more on what seems common sense to us
and the fact that there are autoimmune issues in my family tree than on
necessarily anything that we've read,is that bombarding a still
developing immune system (some reading suggests the immune system isn't
mature until around age 5) with so many doses all at once of foreign
stuff for the body to figure out what to do with is unwise.

In our particular situation, we are concerned about a body which may
have genetic markers for autoimmune diseases being triggered into an
autoimmune reaction by a huge dose of vaccines. My thoughts on this are
based on my mother-gut-instinct and a general cynical and suspicious
view of any established ideas on anything, my husband's view on this
comes from having a background in science, incuding his undergraduate
degree in meolecular biology from a pretty major school for such things.

Personally, I don't care how many extra trips to the doctor's office we
have to make, and ds has always been nursed through every shot so he
really has no issues with shots. We are doing selective vax, so he
hasn't had quite as many shots anyway. I don't like this coersion into
getting medical treatment you don't want simply because individual doses
of the vaxs are no longer available. Ds would have been vaccinated for
MMR a year earlier had the individual doses been available, but the
government and medical establishment doesn't seem to want to trust
people with choice. Don't get me started!

-Karen, mom to Henry 3-

[Scott Lindstrom]

Robyn Kozierok wrote:
> In article >, Richard > wrote:
>
>>Thanks, Karen. :( At least we (just barely) escaped the new
>>combined five-component pertussis-diphtheria-tetanus-inactivated
>>poliomyelitis-Haemophilus b conjugate vaccine.
>
>
> I'll probably be sorry I asked, but what is the advantage of / obsession
> with uncombined vaccines? The above combination represented 3 jabs for
> my kids, and I'm sure *they* would have preferred a single shot. They had
> them all at the same time anyhow, so in our case it would have been just
> less pain, unless there is some disadvantage to mixing them in one shot
> that goes beyond having to get them all at once. I presume there is
> some theory that it is safer to get them in separate jabs, possibly at
> separate times? Is there any research to support this? We're done with
> vaccinations for a couple of years now, so this is mostly just curiosity.


DD had a reaction to the Haemophilus vaccine -- although
I thought it was the Haemophilus A, not the b conjugate
vaccine (whatever that is -- it's been a while :) ) With
5 shots in one, it's kinda hard to tell what's causing what
if something goes awry.

Her reaction (fever) was fairly rare, btw, and certainly
can't be linked to the vaccine, but it did recur each time she
got the shot ( there were 2 or 3 of them )

Scott DD 10 and DS 7

[Astromum]

Robyn Kozierok wrote:
>
> I guess that was my main point. Is it known or believed that administering
> the vaccines separately "nullif[ies] any chance of side effects"? Unless
> parents are skipping the vaccines they consider too risky, which has its
> own risks.
>

Can't help you there. I think this is one of the points that needs
to be addressed by future studies. Many people seem concerned about
it, and my gut feeling is that it makes sense the 3 shots in one
have a higher risk than 3 separate shots. However, I don't believe
the risks are ever truly zero, they are just a whole lot smaller
than the risks of your child getting ill with the disease.

--
-- Ilse
mom to Olaf (07/15/2002)
TTC #2
"What's the use of brains if you are a girl?"
Aletta Jacobs, first Dutch woman to receive a PhD