I am a GP. I have saved a child from meningitis, probably. I can't tell you his or her name because I don't know which child it is. Since I started work as a GP in 1992 we routinely vaccinate against "Hib" meningitis. Until 1991 Hib disease used to affect 100 Irish babies each year. Since 1992 this has fallen to fewer than 20 a year; 400 children are alive and well in Ireland over the past three years who should be dead or damaged. Does Philip Boxberger think that I recklessly jab babies as my contribution to, to quote him, "cause more suffering and death than any other activity in the history of medical intervention"? Only a psychopath could inject babies and be indifferent to the results. Every time I stop and think: what am I doing?
Each week I read the international literature which holds the evidence of all experience in the world to date. I follow published national guidelines. But that's cold comfort when you personally take responsibility with parents to do this thing. So I'll give you something else closer to home than journals and expert opinion. Measles, mumps and rubella (German measles) are viral illnesses that can affect children. Apart from the illnesses themselves they can, albeit rarely, cause: brain damage, sterility, and dead or brain-damaged babies. In the case of chicken-pox, a similar viral illness, there is a discomfort both at the time and maybe when you're older and get shingles.
I have seen hundreds of cases of chicken-pox. I have seen maybe 10 cases in total of measles, mumps and rubella altogether, ever. There's the old chestnut that lifestyles changed and thus we're healthier and that is the key to their decline. However, we vaccinate against these latter three, but not against chicken-pox. Maybe three mysteriously gave up and went away, but then how come chicken-pox didn't?
Vaccination is not just an issue for you and your child. Your teenage brother may be left sterile from mumps if your child catches them. Your neighbour may have a deaf or dead baby because she minded your pristine child who was incubating rubella. In contradiction to what Philip Boxberger said, vaccines are not injected directly into the bloodstream, and yes, they are directed at the appropriate areas: this is why polio is given orally as the infection mainly enters through the mouth.
He also said that Sweden stopped whooping cough vaccinations in 1979 but appears unaware that they restarted the programme later because of the clear increase in deaths from the illness. Yes, there is a natural immunity gained by exposure to these diseases. But only for those who don't die of them in the process. It is equally nonsensical to talk of "unnatural" foreign material. All life is essentially the same, biochemically. All the environment passes through you - at one time or another. A lot of diseases are auto-immune anyway: diabetes, arthritis, thyroid and bowel trouble are caused in part by the body attacking itself. So the concept of "native" versus "foreign" has little factual basis.
Vaccines are not "absolutely" safe. With most vaccines there is a risk of maybe 1 in 10,000 to 1,000,000 of a serious reaction. Even at 1/10,000 that is maybe six of the babies born this year. But the risk of going out the door and catching one of these illnesses is hundreds of times more than any risk of the vaccine. What's best for a child's health must be decided by parents with their GP cautiously and informed by known facts - not unsupported viewpoints.