CHILDRENS HEALTH

Vaccinations 245

Section Map

For detailed chapter and verse I will refer you to www.rivm.nl , the website of the national vaccination programme, the Rijksvaccinatieprogramma . They have some information in English at http://www.rivm.nl/rvp/informatie/engels.jsp , where a number of documents come up. They are described in Dutch, but if you open the pdfs, they are written in English.

Briefly, your child will be immunised against:

• diphtheria - diftherie
• whooping cough - kinkhoest
• tetanus - tetanus
• polio - polio
• Hib diseases - HIB-ziekte
• mumps - bof
• measles - mazelen
• rubella - rode hond
• group C meningococcosis - groep C meningokokkenziekte
• pneumokokkenziekte - pneumokokkenziekte
• plus - at a later date, for girls - the cervical cancer (baarmoederhalskanker) vaccine.
• Hepatitis B - hepatitis B - is likely to be added to the schedule from January 2012, according to a recent press release (summer 2010). Furthermore, depending on the land of birth of the parents, you may be recommended to give the child the Hepatitis B vaccine. 

Opting out of vaccinations

This is also entirely possible, although (understandably .) they really really do want you to have your child immunised. However, the national vaccination programme (Rijksvaccinatieprogramma) is voluntary, so you are at complete liberty not to have your child immunised against anything. Again, make it clear to your clinic what your plans are. My personal hobbyhorse is that avoiding immunisations is not good sense for your child or for society, but I will leave it at that: it is your decision.

I will add as a footnote that the MMR 'controversy' in the UK, about the combined mumps/measles/rubella vaccine (which was based on shoddy, inadequate and subsequently discredited research hyped up by a doctor with poor credentials and dubious motives) was viewed with some incredulity over here. There has been little media attention and less alarm among parents.

Preventative side