hello, i am considering moving to switzerland in my future and i am wondering about the vaccine schedule there. i live in the united states where our children get about 17 different vaccines, and lots of doses of them. but we also have "exemptions" that parents can use to opt out of getting the shots for their children. these are mainly used in order to send children to school unvaccinated due to medical, religious, or philosophical/personal reasons. our exemption options [the 3 i just mentioned] vary by state, but we mostly have a lot of freedom to choose whether or not to vaccinate.

i am just beginning my research of switzerland and other european countries, and any information and advice is welcome! thank you!

Link to the Swiss vaccination plan. Not sure how it works about the exemptions.

There is NO LAW that requires you to vaccinate your child.

just doctors, who give you the whole irresponsible parent speech, then again, not all doctors are so vaccination eager.

You can choose what injections you would like for your children and for yourselves. There is no "you have to have it done" but some vaccines I personally think are a good idea.

If you are not sure if there is something missing then when you are here, go to a doc and ask him to please sort it out for you. They do take the time (from experience!!) and will inform you of any vaccines that are missing or should be updated. The choice though lies by you but to get the info is no problem. Much easier than trying to sort through all the medical jargon yourself at home.

im pretty educated on vaccines and particularly the u.s. schedule. switzerland has a lot less shots! lol! and thats really cool that its not mandated. not even for school?

Even in school... in USA when they tell you it is manditory, they are lying... there is NO LAW anywhere in the USA that makes it a requirement to attend school. I am very happy they are less pushy here!

The vaccinations are not compulsory in any ways. If your kids are not immunised, and something like measles go around (as happened a couple of years ago) then your un-immunised kids should be quarantined.

I'm not sure about there being 'less' on the Swiss schedule... there are ones that are recommended for all children and offered for free (measles, mumps, rubella, diptheria, tetanus, whooping cough and polio), and others that are recommended but might involve a higher cost or are not done for small children, but are done for older children (meningococcal, tick encephalitis), and some that are only recommended for particular kids (for example, flu shots are sometimes recommended for kids with diabetes, but not generally for young children)... and there are some that are only needed for travel to countries with high prevalence (typhoid, japanese encephalitis).

Chicken pox is in a category of it's own (see the recent chicken pox discussion or talk to your doctor about it). Some are very relevant to health care workers and those travelling (Hepatitis B). Some are recommended for girls more than boys (rubella booster for girls before they hit the age that they could get pregnant, HPV also to reduce risk of cervical cancer)....

When the measles thing went round Vaud a couple of years ago, the school asked for evidence of measles immunisation. It wasn't compulsory, but they said that in the event of a local outbreak (they defined it using local towns, the school district, etc) any undocumented/unvaccinated children would be banned from school until the outbreak was over. I think it probably terrified a few working parents into getting their kids jabbed!

My pediatrician advised me to make sure to get the measles vaccination for my son before we go to US on vacation because she said most of the measles outbreaks in the US come from....Switzerland!

Well, that's not entirely true. There is no federal law, but each state has their own laws and requirements which can force the parent to cough up a good excuse for the lack of vaccinations or risk their child being refused entry to school.

As for less pushy, I just read an article in the nyt from some expat mamma saying how wonderful it was that her pre-school let 4yo play with sharp saws and I immediately knew she must be talking about Switzerland.

Not surprising, since Switzerland contributes a quarter of all measles cases in Europe.

where did you get that stat from??

I was wondering if PaddyG's statement was a tongue-in-cheek response to Prishe's statement.

I'm struggling that little old Switzerland can be held responsible for entire measles outbreaks over the US, or how they can even quantify it.

From 2006 to 2009..

http://www.bag.admin.ch/impfinformat...2c_JjKbNoKSn6A--

Hm- there's this WHO Report http://www.euro.who.int/en/what-we-p...breaks-in-2012

"Measles outbreaks are extremely costly to control. A well-documented 2008 outbreak in Arizona of seven measles cases, traced to a traveler from Switzerland, affected two hospitals, caused significant disruption, and cost $800,000 to respond to and contain. That same amount of money could purchase about 2,5 million doses of measles vaccine for developing countries."

I haven't seen much else - there's this report about measles in Europe, but I can't tell that it actually measures Switzerland at all (not in the tables)
http://ecdc.europa.eu/en/publication...ruary-2012.pdf

You stole my line

It was such a good line, I thought it worth repeating

People may be interested in this link which gives the both the confirmed and suspected measles cases within Europe from June 2011-May 2012. This is the latest listing from WHO (as of 01.Jul.2012) and yes it does include Switzerland. This reports the incidence rate per 1 million population and is updated every month. If you scroll down it also gives the incidence rates for rubella

http://www.euro.who.int/__data/asset...-July-2012.pdf

A vaccination is a form of the virus that will not replicate. So why would you avoid a vaccination? why subject your children to get the disease when the virus will cause them to be ill for a period of time, risk of complications, and perhaps subject them to lifetime of problems.

doesn't make sense to me.

do NOT believe that crap about how vaccinations caused mental defects (like autism etc) . that research was deemed unreliable and the doctor who did it is in jail for FRAUD.

yes, i am a Doc and of course this is the training that i have had speaking.

It may be sensible to exercise caution if you have a sensitivity to any of the suspension ingredients. Some vaccines solutions contain egg (proteins?) so you should disclose that to your doctor if you are likely to have a problem.

EDIT: I have no issue with vaccines otherwise.