View Full Version : Epidemics and vaccinations...
I just got back from our Fire/EMS medical run review. The Doc had some interesting things to say...
We had this last week a Patient Zero measles case. Fellow on vacation, came back from East Asia, went back to work as a server at the largest, busiest restaurant on our busiest island, mingled at several high-volume public places, basically managed to expose a good portion of the population of *that* island to measles before he became particularly symptomatic. Multiple new cases already popping up on that island from people who interacted with him. (The normal measles transmission rate is 1 person infects 12 others, this guy though was particularly well placed to infect hundreds.)
Fine, OK, we know the epidemic drill. We went over measles facts, how to protect ourselves, how to triage patients (Example: you don't want to put them in the ambulance unless you need to, because it takes about 2 hours after you clean the ambulance before the virus is truly dead. You don't want to walk them in the front door of one of our few medical centers, for similar reasons. It's easy to take most of your medical resources offline before you know it...)
What set me off: the doctor tells me that on several of our populated islands, the immunization rate for school-age-children is only about 60%. Parents have decided to rely on herd immunity, and not immunize their own children. Worse yet, on one of the islands, the one with the lowest immunization rate, a good portion of the EMS folks are also not immunized...
Really??!?!?!
My department requires blood proof of immunization for a zillion things before we let you walk in the door as a responder. The several schools I ran here wouldn't let children attend without immunization (for which I got incredible grief.).
YYYYYYAAAAAAAARRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH! (That was the sound of a chakra rebalancing...)
The Sheriff also didn't know about the immunization status of his deputies. So the entire department could easily go offline in the next few weeks.
Should be fun. Good timing, what with the season finale of The Walking Dead already broadcast last weekend.
Those immunizations cause Autism. I learned that from that celebrity girl, Jenny someone.* Looks like those rugged individuals out on your islands are overly dependent on Jenny-wisdom.
Fortunately I am very old, immunized with the real deal, measles-the-disease. I'll come do a stint in EMT on the islands.
*not really.
I would volunteer too but am too far away. I think I have had everything. I seem to remember multiple types of measles but they all blend together. Oh, yes, chicken pox and mumps also.
Miss Cellane
4-3-14, 6:41am
New York City is also experiencing an outbreak of measles--but the number of infected is below 30. But it keeps spreading throughout the city. Some of the infected were immunized though, so maybe this is a new strain?
I read somewhere last week that at the beginning of the century, measles was considered eradicated in the US. That led people to decide not to vaccinate their kids. The "herd" immunity isn't as strong as it used to be.
And there are pockets of outbreaks in California and Massachusetts and a few other states as well.
I also wonder what effect this winter has had with viruses. I know I spent a lot more time indoors this winter, due to the extreme cold and snow. And that meant more time in heated rooms with other people, instead of my usual hour a day out tramping through the woods (or the parks, when the snow gets too deep).
The link with autism and vaccinations has been proven false. Why do people still insist on believing it?
flowerseverywhere
4-3-14, 8:44am
Some people are lazy, some are misinformed, and some are stupid. My grandkids have an aunt who is a pediatrician and she would go ballistic if they were not properly immunized. She Is super smart and is a top pediatrician in a big city and would never expose her kids or others to anything that would be harmful.
We we have not seen plagues and epidemics in our lifetime, but chances are we will the way things are going. I worked as a nurse and you can bet before they let us the door of nursing school,everything had to be up to date.
Yeah, I just was in Seattle and I heard about the measles outbreak on the news, and was thinking of you, bae I don't know what island you are on, but they were talking about the "islands" so I assumed one might have been yours.
Having measles outbreaks in Canada as well with the movement from other countries and lack of local immunization.
"The measles case announced by public health officials over the weekend is linked to a previous case in Hamilton from earlier this month, CBC News has learned. It stems from a confirmed measles infection that came from a person who travelled to the Philippines on March 14."
"Two new cases of the measles have been confirmed in Calgary."
"Measles outbreak in BC reaches 300-plus, tied to 4 US cases ..."
I had the measles when I was a baby. Both of my children were immunized...
However, related to the epidemic side: My hubby has shingles, first symptom on Tuesday, went to doc on Wednesday and has anti-viral meds. However, I have never had chicken pox. Both of my children had it when they were young, and I didn't catch it then... however, in asking around - seems it can be contagious when there is direct contact to the rash. Of course, hubby and I live in the same home and even sleep in the same bed (Gasp!) I spent last evening in decontamination mode, washing all sheets / towels / etc in hot water with bleach and drying in the dryer on *blast*... He's been instructed to use a towel ONCE and place directly in hamper, then said hamper will be emptied into the washer... Question: How contagious is this? Am I unduly freaking out? (Every part of my body itches / tingles now - kind of like when someone says "lice" and you can't stop scratching your head.)
To play the devil's advocate............it can be a hard decision to make. I, personally, don't trust alot of what the government tells me is safe and what isn't safe. Maybe for the majority of people who get vaccinations, it goes without a hitch. But if you're one of the unfortunate ones who develops bad symptoms right after you've gotten a vaccination, then you are much more concerned.
Yes, it appears to save a number of lives.......but when your own life is torn apart from what seems like a bad reaction to a vaccination, then you're feelings are going to be different.
I'm just glad I got my kids vaccinated before I heard about the people who weren't so lucky. And we didn't seem to have problems............but........who knows why my son got ADHD, or my daughter has a couple challenges.
Maybe some people are "stupid", but some people are quite bright and are just trying to make the best decision they can, based on some of the reports and what they have personally experienced.
On the other hand......we in this country haven't experienced horrible epidemics, except maybe with polio and large numbers of our children haven't died from whooping cough, etc.,.............so we haven't seen how much the vaccinations have helped.
At this point, I don't want to make a judgement...........
http://healthland.time.com/2013/01/29/5-things-you-should-know-about-chickenpox-and-shingles/
To play the devil's advocate............it can be a hard decision to make. I, personally, don't trust alot of what the government tells me is safe and what isn't safe. Maybe for the majority of people who get vaccinations, it goes without a hitch. But if you're one of the unfortunate ones who develops bad symptoms right after you've gotten a vaccination, then you are much more concerned.
...
Of course. The problem is that it's nearly impossible to know who is going to react.
Yesterday I had my dog immunized with the usual things. He is drug reactive and immune-suppressed. As the dr was sticking him I slapped my forehead and thought: I SHOULD have at least given these inoculations over a period of time. doh. Fortunately, today he is right as rain. Anyway, the rabies inoculation is for the good of the public health, not for his own good, that's for sure.
I would NEVER get a vaccine that was in it's first couple years of use.......unless people were dropping right and left from the disease.
My DD had chicken pox when she was about 7, and had shingles when she was 23. Fortunately, it was a pretty mild case and we treated it early.
But I still wouldn't get the shingles vaccine.
I think I'm just gun shy. I had a flu vaccine when I was about 45, and it led to all sorts of problems..........some of which I never recovered from. And I feel 99.9% positive it was from that vaccine.
But I have had a tetanus shot since then. That's about the only one I'm willing to take chances on. I might get the pneumonia vaccine when I get older.
Miss Cellane
4-3-14, 11:06am
Another angle to the herd immunity is that there are people who can't be vaccinated--they are immuno-suppressed or allergic to the vaccine. These people depend on herd immunity--that is, they depend on the majority of people who can be vaccinated to be vaccinated, as a means of preventing or slowing the spread of disease. The fewer people who are vaccinated, the more those who can't be vaccinated are at risk.
Pretty much everything in life carries a risk. Vaccines save lives, but may also cause complications. Air bags save lives, but can also kill under the right circumstances. Vitamins are necessary for health, but too much of some vitamins can be harmful.
Parents stress out over getting the right crib for their baby, when there were 156 deaths related to cribs in the six years between 1997 and 2002; while they have no problem slinging that same baby into a car seat and venturing out on the highway--and there were 650 children under 12 killed in car accidents in 2011 alone, and an additional 148,000 children under the age of 12 were injured in car accidents.
But cars are familiar and we all think we are great drivers and besides, how will we get around without the car, so it really can't be *that* dangerous. And a new crib or car seat or mini-blinds with safety cords--those are things we can control.
It's the same with immunizations. It is something that parents can control--whether that be to give or deny them to their children. If parents were doing real research and deciding on immunizations, I'd have no problem. But most don't. They vaguely remember hearing something about somebody on the tv saying something about maybe vaccines give your children autism or something worse, so they decide not to vaccinate their kids.
Trusting in herd immunity when so many people don't vaccinate is like trusting all the other drivers on the road to be sober all the time. We'd like to think they are. But they aren't.
It depends on the disease, my circumstances, and the vaccine. If the disease is potentially fatal and a risk to the general population than yes. So, tetanus, measles (and all the other usual childhood vaccines), rabies (when I had a high chance of exposure), but not chicken pox, not flu vaccine. I have no flu risk factors and have doubts about the safety of a vaccine that is made new each year. I haven't gotten hepatitis vaccines yet, but will if I travel to a place where it's recommended.
It bugs me when people talk about vaccine risk and reactions like that's the only thing that's important. There are big risks associated with just being alive, getting the disease in question, being around unvaccinated people, etc. Any medical procedure has a greater or lesser degree of risk, so that shouldn't be the main deciding factor when one chooses to be vaccinated or not.
I recall being a kid in the early 1960s when it was a rite of passage to come down with measles, mumps and chicken pox. I recall having to stay in bed, eat chicken noodle soup and have my temperature checked often but we got through it. I guess there were bad outcomes for some, but I never heard of any. I also recall a scary incident when dd received one of the mmr vaccinations at age 4. She was diagnosed a week later with something called Guillian Barre (sp?) and she could not walk without her legs crumpling. Correlation likely. She recovered slowly thankfully but makes me glad I don't have to make that decision anymore. I work with new moms though and am floored at the number of vaccinations their little ones are given. I remain conflicted on the issue.
The Storyteller
4-3-14, 11:25am
One of the great threats to public health is the disinformation coming out of the anti-vac crowd. Pretty amazing some of the nonsense pseudoscience spouted to no good effect.
I recall having to stay in bed, eat chicken noodle soup and have my temperature checked often but we got through it. I guess there were bad outcomes for some, but I never heard of any.
In the 1950s, about 500 people a year died in the USA from measles, with about 500,000 cases a year.
We'd pretty much eliminated measles in the USA. Until the Eloi decided science didn't matter anymore.
My wandering thought processes wonders if epidemics aren't Nature's way of keeping populations in check.
My wandering thought processes wonders if epidemics aren't Nature's way of keeping populations in check.
I doubt that it's intentional, although if so, that old It's Not Nice To Fool Mother Nature commercial comes to mind.
I'm a believer in vaccinations as they provide the greatest good to the vast majority. I also believe individuals should opt out if they have concerns. Call me Mr Live and Let Live.
To play the devil's advocate............it can be a hard decision to make. I, personally, don't trust alot of what the government tells me is safe and what isn't safe.
On the other hand......we in this country haven't experienced horrible epidemics, except maybe with polio and large numbers of our children haven't died from whooping cough, etc.,.............so we haven't seen how much the vaccinations have helped.
...
I'm afraid this is the perspective of many of the unvaccinated and of the parents who are responsible for the unvaccinated children. Distrust.
Having worked for public health for 13 years, I am a big immunization proponent; if you have ever seen the after effects of a child who has suffered whooping cough, you would be a believer, too. Or been in the audience of the Blind Boys who travel singing gospel and telling their stories.
We have a measles concern down here too, as a child traveling from Asia came through the PDX airport and exposed who knows how many people. Our county has had, in the last several years, a couple whooping cough outbreaks.
Herd mentality my a@@...these diseases can be deadly. How great does a herd need to be to create the tipping point of immunity? It amazes me how people will give credence to someone like Jenny McCarthy, an "actress," but not to epidemiologists, physicians and scientists.
http://healthland.time.com/2013/01/29/5-things-you-should-know-about-chickenpox-and-shingles/
Thanks for the link... pretty much what I thought, but doesn't list ways to prevent continued contamination / exposure....Hubby was not told anything about isolating himself, covering the rash, staying home from work - nothing - only to use an unscented, non-deodorant soap product to reduce the irritation to the skin...
Miss Cellane
4-3-14, 2:36pm
On the other hand......we in this country haven't experienced horrible epidemics, except maybe with polio and large numbers of our children haven't died from whooping cough, etc.,.............so we haven't seen how much the vaccinations have helped.
I think this is a good point.
Most of these diseases are "childhood" diseases. People don't think you can die from them. After all, it's just a "childhood" diseases. And medical science has improved so much, they can cure anything now. If your kid does get chickenpox or the measles, you'll just go to the doctor and get some antibiotics and everything will be all right.
Because here in the US, we really haven't had a serious epidemic of a common disease in a long, long time. We get scared of the new flu viruses, because we read reports of people dying from them, but not mumps or whooping cough.
I remember years ago being startled that Jim Henson, the Muppets creator, died of pneumonia. I thought we had a cure for that! I think because people don't die of these illnesses the way they used to, we think we are safe from them.
Used to be, people went to bed for a few days when they had a cold. Now we only acknowledge colds by stopping by the drugstore to pick up some OTC medications that will allow us to continue on our daily routine. But maybe the old way was better--get rest and cure yourself, not soldier on while sick.
flowerseverywhere
4-4-14, 6:36am
Maybe some people are "stupid", but some people are quite bright and are just trying to make the best decision they can, based on some of the reports and what they have personally experienced.
On the other hand......we in this country haven't experienced horrible epidemics, except maybe with polio and large numbers of our children haven't died from whooping cough, etc.,.............so we haven't seen how much the vaccinations have helped
At this point, I don't want to make a judgement...........
by stupid I meant people who get an email that they don't check out and forward to everyone in their inbox. Or hear some celebrity say something that they don't bother to check out.
We live closer and have more exposure than ever since the advent of the automobile and airplanes, just a tiny sliver of time in the history of the world. When I was a child it was rare for a person to fly, and even travel by automobile to far places was not common. Today driving or flying from Boston to California takes a few days or hours. During the gold rush it took many months. And many Native American populations were wiped out by these strange diseases the white men carried to which they had no immunity. Check this pbs link out.
http://www.pbs.org/gunsgermssteel/variables/smallpox.html
Diseases like measles and smallpox killed a huge percentage of native Americans. There is often a good explanation as to why things have evolved to the way they are now in reading history.
I recall being a kid in the early 1960s when it was a rite of passage to come down with measles, mumps and chicken pox. I recall having to stay in bed, eat chicken noodle soup and have my temperature checked often but we got through it. I guess there were bad outcomes for some, but I never heard of any.
That's my recollection, too. I got the measles (and my parents gave me a hula hoop as a "get well" gift). I didn't realize there were so many deaths--if they had given outbreaks of measles the coverage back then that it gets today, there wouldn't be any room for news of anything else.
I also sometimes feel that we are overvaccinated, but in general, if my kids were babies today, I would definitely still get them immunized. In terms of a risk:benefit ratio, I think there's far, far more benefit than risk. I remember people with polio--one of my college friends had little mobility because of a childhood bout with it. No one has it now, and we can be thankful to vaccines or that.
Also, think about the communicability factor. So, you don't want to give your kids a shot, but the more people feel that way, the more likely it is that these things will affect the general community--in other words, getting or not getting vaccines is not an isolated decision.
I saw this interesting piece in this blog: (http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/badastronomy/2011/06/27/more-good-and-bad-news-about-measles-and-vaccinations/#.Uz6m7RaoeDo)
It’s an irony of life that vaccines are a victim of their own success: inoculations have been so successful in eliminating some diseases that people take for granted the diseases are gone. But they’re not gone, they’re waiting. When vaccination rates drop low enough, we see more measles. And pertussis. And the flu, and polio.
And when this happens, people get sick, and some die. A teenager in the UK recently died of measles. He had a compromised immune system, which means he relied on us, the rest of the population, to keep up herd immunity.
We failed him.
Miss Cellane
4-4-14, 9:05am
So I got curious and looked up the complications of measles. From the CDC website:
About 30% of measles cases develop one or more complications, including
Pneumonia, which is the complication that is most often the cause of death in young children.
Ear infections occur in about 1 in 10 measles cases and permanent loss of hearing can result.
Diarrhea is reported in about 8% of cases.
These complications are more common among children under 5 years of age and adults over 20 years old.
Even in previously healthy children, measles can be a serious illness requiring hospitalization. As many as 1 out of every 20 children with measles gets pneumonia, and about 1 child in every 1,000 who get measles will develop encephalitis. (This is an inflammation of the brain that can lead to convulsions, and can leave the child deaf or mentally retarded.) For every 1,000 children who get measles, 1 or 2 will die from it. Measles also can make a pregnant woman have a miscarriage, give birth prematurely, or have a low-birth-weight baby.
In developing countries, where malnutrition and vitamin A deficiency are common, measles has been known to kill as many as one out of four people. It is the leading cause of blindness among African children. It is estimated that in 2008 there were 164,000 measles deaths worldwide.
While my memory of having the measles (and the mumps and chicken pox) is one of being in bed feeling miserable for a few days, clearly not all kids get over these diseases that quickly.
Here is Penn & Teller's response (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfdZTZQvuCo) to vaccination hysteria. Some NSFW language, but they make their point very, very clearly.
As someone who got chicken pox in his 30's (in the late 90's) I wish I had known that there was a vaccine for it. That was definitely the sickest I have ever been. 9 days of fever ranging from 101 - 104.5.
I think the Penn and Teller thing would have been more effective without all the extra words!
I miss most of the segment on CBS news this morning, but they had a guy who was saying that the communities most likely to NOT want vaccines were very educated groups of people.
But he also said what Miss Cellane and I said earlier........and that is, we are spoiled.....We haven't seen alot of children die from theses diseases.
But......on the other hand......if you're one of the few whose child got autism after the vaccine, it's unfair to discount her feelings.
Too bad we can't somehow know who will and who won't be negatively affected by vaccines.
There's just so many unanswered questions about so many things!
Here is Penn & Teller's response (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RfdZTZQvuCo) to vaccination hysteria. Some NSFW language, but they make their point very, very clearly.
Very effective..
Looking at some comments on a parenting discussion board, I was surprised at how many parents were saying "No" to the question: "Will you get your child vaccinated?"
There was one person who said "Yes," and summed up how I feel:
"The question is: would you be able to live with yourself if your child were to die of a disease that could have been prevented with vaccines? Whooping cough is deadly to infants because they don't have the strength, literally, to sustain the cough. One day your child has a cold, the next minute he's turning blue and you're in the ER watching them shove a tube down his throat. Measles may seem like "just a rash", and for 85% of people, it is. The remaining 15% get terrible side effects from measles, including encephalitis. Mumps--no big deal, just painful salivary glands...until he grows up and realizes that he's sterile. Point being: even if vaccines did cause autism, I'd rather have an autistic child than a dead one."
flowerseverywhere
4-4-14, 2:30pm
I think the Penn and Teller thing would have been more effective without all the extra words!
I miss most of the segment on CBS news this morning, but they had a guy who was saying that the communities most likely to NOT want vaccines were very educated groups of people.
But he also said what Miss Cellane and I said earlier........and that is, we are spoiled.....We haven't seen alot of children die from theses diseases.
But......on the other hand......if you're one of the few whose child got autism after the vaccine, it's unfair to discount her feelings.
Too bad we can't somehow know who will and who won't be negatively affected by vaccines.
There's just so many unanswered questions about so many things!
except that really smart people who study such things have found no proof using scientific methods.
Wasn't to speak to this....but,
CathyA do you actually know of one child you can name that a doctor says they got Autism from a vaccination??
I have a grandchild with Autism and he was vaccinated and I can tell you once we knew his diagnoses there had been
lots of clues long before he had his first vaccination. We did not know what we were looking for and if we wanted to we
could have blamed many things.
I have belonged to Grandparents groups for children with Autism. I was told by one grandparent that her grandchild
had Autism because of vaccinations, so her daughter was not vaccinating her next child. Oh gee a few years later the second was diagnosed too.
There are many cases like this.....the jury is still out on what is causing the increase in Autism and we might want to be looking at all
possible causes.
p.s. I did get the shingles vaccination myself about six months ago, NO side effects at all.....
We've been having a measles outbreak down here in The O.C. of SoCal. I don't know much about measles and don't think I ever had it (had Chicken Pox though as a kid) so was probably vaccinated at some point in my life. I have heard that there is a link between autism and vaccinations but it seems to be tenuous. If I had kids I'd probably vaccinate them against the threat of other diseases, as that seems more likely a threat. I have had lots of other types of vaccinations - pretty much all of them I think - as an adult but have never had a problem. I would like to get the vaccination for Shingles as I hear that is a very nasty disease to get. Anyone get that vaccination?
http://www.cbsnews.com/news/measles-outbreak-in-orange-county-california-worst-in-decades/
I am also, old enough (66) to have a bad eye from a severe cases of measles at 18 months ago and many
scars on my face from chicken pox......okay now all hidden in the wrinkles but certainly did bother me as a young women.
Also, back in the late 50's our area had an outbreak of meningitis leaving two children I knew with deafness, one mentally challenged
and one death................. this was only the one's I knew of.
Yes, there are documented cases of children having bad reactions to vaccines (and for these families the devastation is beyond words) but,
the percentages are way higher for children and adults not done.
I also heard there is a big out break of meningitis somewhere in the US right now. On the news last night and many of the people who got it have died. Don't know if it was the bacterial or viral kind. All this is making me want to re-read Stephen King's The Stand :-)!
I also heard there is a big out break of meningitis somewhere in the US right now. On the news last night and many of the people who got it have died
My daughter was warned about the outbreak at Princeton when planning her college tour there recently:
http://web.princeton.edu/sites/emergency/meningitis.html
Princeton has provided a not-approved-in-the-US vaccine for their particular strain which they specially imported, which they are offering my daughter if she chooses to attend:
http://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/incoming-princeton-freshmen-receive-meningitis-vaccine-n68096
Princeton took strong precautions during the 1918 Spanish Flu outbreak, which looking back seems to have been a good move:
http://www.paw.princeton.edu/issues/2008/12/17/pages/6129/
ApatheticNoMore
4-4-14, 3:13pm
except that really smart people who study such things have found no proof using scientific methods.
have you seen the studies? Who funds them? If it's the NIH, the WHO, then yes probably. If it's the vacinne makers no wonder noone trusts them. I don't think it's likely vacinnes cause autism (although even if there was a link would it really be the vaccines or all the additives?). I certainly think lack of vacinations at least for the worst diseases can cause serious problems including mass deaths. I'm just saying how putting profit above everything else destroys all trust in society that's all - or to put it otherwise, we don't live in systems whose ultimate filter is truth. FWIW I don't know how much profit there is in vacinnes that have been around for ages, you would think there should be very little, but I don't know.
ApatheticNoMore.......you said what I couldn't. It's hard to believe anyone in this culture of greed.
I do think some people have funky systems and might react differently to things that the masses don't respond to.
I'm not saying we shouldn't all vaccinate our kids. I'm just saying that it's hard to know what's best in some cases..........especially with what ApetheticNoMore just said.. Sometimes there's not alot of truth going around.
Do you remember the Lyme vaccine? All DNR-type employees here were required to have it. It left some with horrible arthritis that couldn't be treated.
I think Miss Cellane makes a very good point about cars and vaccines. Even if there was a connection between autism and vaccines, (and this has actually been thoroughly debunked), there are also some cases where a seat belt caused grave injuries, but is this a reason to NOT buckle your kids in? Do you, in light of these very few cases, refuse to buckle your kids in before you leave the driveway?
I realize people with autistic kids are desperate for answers, but it really isn't an answer if you just make it up. That is just like the famous saying that because people eat ice cream on beaches, and people drown off beaches, ice cream causes drowning.
There IS a real correlation between these horrible diseases and injury/death. Nothing made up there.
Why oh why do people risk their kids (or their own) lives on the word of an actress, or radio personality, and completely ignore just about every medical/scientific study/person out there, who speak with the authority of actual science and data, and knowledge. OK, never mind. I know why.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/thetwo-way/2014/02/14/277058739/1-in-4-americans-think-the-sun-goes-around-the-earth-survey-says
:(
flowerseverywhere
4-5-14, 7:31am
have you seen the studies? Who funds them? If it's the NIH, the WHO, then yes probably. If it's the vacinne makers no wonder noone trusts them. I don't think it's likely vacinnes cause autism (although even if there was a link would it really be the vaccines or all the additives?). I certainly think lack of vacinations at least for the worst diseases can cause serious problems including mass deaths. I'm just saying how putting profit above everything else destroys all trust in society that's all - or to put it otherwise, we don't live in systems whose ultimate filter is truth. FWIW I don't know how much profit there is in vacinnes that have been around for ages, you would think there should be very little, but I don't know.
here is the story of the MD who started the myth, read it, very interesting
http://www.cnn.com/2011/HEALTH/01/05/autism.vaccines/index.html
from the NIH
http://www.nimh.nih.gov/news/science-news/2013/autism-risk-unrelated-to-total-vaccine-exposure-in-early-childhood.shtml
from the WHO
http://www.who.int/features/qa/84/en/
I could go on and on to post numerous links but believe what you want to. I prefer to believe scientists and physicians who work and study to make the world a better place
Gardenarian
4-6-14, 3:05pm
I can actually name three people whose children are autism-spectrum that their doctors say is related to vaccines. (This may be because they were vaccinated when mercury was still used as a preservative.)
I myself have a severe seizure disorder that was caused by the DPT vaccine I received as an infant. This is not debatable; I got the vaccine and was then hospitalized for a week before the seizures were somewhat controlled.
Still, I had my dd vaccinated, though I had the vaccines spaced out and waited till she was a bit older than usual. When she was 12 the doctor wanted her vaccinated for HPV and I just said no. She can get that when she is older. (This was when they were pushing for mandatory HPV vaccination of all girls.)
I think a lot of parents underestimate the dangers of not vaccinating their kids, and overestimate the dangers of doing so. Many people (appropriately) distrust Big Pharma. Vaccines are not entirely safe, as is often made out, but I think they are the lesser of two evils. I would never support mandatory vaccination.
I am getting over a mild case of shingles. It was no big deal. I don't know if I can still get the vaccine, but it is something I'll look into.
I got a flu vaccine this year and it the first time in 15 years that I have gone all winter without getting sick (touch wood.)
Complicated subject.
I'm interested in what an earlier poster said about the number of vaccinations that kids today get - I agree it's much higher than it used to be. If anyone knows more details on that I'd like to see it.
I'm agreeing that kids should get vaccinated, but at the same time it seems like it's a lot for their tiny bodies to handle when it's all given in such a short space of time.
I'm interested in what an earlier poster said about the number of vaccinations that kids today get - I agree it's much higher than it used to be. If anyone knows more details on that I'd like to see it.
I'm agreeing that kids should get vaccinated, but at the same time it seems like it's a lot for their tiny bodies to handle when it's all given in such a short space of time. I think that's probably because there are more diseases that we can vaccinate against in then in the past. So therefore we get more vaccines. I know this is true for my dog. Back when I was a kid my dog would just get a rabies and distemper vaccine. Now there is a whole huge list of vaccinations your dog is suppose to get that didn't exist a couple of decades ago. Same for adults who are travelling to foreign countries. Decades ago you'd get a few vaccines, now you get a huge amount.
I went to the CDC website to check their recommended schedule of immunizations - wow, I came up with 45 for a child under the age of 12 who was born in 2009... Now, 12 of those are the flu shot, as it is recommended for yearly dosage. I don't think those are combined, either, these are the counts of each immunization - the MMR is a combo of three diseases in one immunization (counts as one) as is the dpt...
I wonder if there is a national standard of required for school minimum - as most of the above *could* be considered voluntary...
One of the great threats to public health is the disinformation coming out of the anti-vac crowd. Pretty amazing some of the nonsense pseudoscience spouted to no good effect.
I don't think the other side helps with the blanket "vaccines are safe" statement. It isn't any more honest than the other stuff. I'd be more comfortable hearing the possible side-affects and rates of adverse affects and making an informed choice. I think it would be better to hand out sheets listing side-affects and possible issues and a chance to ask questions like they do with other medications than to be approached with unmarked hypodermic and being told "it's perfectly safe".
I think it would be better to hand out sheets listing side-affects and possible issues and a chance to ask questions like they do with other medications than to be approached with unmarked hypodermic and being told "it's perfectly safe".
I don't know about any other agencies, but at the health dept. I worked at, and at my kids' pediatricians here in WA State, the parent is handed a sheet of side effects (Vaccine Information Statement) for each vaccine administered. These sheets talk about the what, why and what-ifs related to the vaccine. The providers also speak to the parents about the contents and ask if the parent has any questions. It's not like they simply come in the room and start shooting.
iris lilies
4-7-14, 11:42pm
...I wonder if there is a national standard of required for school minimum - as most of the above *could* be considered voluntary...
I'm sure there is a medical standard which is "national" but it would be a very very bad idea to have a national regulation or law, if that's what you mean, defining one-size-for-all medical treatment. Sure it is voluntary, it should be.
I find a lot of this whole discussion pretty frustrating. First, there is evidence for autism starting in the second trimester of development, and has to do with how the cortex of the brain forms (http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/03/26/294446735/brain-changes-suggest-autism-starts-in-the-womb). So no, there is no possible way autism could be caused by vaccines, since babies are generally not vaccinated until they are born. Even if the paper purporting the autism/vaccine link had not been discredited by every scientist, ever, including both the idiot and the editors of the journal who published it in the first place.
Second, there can be some side effects from vaccines and usually they are a sickly feeling, low fever or soreness at the site of injection. Side effects of the diseases they prevent can be much worse: anyone know what an iron lung is, for example? Or deafness, paralysis, loss of limbs, major scarring, retardation, seizures, pain and malaise. You could ask the Dr if anti-histamines meds are appropriate in the case of an adverse reaction to a vaccine, and it should be. I do this for our cat, who has clear problems with the rabies vaccine (vomiting and/or itching).
Third, a lot of people complain about the number of vaccines given or the cluster of vaccines given at one time. That's not a mistake; vaccines are generally made of virus parts, dead viruses, or viruses closely related to the disease-causing ones that have been modified into low-potent viruses. This means your body doesn't really see them as something to make a lot of antibodies against, like getting dirt in a cut or something. To get your body to mount an immune response, vaccines include other substances to trigger the antibody reaction (hopefully without the histamine-type reaction which makes you feel crappy). It turns out that sometimes having several different vaccines together makes your body mount a more effective antibody reaction than if they were singly given. The reason you have to get boosters for some diseases, such as MMR and hepatitis B is that the booster creates a much greater response by your body, which leads to more effective protection. The medical community would rather give a single vaccine than multiple at different times because compliance rates would be much better, but unfortunately viruses (and in the case of tetanus, bacteria) are varied and so are individual people. In some cases the standard schedule is arranged to try to get good compliance while maintaining safety and having the most effective protection and least number of boosters. It IS science but it's not straightforward science the way, say, setting a broken arm is straightforward. No pun intended...
I for one cannot fathom why people would skip stuff like HPV vaccine for their children. It's a vaccine against one type of CANCER. We have a vaccine against CANCER!!!! Which is totally awesome! If there were a vaccine against, say, lung cancer would you get your child that? Or say "well that will just encourage him/her to smoke cigarettes so nope"? <shakes head> Thank goodness for The Onion (http://www.theonion.com/articles/the-pros-and-cons-of-vaccinating-children,35731/) though!
I appreciate the information on the practice of giving multiple vaccines together, RosieTR. That explanation makes sense.
It has to be super frustrating for scientists to watch the misinformation continue.
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