Vaccination & epidemic

[Clodfobble]

I fail to understand that comment. Jenny McCarthy founded the organization. It's her website. She's an airhead, but she's an airhead that supports vaccinating--on a less aggressive schedule, and with fewer toxins in the vaccinations--just like she says on her website.

Originally Posted by jinx

Keep in mind that (in the US) we do not vaccinate for typhus, typhoid, TB, and one of the biggest pre-vaccine era killers: scarlet fever.

...yet.

[Undertoad]

Jinx's last statistic seems pretty remarkable so I looked it up and she was right. The stat is hard to understand because overall deaths per 100,000 went down by about half in the same time period. Of course death is not the only negative to catching a major viral infection... you could have lifelong consequences, brain damage etc.

But overall it seems like societal hygiene is an excellent preventative for many diseases, so WASH YOUR GODDAMN HANDS, YOU DIRTY HIPPIES. That goes for you white trash barefoot uneducated crackers as well. And double for you Euro punters, because we all know you filthy buggars'll pee right in the middle of the street and not change out your underwear for a week.

[Undertoad]

So, so, do people think that autism is one possibility if the body finds it has a strong immune system, and isn't fighting anything because we're so ultra-clean nowadays, that the body starts to fight nutrients and/or useful enzymes? And stuff?

[Griff]

No soap fer me, thanks! Time to go sit in the goat crap for Francescas 10:30 feeding. I feel better already.

[jinx]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

Jinx's last statistic seems pretty remarkable so I looked it up and she was right.

Cool, how about these?

Pertussis decline 1900-1949(year vaccine introduced) 12.2 per 100,000 to 0.5.
Diptheria decline 1900-1949(year vaccine introduced) 40.3 per 100,000 to 0.4.
Typhoid decline 1900-1949 32 per 100,000 to <1.
Scarlet fever decline 1900-1949 10 per 100,000 to <1.

[Clodfobble]

The problem is that the risk always becomes unacceptable when it's your kid that gets hurt, regardless of the side. I have a friend whose 5-month-old baby caught Pertussis, just before she would have gotten her immunization at her 6-month checkup. She had to be hospitalized for two weeks, and there was a period where the doctors were warning the parents that there was a very real chance she might not make it. My friend now believes, not surprisingly, that the DTaP shot ought to be given to babies even earlier.

[Aliantha]

There are more cases of whooping cough being reported among small children recently. It has been attributed to less people immunizing their children.

[lumberjim]

There are more cases of stupid shit being posted on internet forums recently. It has been attributed to more stupid people having computers.

[DanaC]

If there is a directly chartable correlation between specific vaccinations and increasing rates of eczema, it makes sense to suspect that the vaccinations are at fault... that's one aspect of science.

My point was that it is not always so easy to make a direct chartable correlation between specific anything and eczema. We don't know anywhere near enough about the condition. So...if there is anecdotal evidence that a condition, which is connected to the immune system, becomes more severe in some babies, after they've been immunized, maybe this is a link worth looking at more closely. That said, the difficulty they've had in identifying any single cause or relationship beyond the loosely grouped immuno and allergic definitions they currently have, suggests that this is not such an easy thing to do. That doesn't mean those causes and relationships don't exist.

[Griff]

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

I fail to understand that comment. Jenny McCarthy founded the organization. It's her website. She's an airhead, but she's an airhead that supports vaccinating--on a less aggressive schedule, and with fewer toxins in the vaccinations--just like she says on her website.

The submit without questioning crowd has been running out their own airhead as well. I'd like to think the saftey and effectiveness of vaccinations were based on solid research rather than financial interests but then you see mandated chicken pox vaccines and you start to doubt. Jinx's numbers are pretty damning.

[Clodfobble]

Originally Posted by Aliantha

There are more cases of whooping cough being reported among small children recently. It has been attributed to less people immunizing their children.

Actually, that doesn't make sense. In most cases the children who got the whooping cough were not deliberately unvaccinated, they were younger than the vaccine schedule would have them immunized. In my friend's case, there's no question that she got the disease from her mother. Except her mother was vaccinated as a child, just like we all were. Her mother got the disease because, as doctors will freely admit, a vaccine doesn't give you lifelong immunity like having the disease does. It wears off. It is the millions of adults walking around who are now susceptible to the disease again because their childhood vaccines have worn off, rather than the handful of unvaccinated children. There's been a big push in this country--for over three years, at least, because I got all the handouts when my first one was born--for new parents to re-immunize themselves against whooping cough, so they won't pass it to their baby. We've set ourselves up to need lifelong "booster shots."

Originally Posted by jinx

Cool, how about these?

Pertussis decline 1900-1949(year vaccine introduced) 12.2 per 100,000 to 0.5.
Diptheria decline 1900-1949(year vaccine introduced) 40.3 per 100,000 to 0.4.
Typhoid decline 1900-1949 32 per 100,000 to <1.
Scarlet fever decline 1900-1949 10 per 100,000 to <1.

These numbers are completely irrelevant because Scarlet Fever and Typhoid are both caused by BACTERIUM, not viruses. You cannot vaccinate against bacteria. Bacterial diseases are prevented through better hygiene (on a mass, not individual level) and treated with antibiotics.

Clod, the weakened immunization among adults was not previously considered a large problem because these diseases are largely spread among children, and the idea was that if each successive wave of children were vaccinated, there would be no source from which the adults could contract them. Like we were successful at doing with smallpox, the trajectory for many of these diseases was total eradication, at which point vaccination could be ceased.

Unfortunately, the decline in immunity for adults vaccinated as children compounds the severity of these diseases when there is an outbreak.

[jinx]

These numbers are completely irrelevant because Scarlet Fever and Typhoid are both caused by BACTERIUM, not viruses. You cannot vaccinate against bacteria.

You're wrong again Tiki - Diptheria is also caused by bacteria, and there is a vaccine for it.

Originally Posted by Clodfobble

I fail to understand that comment. Jenny McCarthy founded the organization. It's her website. She's an airhead, but she's an airhead that supports vaccinating--on a less aggressive schedule, and with fewer toxins in the vaccinations--just like she says on her website.

...yet.

Her "official" stance sure has changed a lot, then.

Originally Posted by jinx

You're wrong again Tiki - Diptheria is also caused by bacteria, and there is a vaccine for it.

OK, you're right. I was mistaken about being unable to vaccinate against bacteria... certain types can be vaccinated against.

However, the decline of of bacterial diseases that we now understand how to prevent and treat using modern antibiotics still has no bearing on the efficacy of vaccines.

By your logic, the decline in Black Death proves that vaccines are unnecessary, because we don't have a vaccine for Black Death and yet there are very few cases of it. However, the truth is that increased hygiene and ready availability of antibiotics has resolved that issue, and it's unrelated to vaccination.