"The problem, in part, is that the protection offered by the pertussis
vaccine wears off by the time you reach adulthood. Until recently,
however, this was not a problem. Back in those halcyon days when we vaccinated our children, the disease was not bouncing around our population and so it was okay that adults did not get re-immunized.
(That's the whole point of herd immunity: it's hard to get sick from
people who aren't sick...
"How responsible are these non-vaccinating parents for my pertussis? Very. A study recently published in the journal Pediatrics indicated that outbreaks of these antediluvian diseases clustered where parents filed non-medical exemptions – that is, where parents decided not to vaccinate their kids because of their personal beliefs. The study found that areas with high concentrations of conscientious objectors were 2.5 times more likely to have an outbreak of pertussis."
Graph credit Jen Kirby, based on data from the CDC. Via
The Dish.
So i guess we let natural selection take its course.
ReplyDeleteThat sounds like the response of a medieval mindset.
DeleteSo natural selection for the children who had no choice in the matter, and the other adults exposed to it who had no choice in the matter. Seems fair....
DeleteBut aren't vaccines linked to autism? That's what Jenny McCarthy tells me. Nincompoops.
ReplyDeleteIf that graph's vertical axis represents individual cases, I put forth that a) there are far worse things to worry about, and b) it grossly under-represents the cases across the board, because it's very under-diagnosed. And there had ALWAYS been whooping cough because the vaccine has never been a very good one (around 60% efficacy). So there's that. Not everyone who doesn't vacc listens to whoever that Jenny McCarthy person might be. (Actual medical journal and statistical consideration go a long way to informing choice, if you are willing to do the actual work. IT's not as easy as jumping on either band wagon, and it's sure not as easy as just doing as you are told to do by the CDC, etc, but it is certainly highly educational, and enlightening, and causes quite a few questions about the current vaccine protocols that are entirely evidence-based and not pulled from the anti-vacc ether.
ReplyDeleteIt's also questionably ethical to go to all the places listed KNOWING you have whooping cough. You are not one bit better than an anti-vacc person if you trot yourself out and "celebrated the Jewish high holidays, covered Washington's response to the crisis in Syria, hosted several out of town friends and a dinner party or two, attended the funeral of a close relative and the wedding celebration of a close friend, given a lighter strain of the whoop to my mother, " Actually you are FAR FAR worse than a simply anti-vacc stance, because not being vaccinated does not automatically infect a person with any given disease, but knowing you have a disease and spreading it is an entirely different state of loathesome. ("How long is a person with pertussis contagious? Persons with pertussis are most infectious during the catarrhal period and during the first two weeks after onset of the cough (approximately 21 days), or in most cases until 5 days after the start of appropriate antimicrobial treatment."
ReplyDeleteTo paint parents as ANTI vaccine entirely misses the point and is down right wrong.
ReplyDeleteAs a parent I am not against vaccines,its a natural occurrence in nature anyway as your body builds its own immune system against disease.
What I am very much against are two things:
1. the inclusion of mercury in many vaccines as a preservative
2 giving multiple vaccines in one go to babies, small infants.
Where I live I dint not have the choice to not give my 6 month old daughter multiple vaccines at the same time because for some idiotic reason they don't make them available as single shots.
If health officials would only listen to the concerns of parents then the vaccine uptake would be much higher. Stop painting many parents with genuine concerns as anti-vaccine when this is absolutely not the case. What concerns us is the manner in which the vaccines are given and the additives that are in them