Immunisations...

[Seshat]

It is possibly the most socially responsible thing a parent can do, and ensures that they won't be just relying on herd immunity to protect their kid from debilitating or even deadly diseases that are preventable.

If a large enough percentage of the 'herd' isn't immune, the herd immunity fails. I forget what the exact percentage is - and it's in one of my books that's currently in a plastic box in the shed - but it's a scarily small percentage. Less than ten percent, I think.

If ten percent of parents don't get their kids immunised, and the kids don't take care of it as adults, we could get smallpox back. And polio. Whooping couch. Yellow Fever. And so on.


To quote Dr House: "I'm cursed with the ability to do the math."

[Daskinor]

Right, the issues with measles outbreaks is actually quite easy to understand. But the ant-immunizations crowd just scrapes at them for all hells worth. for people I hate ant-immunizations groups rank just below PETA and above people who eat all food raw.

Lets use measles as an example.

The odds of you getting measles in your life is around 1 in a million, depending where you live.
the odds of you having an adverse reaction to a measles vaccine is about 1 in 2000.

This is the point the anti-immunization groups chime in with. Its unnecessary, because look at the odds of getting verses your child getting sick from the vaccine.

Of course when doctors say adverse it means, site reactions mild forms of the disease, etc... In short any kind of side effect. Rare illnesses from vaccines are quite rare.


Now for why you can still get sick after you get vaccinated, or why everyone needs to be vaccinated. In USA, Canada, Western Europe, Australia and Japan. (I know I forgotten like 5 so don't yell at me) 96.5 % of their population is vaccinated. Now of the vaccinated populations 3.5 to 5% of the time the vaccine does not take. Don't blame the makers, blame your own body. It simply made the wrong antibodies happens all the time.

So you have this small window of people who can get infected.

Now we humans immunity only works so well. If we are in small contained environment and someone goes to a country where measles still around and comes back home. He gets sick and a few others gets sick. It will spread and people who that where vaccinated will get sick.

Even if we are vaccinated, eventually all the infection attempts will overload our immune systems. Throw in some kind of immune issues from stress or other illnesses. We will get sick, not nearly as long or as bad, but we will get sick.

This is why they take dorm infections really seriously. Combine that with all the active infections and people who are immune risks breading new strains that are resistant to our vaccine atempts. So yes very seriously.

[goldaries13]

Daskinor, I love you. I'm learning more from your two posts than from my semester long anatomy and physiology class.

[BlaqueKatt]

Go look for some epidemiology pictures of stuff we don't see anymore like scarlet fever

FYI-scarlet fever is bacterial and not vaccinated for-it comes from not treating strep throat quickly-and can become rheumatic fever-and can also lead to kidney failure/damage.

I've had both scarlet fever and rheumatic fever-I also have kidney damage from strep throat-it's not something to fool around with.

[Seshat]

The odds of you getting measles in your life is around 1 in a million, depending where you live.
the odds of you having an adverse reaction to a measles vaccine is about 1 in 2000.

And if we lose the herd immunity, the odds of any given person getting measles rises till it approaches 1 in 1.

Yes, if we lose herd immunity, there are diseases which you are almost CERTAIN to get, which are really ##@$&*ing nasty.

But since most people won't believe that, let's make it 1 in 10.

So the math:

If you're in a herd immune group, your odds are 1 in a million.

Odds of a bad reaction to the vaccine, 1 in 2000. ('bad reaction' can mean 'you get a little red spot that itches for a day or so')

Herd immunity can be lost when as little as 10% of the herd is no longer immune.

If you are in a group which is NOT herd immune, your odds rise to 1 in 10.


This is why my niece and nephew are vaccinated.

[Boozy]

People who don't vaccinate their kids are society's free loaders. They're taking advantage of herd immunity to protect their children without contributing to that herd immunity themselves.

[bigred]

Imagine if your child was too young to have had all the vaccinations and caught whooping cough or whatever from a child whose parents had decided against vaccinations. I remember back in the 80s a young bloke (about 20) at work got mumps. Mumps can cause sterility in men, and he hadn't had kids. That may have ended his choices. I think that now gets vaccinated against.

I also work with a guy who was one of the last to get polio in this country. Would you wish polio on someone? Isn't vaccination a better choice?

If we can wipe out a disease by vaccination, why not? See, for example, small pox.

Is there a vaccination against chicken pox? I never had it as a kid and I've heard it's worse as an adult.

[AFPheonix]

There is indeed a chicken pox vaccine now, and it is often on the required list of vaccines for grade school children.

[Greenday]

There is indeed a chicken pox vaccine now, and it is often on the required list of vaccines for grade school children.

Sigh, lucky kids. Though my aunt never had chicken pox so she got the vaccine in her mid-30s. Lucky.

[Daskinor]

Oh that reminds me. If you are a woman planing on having children and you never had chicken pox's.

Get the vaccine!

NOW!

[Boozy]

Someone told me that if you're an adult, and you get chicken pox, it could kill you. Whereas it rarely kills kids. I don't know why that would be, but that sounds like a good enough reason to get that vaccine if you're over the age of 18 or so.

[Seshat]

It can also cause birth defects if the mother gets it while pregnant.

And for that reason, they won't vaccinate pregnant women. So if you're female and plan to have kids in the future (or to not abort if you get pregnant accidentally), get vaccinated. Now.

[BlaqueKatt]

There is indeed a chicken pox vaccine now, and it is often on the required list of vaccines for grade school children.

it is and there is a MAJOR problem with this-

The immunity ONLY lasts about 12 years or so, as opposed to actually catching chicken pox which gives lifetime immunity-so you have to get a booster every twelve years-how many adults still go in for booster shots for things like tetanus(do you remember when your last tetanus shot was-it's supposed to be every 7-10 years)-and chicken pox is worse after age 12-so there is a major problem

[AFPheonix]

I do remember my last tetanus shot actually, although it's closing in on 10 years. I stepped on a pitch fork I had just gotten done cleaning stalls with

Yay for epsom salts....

As for chicken pox, some moms have gone back to having chicken pox parties, where they will expose their kids to a sick kid on purpose just to get it out of the way. It works I guess. I remember having it, and I hope I don't have a point in my life where I get run down enough for shingles to rear its ugly head. Ugh.

[Dreamstalker]

Another argument is that, "A baby's immune system is not ready for vaccines." Or some variant where its not healthy to tax a baby's immune system.

A number of babies are born who already have their immune systems taxed by things unrelated to vaccines (infections, etc). That argument is what leads to kids being sheltered from vaccines and anything else bad, which leads to the inevitable "superbug" and kids getting sicker than they needed to just because they were never exposed to X.

I was born as premature as you can get and still have a chance, I still have scars from all the tubes and wires I was hooked up to. That in addition to the other mild germs that could be deadly to a preemie would have taxed my body more than any vaccine I would think. Yes, I had to be held down to get the vaccinations; I had probably associated needles with getting prodded which I didn't like.

So get your children vaccinated!

When I was going through the Waldorf school, almost all the parents in the program didn't believe in vaccinations. Eventually, whooping cough spread through the school like wildfire when I was in the 3rd grade (I was pulled out of the school for a reason that was only tangentially related to the vaccination issue). IIRC a couple kids died, the ones who caught it and survived never looked the same.