Widespread vaccine exemptions are messing with herd immunity

http://arstechnica.com/science/2012/08/widespread-vaccine-exemptions-are-messing-with-herd-immunity/

by shawndumas • 14 years ago

23 51 14 years ago

arstechnica.com

JoeAltmaier3• 14 years ago

tl:dr: ignorant people are hurting themselves

jfb5• 14 years ago

Correction: they hurt us all.

JoeAltmaier3• 14 years ago

Indirectly I suppose. How does my sick neighbor directly hurt me?

givan• 14 years ago

Some worries are justified, why doesn't a startup want to come with a solution to the actual vaccine that has lots of side effects because of all the adjuvants like mercury?

Is sad that facebook and instagram are the examples that most want to follow instead of making startups that have goals that can really help society.

jfb5• 14 years ago

Because virology is not a zero-capital business? Too, it can't be learned to any usefully significant degree by reading Microbiology for Dummies and watching Khan Academy videos?

eckyptang3• 14 years ago

I think you managed to sum up the ignorance of startup culture nicely there.

sliverstorm4• 14 years ago

I believe it's also somewhat regulated by the government- we don't allow just anybody to play around with polio in their lab.

lysol• 14 years ago

Because the real side effects are almost negligible compared to the diseases they prevent.

justatdotin• 14 years ago

... for high enough values of 'almost negligible'

dalke5• 14 years ago

Because those adjuvant don't have the side effects you think they do?

Because mercury is mostly removed from US vaccines, excepting a couple of types, and has been for a decade?

patrickgzill2• 14 years ago

According to the study I found, 1 in ~300 Amish have autism. 1 in 90 of the regular population have autism.

The fear of autism shows people are in fact paying attention; whether vaccines "cause it" of course is really the question...

tedunangst3• 14 years ago

Try plotting the incidence of autism and number of reality television shows on the same graph.

eckyptang3• 14 years ago

Apparently, the quality of men's sperm declines as they get older resulting in various genetic abnormalities.

The Amish seem to have families quite young whilst the rest of us are slaving away trying to get a house in the suburbs before we have children.

I'd consider that to be a better correlation than vaccines.

sliverstorm4• 14 years ago

Not to mention, the Amish are a fairly isolated genetic pool. The Amish could simply have a lower prevalence of autism the same way those of Northern European ancestry have a higher prevalence of red hair.

bwaldrep2• 14 years ago

No, it's not the question. Vaccines don't cause autism. This has been established beyond doubt. Further speculation about a link between the two is nothing other than dangerous.

http://arstechnica.com/science/2010/02/the-lancet-retracts-p...

http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjourna...

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn7076

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/ajmg.a.31846/full

http://www.health.ny.gov/prevention/immunization/vaccine_saf...

patrickgzill2• 14 years ago

Don't understand the downvotes - thought that the quotes around "cause it" would make it clear that I am not subscribing to any theory. That autism has increased is not questioned, what causes the increase is still unknown...

ars2• 14 years ago

Assuming the study is correct, then you should really say: "1 in ~300 Amish are diagnosed with autism."

Amish are far less likely to take their kids to the Dr. and the Amish family life is quite different from the rest of America. So behaviors that cause problems in public schools are not a concern there.

islon• 14 years ago

Children should't pay for their parents ignorance. Vaccines should be mandatory with very few exception where the child can't be vaccinated because of some real problem.

mgarfias2• 14 years ago

What would you tell the parents of a child who died due to the vaccines you mandate? Yes, kids die, and have other complications.

aidenn0• 14 years ago

And if a kid gets killed by a seatbelt, do we say that we shouldn't have seatbelt laws? The data is pretty clear that universal vaccination is less harmful than the alternatives.

jfb5• 14 years ago

The same thing you tell a parent of a child that dies of pertussis caught from an unvaccinated schoolmate. I am sympathetic to exceptions to vaccination, but only those that accept the science. When pseudoscientific twaddle preys on the natural fears of parents, it has transcended bafflegab and is flirting with actual evil.

dalke5• 14 years ago

It's a tragedy. It's horrible that what we have is the best we can do. We're putting lots of research and funding into making vaccines and treatments even safer. I really wish there were a better way to prevent the mass epidemics which will happen if we don't have vaccines. Nothing we do can replace your child. We can offer counseling if you want someone to talk to, and of course our heart-most sorrow.

Now, what would you tell the parents of the children in iron lungs that got polio because we decided that we couldn't mandate vaccinations?

gwern• 14 years ago

What Benjamin Franklin said centuries ago, when vaccinations were far more dangerous:

> "In 1736 I lost one of my Sons, a fine Boy of 4 Years old, by the Smallpox taken in the common way. I long regretted bitterly and still regret that I had not given it to him by Inoculation. This I mention for the Sake of Parents who omit that Operation on the Supposition that they should never forgive themselves if a Child died under it; my Example showing that the Regret may be the same either way, and that therefore the safer should be chosen."

ars2• 14 years ago

> Vaccines should be mandatory

I think everyone should vaccinate, but I don't agree they should be mandatory because they would set a horrible precedent.

Do you really want to allow the government to force people take medication? Even criminals with psychiatric problems are rarely forcibly medicated.

tedunangst3• 14 years ago

California should start a special charter school for the unvaccinated children.

jemfinch• 14 years ago

No, parents who want their kids to remain unvaccinated should do so. California should not enable anti-science stupidity; not with my tax dollars, at least.

YokoZar• 14 years ago

I think the idea was to put the unvaccinated children into their own ghetto so those with selfish parents don't infect the rest of us.

droithomme3• 14 years ago

Almost no adults who promote universal vaccinations for children are up to date on their own vaccinations.

Doubt this? Survey the people at your office about their last boosters for each vaccine of interest.

Survey of whether adults have EVER had a Hep B vaccine:

http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm5518a3.htm#tab

Total average: 34.6% of all US adults surveyed. That's much lower than the rate at these schools.

Have you had your adult booster for measles? Only one dose was given to children before 1996. This is now known to be inadequate. Those born before 1996 who have had no booster may consider themselves among of the inadequately vaccinated.

http://www.fraserhealth.ca/about_us/media_centre/news_releas...

dalke5• 14 years ago

So what? The document you linked to says the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices recommends "universal vaccination of infants; catch-up vaccination of unvaccinated children and adolescents; and vaccination of unvaccinated adults at increased risk for infection. " It does not recommend universal vaccination of adults for Hep B.

The main recommended one for adults is a tetanus/diphtheria/pertussis booster every 10 years. My last tetanus shot was about 2 years ago. I got my last MMR shot as an adult - there was an outbreak in Florida and the colleges required MMR boosters for all students.

The other vaccines in the US are recommended only "if you have a specific risk factor" or for "certain medical or other indications."

droithomme3• 14 years ago

Congratulations on being up to date on MMR, unlike 65% of other adult americans.

Here are the CDC's vaccine recommendations for you.

http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/schedules/downloads/adult/adult-...

tedunangst3• 14 years ago

Before people stopped vaccinating their children, there were like 0 cases of measles in the US. One dose was adequate.

droithomme3• 14 years ago

Italy France and Spain don't vaccinate against it widely. Most of the few current cases came in via adults from Western Europe and are spread in part by the lack of vaccination of US adults. The western europe situation, and low rates of adult immunization have been issues for decades.

How to solve the problem? Mandate adult vaccinations? Require immunization certificates for everyone entering the country? These are much larger factors than a few childhood immunization exemptions and a rational approach would thus focus on them first.

jballanc• 14 years ago

    "There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and
    there always has been. The strain of anti-intellectualism
    has been a constant thread winding its way through our
    political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion
    that democracy means that "my ignorance is just as good as
    your knowledge."

        -- Isaac Asimov

I sometimes wonder if this is the "true price of freedom"...

notJim• 14 years ago

There was a person I knew in college who ardently believed in a lot of popular pseudo-science myths, like the ones about vaccination, and that global warming isn't real, that it's just a conspiracy of climate scientists.

In about a year, that person will be awarded a PhD in Aerospace Engineering. The cognitive dissonance is astonishing to me.

tokenadult• 14 years ago

Here is a link to the American Journal of Public Health article underlying the Ars Technica article kindly submitted here.

http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2012.3...

Alison Buttenheim, Malia Jones, and Yelena Baras. Exposure of California Kindergartners to Students With Personal Belief Exemptions From Mandated School Entry Vaccinations. American Journal of Public Health: August 2012, Vol. 102, No. 8, pp. e59-e67.

doi: 10.2105/AJPH.2012.300821

The website Science-Based Medicine has especially good reporting and commentary on vaccine policy issues,

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/category/vacci...

with two recent stories of note:

"Holding the Polio Vaccine Hostage,"

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/holding-the-po...

describing what's holding back efforts to eliminate polio in the same way that smallpox was eliminated by mass vaccination,

and

"Steve Novella vs. Julian Whitaker on vaccines at FreedomFest,"

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/battling-antiv...

describing a debate between an opponent of vaccination and a knowledgeable doctor.

Widespread vaccine exemptions are messing with herd immunity

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