Measles is also undergoing genomic shift. As is Mumps. Just like pertussis. The closer you get to 100% vax rates for any given disease the more likely you are to see genomic drift.
We got very lucky with smallpox. It’s amazing that since we wiped out smallpox with vaccination (and not even 100% vax rates either) we have been not only unable to do the same with *other* disease like measles but are falling behind the evolutionary curve with ‘ordinary’ things like pertussis.
We’re better off learning to *treat* diseases. All biological warfare is really chemical warfare. If we fight the bugs, they always fight back with genetic drift. Always.
I didn’t hear the ‘better off having the disease’ from an anti vax website. I actually heard it from a former coworker (A PhD/MD) who interned at a prestigious agency in Atlanta (not cdc btw, even more prestigious than that). Vaccine immunity wears off much faster than disease immunity. Known fact. It’s why they’re having to re-vax huge segments of the population with tetanus. And teens with the chickenpox vaccine. Said former coworker burst my vaccine trust bubble in a big way. He was VERY much against the HepB mandate for neonates. His fear was resistant strains. Taiwan has been vaxing for 20+ years as a standard newborn treatment. Already 25% of the HepB infections there are ‘vaccine resistant’ strains. That number was ~7% when they started the program. Like Jeff Goldblum said, ‘life happens’.
There’s scuttlebutt that we’ll all have to get the MMR(V) as well. Little birdy tells me that measles immunity might max out at about 10 years for enough people that we will have to be revaxed at some point in our adulthood. Possibly multiple times. If true, then our ideas of ‘herd immunity’ will have to change. Those ideas were based on a herd of disease immunized individuals. Not vaccine immunized individuals. T1 and T2 are different responses.
All microorganisms mutate. It's a process called "evolution", which has been known about for hundreds of years. The goal of vaccination is to make enough people immune so that the virus doesn't spread and doesn't have a chance to spread before it mutates so much that the vaccine is ineffective. Then, a new vaccine must be developed... although that's not quite true, since new vaccines are *always* being developed. Measles has been almost eradicated in the US, but that's an achievement that can be easily wiped out through the efforts of anti-vaxers. Thanks to anti-vaxers, we now have pockets of the country where pertussis is epidemic and babies are dying. Try watching a youtube video of children with pertussis--it's painful. Watching those children struggling to breathe makes my own chest hurt. We're also just becoming aware that the acellular pertussis vaccine doesn't provoke permanent immunity. The medical community is studying this issue; new recommendations to receive the DTaP during pregnancy or if you are going to be around a pregnant woman or newborn are a result of the new information about the vaccine.
We got very lucky with smallpox. It’s amazing that since we wiped out smallpox with vaccination (and not even 100% vax rates either) we have been not only unable to do the same with *other* disease like measles but are falling behind the evolutionary curve with ‘ordinary’ things like pertussis.
We weren't "lucky" with smallpox. Several factors led to the eradication of smallpox. For one thing, both smallpox viruses were DNA, not RNA viruses. That means their genomes do not mutate as rapidly as RNA virus genomes. For another, only humans could become infected with smallpox. So the smallpox viruses had no animal reservoir in which to replicate when they were denied their human hosts. People exposed to smallpox were not infectious prior to showing symptoms, so it was easier for uninfected people to avoid them, thereby avoiding disease. And the governments of every country in the world were dedicated to the goal of wiping out smallpox. When the last outbreak occurred in the 1970s, public health officials descended on the city where the outbreak occurred and conducted massive vaccination campaigns, which successfully prevented the outbreak from spreading.
We're close to eradicating some other diseases. Measles and polio are almost gone, although the efforts by anti-vaxers could change that. Dracunculiasis has almost been eliminated; although it's not a microbial disease and not amenable to vaccination campaigns, that is still a big public health success.
I didn’t hear the ‘better off having the disease’ from an anti vax website. I actually heard it from a former coworker (A PhD/MD) who interned at a prestigious agency in Atlanta (not cdc btw, even more prestigious than that). Vaccine immunity wears off much faster than disease immunity. Known fact. It’s why they’re having to re-vax huge segments of the population with tetanus. And teens with the chickenpox vaccine. Said former coworker burst my vaccine trust bubble in a big way. He was VERY much against the HepB mandate for neonates. His fear was resistant strains. Taiwan has been vaxing for 20+ years as a standard newborn treatment. Already 25% of the HepB infections there are ‘vaccine resistant’ strains. That number was ~7% when they started the program. Like Jeff Goldblum said, ‘life happens’.
Oh, my. An organization "more prestigious than the cdc" but which is nameless? Would that be the NIH? NAIAD? WHO? FDA? PHS? Do you expect me to be impressed by that? Did your friend specifically say that it's better to get the disease than to get a vaccine, or was that a message you interpreted from his description of waning immunity? I find it hard to believe that anyone working in public health would actually advocate against vaccines.
It's been known for a long time that vaccine induced immunity wanes and that periodic boosters are needed. That does not equate to people being better off by having the disease. What it means is that people need to be more diligent about getting their boosters. Tetanus vaccine (since you mentioned it) has always been recommended every 10 years, and also in situations where the likelihood of exposure is high (for instance, if a rusty nail pierces your foot). Would you seriously rather get tetanus than get a shot every ten years? I know *I'd* rather have the shot.
I should mention that exposure to natural disease acts as a booster to vaccines. For example, if you are vaccinated against polio, and are exposed to someone with polio, you won't get sick, but your body will mount an immune response similar to the way you initially responded to the vaccine. Much of the reason we need boosters now is because the vaccination campaigns have so successfully eradicated these diseases that we no longer get that periodic exposure to act as a booster. I've never seen anyone with measles or polio; I suspect that most people my age or younger haven't (and I'm a grandmother).
What your story of hep B occurrance in Taiwan left out is the total number of hep B cases compared between pre-vac and post-vac periods. That bit of information is crucial in assessing whether the vaccine is having a beneficial effect on the population. Let's say, for example, that the rate of hep B was 10% prior to the vaccination campaign, and 7% of those cases (or 0.7 out of every 10 hep B patients) were with the "resistant" strain. And then after the vaccination campaign started, the rate of hep B dropped to 3%, of which 25% (0.75 patients out of every 3 with the disease) have the resistant strain. That still means that the vaccine protected 7 patients who would have become ill without it. And the fact that there is a strain resistant to the vaccine only means that researchers are busy developing a vaccine for that strain, which will eventually be included with the regular hep B vaccine.
I should mention that full-blown disease doesn't always induce immunity, or the immunity is not permanent.