(not a great image, sorry)
Posted on 11/04/2011 4:28:40 AM PDT by surroundedbyblue
Example 1: An unvaccinated child contracts pertussis. The child comes into contact with 19 other children, all of whom have been vaccinated. The child is very sick, recovers, but no other child contracts the disease.
Example 2: An unvaccinated child contracts pertussis. The child comes into contact with 19 other children, none of whom have been vaccinated. 5 of the other 19 children contract the disease, and pass it on to 5 children each, and so on...an epidemic is started.
Your examples are not all inclusive. HPV vaccine would be one example of that.
No problem.
It isn't something that you think about at first. You just see the graph and it looks "right". But then when you think of the immense advances in basic medical care that occurred around the turn of the last century (punctuated by the First World War), you can see that it makes sense that more sick people are given the chance to pull through with the proper support.
This is pretty explosive if true. Where are all the other sites proclaiming this “fact”? And can you tell us where the Dr. got this information? All the article has is a single statement. Where’s his proof?
That’s a great chart. It would be more interesting if it, too, went back to 1900 on the X axis. I’d appreciate seeing one of those, for comparison.
Go to the nearest Convent and check in for awhile. While there infect yourself with HPV assuming you have not gotten vaccinated yet. Rinse, stir, repeat. Her statement is falsified if you escape genital warts.
He was showing what the term "herd immunity" means to someone who denies it exists. And basically, that's what it is. It's a very simple concept used with great success.
Tom I was being facetious. I was discussing death rates and my point was to illustrate the misuse of death rate statistics. Ergo, I posted a graph of same. If I was discussing incidence I would have posted the graph you did. Sorry for the misunderstanding though, I should not have been facetious to you.
No problem.
True enough. But I was just attempting to illustrate that conceptually there is such a thing as herd immunity.
(not a great image, sorry)
Not bad! Busy, but overall I can't complain...you?
I’m very well versed and proficient in HTML. But thanks for the suggestion. As you evidently were smart enough to follow the link anyway, congratulations!
Of course death rates are not determinative of whether one should be vaccinated or not are they?
Your graph only goes to prove the effectiveness of vaccinations. Thank you for proving my point.
Busier than a dog with two, er, you know......;-)
The old man retired from practice a few years ago and I took over the whole thing, so I'm see patients in my sleep. (sometimes literally, it seems).
Well, my nephew was that 1 in a million, and is now severely developmentally disabled and has a seizure disorder. My son proceeded to have an extremely severe reaction to a DPT shot. I’m not taking any more chances that one of MY children will be another vaccine damage statistic.
1: An unvaccinated child contracts pertussis. The child comes into contact with 19 other children, all of whom have been vaccinated. The child is very sick, recovers, but no other child contracts the disease.
Example 2: An unvaccinated child contracts pertussis. The child comes into contact with 19 other children, none of whom have been vaccinated. 5 of the other 19 children contract the disease, and pass it on to 5 children each, and so on...an epidemic is started.
Get it now?
I perfectly understand how YOU think it works, I just don't agree.
What exactly would stop the vaccinated children from carrying the virus to other children? Just because they are unsymptomatic because they are immune does not mean they cannot carry and/or spread the pathogen. That is my point.
The vaccinated children have not "contracted" pertussis because their own antibodies destroy the antigen when it is introduced into their system. But a vaccine does not create a giant super secret shield that prevents them from harboring the pathogen in their nose, mouth, on their hands, etc.
I believe in freedom. If you want to vaccinate your children, you should do it. Just don't run that "herd immunity" jive past me in an attempt to bully me into following your prescription.
I could just as easily claim that your insistence on vaccinating against every pathogen you can think of is causing a rash of "superbugs" resistant to any treatment and causing much more severe symptoms than the original disease. Perhaps that is the reason for the resurgence of childhood diseases previously thought of as eradicated?
I have stated this before - microorganisms have been on this earth since the beginning of time and like all living things will find a way to survive. It's possible that your well-intentioned approach to disease prevention is in the long run causing more problems than it solves. But I'm certainly not going to smugly insist that you not vaccinate yourself or your children because of it.
LOL, the graph says nothing about the efficacy or effectiveness of vaccinations. What it shows is that death rates from measles remain basically unchanged pre and post vax although there is a school of thought that says death rates have increased by orders of magnitude due to epidemiological changes.
MD logic:
When I was in the Army I got a shot of penicillin. Anaphylaxis followed forthwith. Medic saves me with epi injector. Therefore by anecdote penicillin bad, epi good.
It would appear that deaths from measles took a header with sulfa drugs and another, bigger, one with antibiotics. It’s a shame we still don’t know how to treat measles. We might learn a great deal about virology in the process. It’s a really nasty bug. With a few mutations, easily performed in a college laboratory, it might even be a viable bioweapon. I wonder how easily the antigenic portion our vaccine strain recognizes could be altered. Or the virulence portion.
Vaccine tech is great but might lead to a false sense of security. Kind of like the Great Wall of China, with no reinforcements behind it. Plan A is great but Plan B is even more insurance. I guess I’m kind of wondering why, 50 years after the vaccine we still have no Plan B. How do we know the vaccine strain won’t evolve around our plans and sucker punch us?
I fondly remember the pronouncements from the 70’s that we were ‘over’ our fear of infectious diseases, that we had *won*. Right around the time we started seeing increasing numbers of antibiotic resistant cases of ‘common’ infections.
As long as those other children's parents had enough gray matter to have their children vaccinated, they'll have nothing to worry about.
I'm neither a big pro vax guy or a big anti vax guy. I basically favor most childhood vaccinations though the only ones I had as a child was polio and smallpox but draw a line when government wants to mandate vaccinations for my grandkids to prevent sexually transmitted diseases.
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