Why Vaccinations Shouldn't be Optional

[Saricharity]

There is no way I can even try to keep up on this thread.

 

[Strathos]

Just FYI: I'm autistic. Have been since birth. And I'd rather be that way than dead.

 

[.Mikha'el.]

MOD HAT ON!

Thread cleaned for a number of violations!

MOD HAT OFF!

 

[Zoii]

I found this interesting.. Reading this thread has spurred me into doing a little of my own research.

Chickenpox vaccination does increase shingles cases, but mainly in young adults: Study findings are in favour of universal childhood vaccination

Yes it was heartening to note that the result strongly supported vaccination:
"Our findings should allay some fears about implementing childhood chickenpox vaccination," he says.

 

[Liza B.]

Vaccines, of course, are beneficial on the individual level, since they reduce the risk of contracting illness and make it such that even if a person does, the experience isn't as severe.

However, not everyone can get vaccinated even if the injections are available. These include but are not limited to: very young babies, people allergic to components of vaccines, and people with certain disorders that impair the immune system. These people must rely upon herd immunity in order to avoid contracting various viral illnesses. But, herd immunity only works if enough people are vaccinated. Now, if every person that could be vaccinated was, herd immunity would be maintained quite well, and outbreaks of diseases such as measles and chicken pox would become exceedingly rare. Heck, when was the last time the US had an outbreak of polio?

Unfortunately, scare tactics and misinformation has resulted in many people choosing not only to not vaccinate themselves, but their children as well. As a result, outbreaks of diseases such as whooping cough have become more common, and it is the weakest and most vulnerable of us that end up paying the price.

I'd have no issue with people opting out of vaccines if that decision only impacted them individually. The fact of the matter is, anyone that chooses to not get vaccinated increases the risk of people that can't get vaccines (even if they want to) getting sick and dying.

"But Sarah, vaccines are full of toxins and cause autism and-"
They don't, and I am going to go through every single anti-vax claim I can think of.

1. Vaccines contain mercury: Vaccines used to contain a harmless mercury compound (just think about chemistry for two seconds; chlorine gas is extremely toxic, and elemental sodium reacts violently with water, but the table salt that is made of both elements combined is actually essential for people and only bad if they consume it in excess), but thanks to the outrage people showed at it being there, vaccines that used to contain it now come in variants that don't. Plus, tons of vaccines never had that compound to begin with, such as the chickenpox vaccine. In case anyone cares about some of the details, the compound is thimerosal, and it was there to help prevent the growth of any harmful microbes in the vaccine. In any case, you'd actually get more mercury from eating tuna regularly than from keeping up with vaccines, and that mercury actually is in a harmful form.
2. Vaccines cause autism: One guy lied in a study in the 1990s. That's it. Dozens of experiments have been performed and have found no link between autism and vaccines. However, many of the diseases people are vaccinated against can have the rare effect of causing lasting brain damage, and polio typically damages the nervous system severely. So, if a person doesn't want "damaged" children, the vaccines are the safer bet.
3. Vaccines contain formaldehyde, and that's a carcinogen: They actually do... as does human blood normally... and pears. The amount of formaldehyde in vaccines is trivial compared to the amount normally in human blood to begin with. That is, there isn't enough in vaccines for even a lifetime of vaccinations to make a difference.
4. This image

Oh dear, where to begin. I guess I'll address them in order of that list, minus autism because I've already addressed it. Shaken baby syndrome is the result of physical damage to a baby's brain due to the brain hitting the sides of the skull. There's no way a vaccine could do that, that's like saying a vaccine could cause your leg to break. Chronic ear infections are usually caused by bacteria, and are common in babies and young children due to the shape of a young person's ear canal and the fact that their immune systems are not done developing. Again, no means by which a vaccine could cause this. Far more kids would die from the diseases that vaccines prevent than die from the rare complications. SIDS is a term for when babies under a year old die with no detectable cause, and thus cannot be attributed to vaccines. It is notable that people that are poor tend to experience SIDS more, meaning that the people that experience it the most are people that get less vaccines, not more of them. Seizures are interesting when it comes to vaccines. There are only a few that actually have this as a potential side effect at all, and notably, the flu vaccine is not one of them. However, it is worth noting that kids that have a history of seizures in their family are more prone to this side effect, and it is more common if you get all of the ones that have this side effect at the same time, or get them along with the flu shot. So, this is a decent reason not to get your child vaccinated for, say, the mumps, if you have a family history of seizures, and you should avoid having your kid get multiple vaccines with this side effect at the same time. Here's this for anyone that want's to avoid doubling or up on seizure risks Vaccines: Vac-Gen/Side Effects
ADD, Asthma, Diabetes, and Meningitis are the same as Autism, there isn't any evidence that vaccines cause these or make them worse. As for allergies, allergic reactions to vaccines are rare, and it wouldn't make any sense for vaccines to cause allergies to chemicals they don't contain. Polio is not caused by vaccines, and the disease predates them. In fact, a severe polio outbreak in the US was only stopped thanks to a vaccine for it being produced. The only reason this isn't still a common disease in that country is due to vaccines, and I challenge any anti-vax person to actually find a reasonable explanation for the reduction in the frequency of diseases for which there are vaccines that doesn't attribute it to the vaccines.
5. Aluminum in vaccines: again, you'll eat way more of the stuff than a vaccine will give you, and the compound of aluminum in vaccines is mostly excreted by the body within just a day.
6. Too many vaccines is just as bad as too many antibiotics: Not at all. Antibiotics themselves kill bacteria, and when they are used too much or improperly, this gives rise to strains which are resistant to the antibiotic, making said antibiotic become useless. The same doesn't apply to vaccines, which actually stimulate the immune system to be able to handle the disease better on its own rather than the vaccine directly killing the virus itself. This is also why vaccines are useless to people that have already contracted the disease the vaccine helps with; it takes 2 weeks for a vaccine to get your body effectively prepared to fight of a disease, so if you contract it before then, the vaccine is of no use. So, feel free not to get the vaccine if you already have a fever and aching joints, and don't feel like you are absolutely safe to just hang out with sick people right after you get a vaccine. Furthermore, vaccines don't outright prevent disease. They make it so that when you catch it, your body fights it off very efficiently, resulting in severely reduced symptoms. "But Sarah, what about the rabies vaccine, then? You only get that after you have been exposed to the virus". Rabies is an interesting disease. It actually progresses so slowly that, if you, say, get a bite on your finger, the virus isn't going to reach the central nervous system and really wreak havoc for weeks. This actually gives the vaccine enough time to be effective even after initial exposure. This is also why people are encouraged to get the vaccine as quickly as possible, and why it is so many shots at once.

Unfortunately, vaccines for bacterial diseases are generally ineffective, and they make future diagnosis of any additional infections result in false positives for that disease, which is why there are very few vaccines for bacterial diseases.

That's all I can think of at the moment.

I agree that most vaccines are helpful and people should get them. But I would never agree that people should give up 'bodily autonomy' at the behest of the government by having their will subjugated because it's good for society. You're not really making that argument--are you?

 

[Zoii]

I agree that most vaccines are helpful and people should get them. But I would never agree that people should give up 'bodily autonomy' at the behest of the government by having their will subjugated because it's good for society. You're not really making that argument--are you?

I think we agree Liz. But I really wish those who could have access to immunization would do it. Lots here are arguing the evidence for why thats so valuable to society.

 

[Ada Lovelace]

Yes it was heartening to note that the result strongly supported vaccination:
"Our findings should allay some fears about implementing childhood chickenpox vaccination," he says.

I think the modern-day equivalent to the adage "don't judge a book by its cover" should be "don't judge a medical study by its hyperlink." Rather than dissuading vaccination, it makes a persuading argument that is indeed heartening.

I doubt the user would chosen it had this been the hyperlink instead:
Study findings are in favour of universal childhood vaccination

Summary:
Re-exposure to chickenpox virus boosts immunity to shingles for a tenth of the time previously thought. So although vaccination increases shingles cases in 31-40 year olds, in the longer term the benefits outweigh the risks, scientists conclude.

 

[Dave-W]

I really wish those who could have access to immunization would do it. Lots here are arguing the evidence for why thats so valuable to society.

Society issues are not foremost in the US mindset.

It is how it affects ME and mine, and to **** with everyone else.

 

[Jules43]

There is no way I can even try to keep up on this thread

Do not even try.
Please do message me.

 

[Jules43]

I doubt the user would chosen it had this been the hyperlink instead:
Study findings are in favour of universal childhood vaccination

Oh, yes, I still would have chosen it.
Please do not presume to judge what I would or would not have chosen to post.

 

[Jules43]

I agree that most vaccines are helpful and people should get them. But I would never agree that people should give up 'bodily autonomy' at the behest of the government by having their will subjugated because it's good for society. You're not really making that argument--are you?

Well said. I think this is the whole debate in a nutshell.
I would never agree that people should give up bodily autonomy because the government feels it needs to mandate vaccines for the betterment of society.
Some have said this is equivalent to "setting my child on fire to keep yours warm."
I believe that is why the topic gets so heated.
Educating the masses on the value of vaccination is the key. Mandating vaccines is only going to continue fanning the flame of anti-vaccination. Perhaps, if we are content to educate, the flames will die out.
No one can deny that there are risks and side effects, and we can argue all day how common or rare those risks are but the point is, there are some.
Parents should be the ones to decide for their children.
Once we are adults, we should make that choice ourselves.

 

[Marie Antoinette]

Someone asked a while back for studies showing that vaccines shed. I don't have time to follow this whole thread, but I can share these.

Detection of measles vaccine in the throat of a vaccinated child.

Measles vaccine is widely used, most often in association with mumps and rubella vaccines. We report here the case of a child presenting with fever 8 days after vaccination with a measles-mumps-rubella vaccine. Measles virus was isolated in a throat swab taken 4 days after fever onset. This virus was then further genetically characterised as a vaccine-type virus. Fever occurring subsequent to measles vaccination is related to the replication of the live attenuated vaccine virus. In the case presented here, the vaccine virus was isolated in the throat, showing that subcutaneous injection of an attenuated measles strain can result in respiratory excretion of this virus.

Detection of measles vaccine in the throat of a vaccinated child. - PubMed - NCBI


Detection of fecal shedding of rotavirus vaccine in infants following their first dose of pentavalent rotavirus vaccine.

Studies on rotavirus vaccine shedding and its potential transmission within households including immunocompromised individuals are needed to better define the potential risks and benefits of vaccination. We examined fecal shedding of pentavalent rotavirus vaccine (RV5) for 9 days following the first dose of vaccine in infants between 6 and 12 weeks of age. Rotavirus antigen was detected by enzyme immunoassay (EIA), and vaccine-type rotavirus was identified by nucleotide sequencing based on genetic relatedness to the RV5 VP6 gene. Stool from 22 (21.4%) of 103 children contained rotavirus antigen-positive specimens on ≥ 1 post-vaccination days. Rotavirus antigen was detected as early as post-vaccination day 3 and as late as day 9, with peak numbers of shedding on post-vaccination days 6 through 8. Vaccine-type rotavirus was detected in all 50 antigen-positive specimens and 8 of 8 antigen-negative specimens. Nine (75%) of 12 EIA-positive and 1 EIA-negative samples tested culture-positive for vaccine-type rotavirus. Fecal shedding of rotavirus vaccine virus after the first dose of RV5 occurred over a wide range of post-vaccination days not previously studied. These findings will help better define the potential for horizontal transmission of vaccine virus among immunocompromised household contacts of vaccinated infants for future studies.

Detection of fecal shedding of rotavirus vaccine in infants following their first dose of pentavalent rotavirus vaccine. - PubMed - NCBI


Chickenpox attributable to a vaccine virus contracted from a vaccinee with zoster.

“Five months after 2 siblings were immunized with varicella vaccine, 1 developed zoster. Two weeks later the second sibling got a mild case of chicken pox. Virus isolated from the latter was found to be vaccine type. Thus, the vaccine strain was transmitted from the vaccinee with zoster to his sibling. Vaccinees who later develop zoster must be considered contagious.”

Chickenpox attributable to a vaccine virus contracted from a vaccinee with zoster. - PubMed - NCBI


Differentiating the wild from the attenuated during a measles outbreak.

“In the midst of a local measles outbreak, a recently immunized child was investigated for a new-onset measles-type rash. Nucleic acid testing identified that a vaccine-type measles virus was being shed in the urine.”

Differentiating the wild from the attenuated during a measles outbreak. - PubMed - NCBI


Effect of immunization against rubella on lactation products. I. Development and characterization of specific immunologic reactivity in breast milk.

“Over 69% of the women shed virus in milk after immunization.”

Effect of immunization against rubella on lactation products. I. Development and characterization of specific immunologic reactivity in breast milk. - PubMed - NCBI


Estimation of polio infection prevalence from environmental surveillance data. 2017

“By measuring virus shed into sewage waste in cities in which a known number of people received a live polio vaccine, the authors created tools that can be used to monitor polio incidence in other cities. Thus, virus levels in sewage waste can give an early warning of the reappearance of viral disease or verify its absence.”

“Data from the intersecting population between the two data sets (covering more than 63,000 people) yielded a dose-dependent relationship between the number of poliovirus shedders and the amount of poliovirus in sewage.
Copyright © 2017, American Association for the Advancement of Science.”

Estimation of polio infection prevalence from environmental surveillance data. - PubMed - NCBI


H2N2 live attenuated influenza vaccine is safe and immunogenic for healthy adult volunteers.

“It was shed by 78.6% and 74.1% volunteers after the first and second dose, respectively, most probably due to the human origin of the virus.”

H2N2 live attenuated influenza vaccine is safe and immunogenic for healthy adult volunteers. - PubMed - NCBI

So yes, vaccines do shed and when you also take into account that some are not designed to prevent transmission of the virus or bacteria, then it becomes apparent that they are not AS effective as the media makes them out to be.

Many more here: Shedding | Med Science Research

 

[PsychoSarah]

I agree that most vaccines are helpful and people should get them. But I would never agree that people should give up 'bodily autonomy' at the behest of the government by having their will subjugated because it's good for society. You're not really making that argument--are you?

I am, in the same sense that you give up bodily autonomy when you aren't allowed to drive drunk because it endangers yourself and others -_-. I view choosing to be unvaccinated and to keep one's children unvaccinated as a form of reckless endangerment. You, as an individual, cannot tell if you are already infected and contageous before symptoms start, nor can you peer through a crowd and immediately tell who would live and who would die if they contracted, say, chickenpox. Thus, you cannot reasonably ensure, as an unvaccinated person, that you won't needlessly infect someone and lead to their death.

But to be frank, the easiest way to ensure that herd immunity is maintained is to pass a law requiring all hiring bodies with X number of employees or more to require said employees to be vaccinated, and for all schools to require it as well. Requirements that plenty of businesses and schools already have, but made more prevalent. Don't want to be vaccinated? Well, you'll have to make different career choices, which was already the case (most health fields require vaccinations).

And if you are concerned about the bodily autonomy of children... they don't really have that. Do you think I, at age 6, chose whether or not I was vaccinated? Of course not. Heck, I wasn't even able to speak yet when my mom had my ears pierced as a baby, and that is something with 0 health benefits and a few health risks. I'd rather children be at the mercy of the choices of health professionals than at the mercy of their parents. One could most certainly argue that adult rights could be violated by mandatory vaccination, but you can't say the same for kids that never had a say in that in the first place.

In countries such as the United States, vaccinations for various diseases have been common for so long that even with the anti-vax movement, the diseases aren't immediately returning in the force they had prior to vaccinations for them. Note the word "immediately" in that sentence. I'd rather not have entire communities have their young child populations decimated by measles again.

 

[Ada Lovelace]

Oh, yes, I still would have chosen it.
Please do not presume to judge what I would or would not have chosen to post.

A commonly employed tactic on casual forums and social media is to try to build an argument by posting hyperlinks that appear to be offering substantiation, knowing that since it's not an academic or professional setting most who encounter the post will not expend the time to click and read through what has been presented. Though you merely presented one link in the post mine was referring to, others will post a multitude. In another thread here a couple of years ago a poster wrote something to the effect of "parents who haven't vaccinated their kids have read these medical studies that say they shouldn't" and then poured out a deluge of hyperlinks, all with titles that appeared to be in opposition to vaccination. But that's all that it was, the facade of a well-supported argument rather than it actually being one. It was obvious that the links had been scooped up from another site rather than thoughtfully accumulated by the poster to genuinely attest to her argument. People quickly pointed out that many of the links were no longer valid, leading to speculation that the poster had not even clicked them herself, much less read them critically. All of the medical studies that actually could be pulled up by the links encouraged vaccination, despite titles that created the illusion they were in opposition to it. When this was pointed out by multiple people, some describing her action as "internet littering" the poster eventually admitted that the number of links was overwhelming to her, and she didn't have the time to read them herself. It's doubtful she would have used the links if it was immediately obvious by their titles that they refuted rather than supported her argument.

Another tactic is to drown a link to a legitimate medical study within what appears to be a synopsis of it by its author(s), but in actuality is a misleading review written by someone - who may or may not have any reliable qualifications to accurately assess the study holistically - using it to further a specific agenda. Typically some aspect of the study that appears to give credence to a specific argument will be plucked out and highlighted, creating the misperception that it was the focus of the study. The study itself often contradicts the thesis of the summary of it. Again, this puts the responsibility upon the reader to inspect the source and notice the incongruence. A layperson who is intimidated by medical studies, or simply lacking in time, is more likely to simply read summaries of it than the studies themselves, which can lead to false knowledge.

 

[PsychoSarah]

In response to wanting to know more about the whole idea surrounding shedding...there is a reason to be concerned, cautious and aware.

Chickenpox (varicella) vaccine:
“Due to the concern for transmission of vaccine virus, vaccine recipients should attempt to avoid whenever possible close association with susceptible high-risk individuals for up to six weeks following vaccination with VARIVAX. Susceptible high-risk individuals include Immunocompromised individuals; • Pregnant women without a documented history of varicella or laboratory evidence of prior infection; • Newborn infants of mothers without documented history of varicella or laboratory evidence of prior infection and all newborn infants born at <28 weeks gestation regardless of maternal varicella immunity.” VARIVAX® - SOURCE: Varicella Virus Vaccine Live (Package Insert)

Some overplay it and some downplay it. I feel we should be cautious.

There are also articles like this regarding Pertussis:
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2013...cine-does-not-stop-spread-disease-lab-animals

Articles like this about Rotavirus:
Rotavirus vaccines: viral shedding and risk of transmission - ScienceDirect

I'm going to address each source in the order you posted them, with numbered responses.

1. So, here is the entire section on the risk of vaccine virus transmission, and I have bolded key notable things I will discuss:
"5.4 Risk of Vaccine Virus Transmission
Post-marketing experience suggests that transmission of vaccine virus may occur rarely between healthy vaccinees who develop a varicella-like rash and healthy susceptible contacts. Transmission of vaccine virus from a mother who did not develop a varicella-like rash to her newborn infant has been reported.
Due to the concern for transmission of vaccine virus, vaccine recipients should attempt to avoid whenever possible close association with susceptible high-risk individuals for up to six weeks following vaccination with VARIVAX. Susceptible high-risk individuals include:
• Immunocompromised individuals;
• Pregnant women without documented history of varicella or laboratory evidence of prior infection;
• Newborn infants of mothers without documented history of varicella or laboratory evidence of prior infection and all newborn infants born at <28 weeks gestation regardless of maternal varicella immunity.

Now, certainly this all seems ominous, but did you consider how frequently people need to be vaccinated for chickenpox? Measurably, the immunity granted lasts about 10 years Vaccines: VPD-VAC/Varicella/Vaccine Effectiveness and Duration of Protection and all a person needs to do is not get pregnant within 3 months of a booster shot. I'm actually having trouble finding how frequent booster shots are, but I only recall getting 1 around the age of 16, and I am 22 with no booster shot scheduled this year. So there must be at least 6 years between booster shots for that in adults. By the way, even general vaccine schedules for adults specify that shingles (the ZVL one) and chickenpox vaccines aren't supposed to be given to pregnant women, as well as the MMR vaccine. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/schedules/downloads/adult/adult-schedule-easy-read.pdf
It sincerely is not difficult to avoid getting these vaccines while pregnant or while your partner is pregnant. The document itself recommends to not get pregnant within 3 months of getting the vaccine either. Not only would it be trivial for a planned pregnancy to take this stuff into account, but even an unplanned one is generally unlikely to coincide with getting one of these relatively infrequent booster shots... much less for the shingles vaccine that usually isn't given to anyone under 50 years old. In all other cases of people transmitting the virus after being vaccinated, they actually form a rash at the injection site, so it'd be easy to quarantine them for a little bit so they can't spread it. Plus, even in those cases, transmission is rare. That babies born severely premature are especially at risk doesn't shock me in the slightest; after all, babies are generally born at 40 weeks, so less than 28 weeks is fairly premature.

Heck, chickenpox is a disease that's practically human-exclusive, so if the anti-vax movement hadn't gotten in the way, we could have been rid of it in a few decades. I'm all for the idea of vaccinating people against human exclusive diseases until said diseases die out, and then ceasing to vaccinate. Not a whole lot of point in protecting oneself against dodos

2. The specific vaccine mentioned doesn't prevent the vaccinated baboons from spreading the disease TO UNVACCINATED BABOONS. Your source also notes that an older version of the vaccine didn't share this issue. So just use the older version, obviously. I mean, the first paragraph of your source indicates as much:

"The current vaccine for whooping cough, or pertussis, may keep you or your baby healthy, but it may not stop either of you from spreading the disease, a new animal study suggests. Baboons can harbor and spread the disease even after receiving the vaccine, researchers have found. The study adds to growing evidence that the acellular pertussis vaccines, in which only parts of the pertussis bacterium are injected into the bloodstream to elicit a protective immune response, are not as good at controlling the disease as older, whole-cell vaccines were. However, a vaccine manufacturer argues that it's too early to conclude that a similar effect occurs in humans."

However, your source mentions the main reason why the vaccine was actually changed, though it doesn't go into depth about it:
"The acellular vaccine was introduced because of public concerns and lawsuits arising from the whole-cell vaccine, which sometimes caused high fever and even seizures."

But I most certainly can give some depth about it. The reason why the whole-cell vaccine had these side effects is because the bacterium that causes whooping cough is gram negative. Gram negative bacteria produce endotoxins, which aren't destroyed when the bacteria die and cause many (if not all) of the disease symptoms associated with these bacteria. In short, if your vaccine amounts to a bunch of dead, whole cells, anyone that gets it will likely get a small taste of what having the disease would be like DESPITE NO INFECTIOUS AGENTS BEING INTRODUCED INTO THEIR SYSTEM. This made parents angry because they interpreted it as the vaccine making their kids sick and wouldn't tolerate it consistently giving kids a low fever that faded after a day. People particularly sensitive to the endotoxin may have worse symptoms, like seizures; unfortunately, I have no idea how frequent this side effect was compared to other vaccines that have that risk, and I can't seem to find it. In order to remove the endotoxin, one must remove the outer membrane of the bacterium it's attached to, making the vaccine no longer whole-cell. But then it also becomes less effective because that means removing what your immune cells would be first recognizing upon infection. Not sure exactly why the acellular vaccine made those baboons able to infect other baboons; maybe other bacteria were able to integrate the endotoxin production genes from the broken up cell pieces.

So, yeah, this particular vaccine could use some improving. Perhaps multiple, smaller doses of the old vaccine would be more effective and safe. In any case, one can't rely on antibiotics for this particular bacterial disease because most aren't effective in treating it. In my OP, I cover seizures and ways to handle vaccines that carry that risk, since it is the only well-evidenced side effect of some vaccines frequent enough to be a valid reason to not get vaccinated for specific diseases. If you have a family history of seizures, then I entirely understand not wanting yourself or any of your children to be vaccinated against certain diseases.

3. This source is actually the inverse of the one that came before it; it mentions how a previous version of a vaccine was less effective AND more prone to making a person transmit the disease to other people than a newer one. This source is less than a page long, and you didn't read this part?: "Immunocompromised contacts should be advised to avoid contact with stool from the immunized child if possible, particularly after the first vaccine dose for at least 14 days. Since the risk of vaccine transmission and subsequent vaccine-derived disease with the current vaccines is much less than the risk of wildtype rotavirus disease in immunocompromised contacts, vaccination should be encouraged."

-_- as if an individual so immunocompromised that they can't get vaccinated for this disease themselves wouldn't be advised to wear gloves and a face mask when handling feces in general. This type of thing doesn't do anything to people that have also been vaccinated for the disease in question.

Given also that the disease causes severe diarrhea for over a week after infection, and that they are still heavily infectious for 3 days after they no longer exhibit symptoms, having a mildly infectious kid with no diarrhea for 14 days seems a lot better than having an extremely infectious fecal fountain for 9 days followed by 3 days of still being heavily infectious despite the symptoms waning. And that's just the babies and young children that don't end up with severe disease complications.


So, what I gathered from all your sources that would actually be constructive to your point is that the pertussis vaccine needs some work. I propose that a possible solution for now would be that older children and adults get the old version of the vaccine and that young children get the new one. The fever is lower for older children and adults, and seizure risks for vaccines overall drop as a kid gets older. And babies still need to be protected from contracting it, so the new version is still better than nothing. Plus, most infants contract it from adults and adolescents rather than other infants, so it makes sense to ensure adults and adolescents can't spread it.

Be careful not to confuse vaccines for bacterial infections with ones for viral infections. The former generally are less effective and are thus only regularly used for diseases extremely difficult to control the spread of or give treatment for. It's part of why the tuberculosis vaccine isn't regularly used in the United States but it is regularly used in India. While I say I would want vaccines to be required, I don't view all of the ones you can get as absolutely critical. I'll list those that I do think are important for everyone: MMR, DTaP, Polio, Rotavirus, Influenza, Varicella, Meningococcal, and Pneumococcal. If you want to take the "T" out of DTaP, sure, because tetanus doesn't spread from person to person, so if a person would rather risk lockjaw for themselves, they can have at it. Remember, my main issue with people choosing to no vaccinate themselves is that this makes them more likely to spread disease to others and result in the deaths of those other people.

The rest of the vaccines I am aware of are more matters of career or region you live in. I mean, it would be dumb to require everyone to get the yellow fever vaccine when only people living in/traveling to South America and Africa even have a risk of contracting it.

 

[Grace2022]

Vaccines, of course, are beneficial on the individual level, since they reduce the risk of contracting illness and make it such that even if a person does, the experience isn't as severe.

However, not everyone can get vaccinated even if the injections are available. These include but are not limited to: very young babies, people allergic to components of vaccines, and people with certain disorders that impair the immune system. These people must rely upon herd immunity in order to avoid contracting various viral illnesses. But, herd immunity only works if enough people are vaccinated. Now, if every person that could be vaccinated was, herd immunity would be maintained quite well, and outbreaks of diseases such as measles and chicken pox would become exceedingly rare. Heck, when was the last time the US had an outbreak of polio?

Unfortunately, scare tactics and misinformation has resulted in many people choosing not only to not vaccinate themselves, but their children as well. As a result, outbreaks of diseases such as whooping cough have become more common, and it is the weakest and most vulnerable of us that end up paying the price.

I'd have no issue with people opting out of vaccines if that decision only impacted them individually. The fact of the matter is, anyone that chooses to not get vaccinated increases the risk of people that can't get vaccines (even if they want to) getting sick and dying.

"But Sarah, vaccines are full of toxins and cause autism and-"
They don't, and I am going to go through every single anti-vax claim I can think of.

1. Vaccines contain mercury: Vaccines used to contain a harmless mercury compound (just think about chemistry for two seconds; chlorine gas is extremely toxic, and elemental sodium reacts violently with water, but the table salt that is made of both elements combined is actually essential for people and only bad if they consume it in excess), but thanks to the outrage people showed at it being there, vaccines that used to contain it now come in variants that don't. Plus, tons of vaccines never had that compound to begin with, such as the chickenpox vaccine. In case anyone cares about some of the details, the compound is thimerosal, and it was there to help prevent the growth of any harmful microbes in the vaccine. In any case, you'd actually get more mercury from eating tuna regularly than from keeping up with vaccines, and that mercury actually is in a harmful form.
2. Vaccines cause autism: One guy lied in a study in the 1990s. That's it. Dozens of experiments have been performed and have found no link between autism and vaccines. However, many of the diseases people are vaccinated against can have the rare effect of causing lasting brain damage, and polio typically damages the nervous system severely. So, if a person doesn't want "damaged" children, the vaccines are the safer bet.
3. Vaccines contain formaldehyde, and that's a carcinogen: They actually do... as does human blood normally... and pears. The amount of formaldehyde in vaccines is trivial compared to the amount normally in human blood to begin with. That is, there isn't enough in vaccines for even a lifetime of vaccinations to make a difference.
4. This image

Oh dear, where to begin. I guess I'll address them in order of that list, minus autism because I've already addressed it. Shaken baby syndrome is the result of physical damage to a baby's brain due to the brain hitting the sides of the skull. There's no way a vaccine could do that, that's like saying a vaccine could cause your leg to break. Chronic ear infections are usually caused by bacteria, and are common in babies and young children due to the shape of a young person's ear canal and the fact that their immune systems are not done developing. Again, no means by which a vaccine could cause this. Far more kids would die from the diseases that vaccines prevent than die from the rare complications. SIDS is a term for when babies under a year old die with no detectable cause, and thus cannot be attributed to vaccines. It is notable that people that are poor tend to experience SIDS more, meaning that the people that experience it the most are people that get less vaccines, not more of them. Seizures are interesting when it comes to vaccines. There are only a few that actually have this as a potential side effect at all, and notably, the flu vaccine is not one of them. However, it is worth noting that kids that have a history of seizures in their family are more prone to this side effect, and it is more common if you get all of the ones that have this side effect at the same time, or get them along with the flu shot. So, this is a decent reason not to get your child vaccinated for, say, the mumps, if you have a family history of seizures, and you should avoid having your kid get multiple vaccines with this side effect at the same time. Here's this for anyone that want's to avoid doubling or up on seizure risks Vaccines: Vac-Gen/Side Effects
ADD, Asthma, Diabetes, and Meningitis are the same as Autism, there isn't any evidence that vaccines cause these or make them worse. As for allergies, allergic reactions to vaccines are rare, and it wouldn't make any sense for vaccines to cause allergies to chemicals they don't contain. Polio is not caused by vaccines, and the disease predates them. In fact, a severe polio outbreak in the US was only stopped thanks to a vaccine for it being produced. The only reason this isn't still a common disease in that country is due to vaccines, and I challenge any anti-vax person to actually find a reasonable explanation for the reduction in the frequency of diseases for which there are vaccines that doesn't attribute it to the vaccines.
5. Aluminum in vaccines: again, you'll eat way more of the stuff than a vaccine will give you, and the compound of aluminum in vaccines is mostly excreted by the body within just a day.
6. Too many vaccines is just as bad as too many antibiotics: Not at all. Antibiotics themselves kill bacteria, and when they are used too much or improperly, this gives rise to strains which are resistant to the antibiotic, making said antibiotic become useless. The same doesn't apply to vaccines, which actually stimulate the immune system to be able to handle the disease better on its own rather than the vaccine directly killing the virus itself. This is also why vaccines are useless to people that have already contracted the disease the vaccine helps with; it takes 2 weeks for a vaccine to get your body effectively prepared to fight of a disease, so if you contract it before then, the vaccine is of no use. So, feel free not to get the vaccine if you already have a fever and aching joints, and don't feel like you are absolutely safe to just hang out with sick people right after you get a vaccine. Furthermore, vaccines don't outright prevent disease. They make it so that when you catch it, your body fights it off very efficiently, resulting in severely reduced symptoms. "But Sarah, what about the rabies vaccine, then? You only get that after you have been exposed to the virus". Rabies is an interesting disease. It actually progresses so slowly that, if you, say, get a bite on your finger, the virus isn't going to reach the central nervous system and really wreak havoc for weeks. This actually gives the vaccine enough time to be effective even after initial exposure. This is also why people are encouraged to get the vaccine as quickly as possible, and why it is so many shots at once.

Unfortunately, vaccines for bacterial diseases are generally ineffective, and they make future diagnosis of any additional infections result in false positives for that disease, which is why there are very few vaccines for bacterial diseases.

That's all I can think of at the moment.

Well i don't know much about this except i had the flu vaccine some months back. I used to avoid it as i did not trust it. I was right. I have not felt well since i had it. I am so tired and feel strange. From a high level of well being i just have no strength and vitality now. I will never have one again.

 

[Saricharity]

If anyone is interested in reading more about the Leicester Method.

https://ia801304.us.archive.org/28/items/b24765284/b24765284.pdf

 

[Go Braves]

I'm going to address each source in the order you posted them, with numbered responses.

1. So, here is the entire section on the risk of vaccine virus transmission, and I have bolded key notable things I will discuss:
"5.4 Risk of Vaccine Virus Transmission
Post-marketing experience suggests that transmission of vaccine virus may occur rarely between healthy vaccinees who develop a varicella-like rash and healthy susceptible contacts. Transmission of vaccine virus from a mother who did not develop a varicella-like rash to her newborn infant has been reported.
Due to the concern for transmission of vaccine virus, vaccine recipients should attempt to avoid whenever possible close association with susceptible high-risk individuals for up to six weeks following vaccination with VARIVAX. Susceptible high-risk individuals include:
• Immunocompromised individuals;
• Pregnant women without documented history of varicella or laboratory evidence of prior infection;
• Newborn infants of mothers without documented history of varicella or laboratory evidence of prior infection and all newborn infants born at <28 weeks gestation regardless of maternal varicella immunity.

Now, certainly this all seems ominous, but did you consider how frequently people need to be vaccinated for chickenpox? Measurably, the immunity granted lasts about 10 years Vaccines: VPD-VAC/Varicella/Vaccine Effectiveness and Duration of Protection and all a person needs to do is not get pregnant within 3 months of a booster shot. I'm actually having trouble finding how frequent booster shots are, but I only recall getting 1 around the age of 16, and I am 22 with no booster shot scheduled this year. So there must be at least 6 years between booster shots for that in adults. By the way, even general vaccine schedules for adults specify that shingles (the ZVL one) and chickenpox vaccines aren't supposed to be given to pregnant women, as well as the MMR vaccine. https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/schedules/downloads/adult/adult-schedule-easy-read.pdf
It sincerely is not difficult to avoid getting these vaccines while pregnant or while your partner is pregnant. The document itself recommends to not get pregnant within 3 months of getting the vaccine either. Not only would it be trivial for a planned pregnancy to take this stuff into account, but even an unplanned one is generally unlikely to coincide with getting one of these relatively infrequent booster shots... much less for the shingles vaccine that usually isn't given to anyone under 50 years old. In all other cases of people transmitting the virus after being vaccinated, they actually form a rash at the injection site, so it'd be easy to quarantine them for a little bit so they can't spread it. Plus, even in those cases, transmission is rare. That babies born severely premature are especially at risk doesn't shock me in the slightest; after all, babies are generally born at 40 weeks, so less than 28 weeks is fairly premature.

Heck, chickenpox is a disease that's practically human-exclusive, so if the anti-vax movement hadn't gotten in the way, we could have been rid of it in a few decades. I'm all for the idea of vaccinating people against human exclusive diseases until said diseases die out, and then ceasing to vaccinate. Not a whole lot of point in protecting oneself against dodos

2. The specific vaccine mentioned doesn't prevent the vaccinated baboons from spreading the disease TO UNVACCINATED BABOONS. Your source also notes that an older version of the vaccine didn't share this issue. So just use the older version, obviously. I mean, the first paragraph of your source indicates as much:

"The current vaccine for whooping cough, or pertussis, may keep you or your baby healthy, but it may not stop either of you from spreading the disease, a new animal study suggests. Baboons can harbor and spread the disease even after receiving the vaccine, researchers have found. The study adds to growing evidence that the acellular pertussis vaccines, in which only parts of the pertussis bacterium are injected into the bloodstream to elicit a protective immune response, are not as good at controlling the disease as older, whole-cell vaccines were. However, a vaccine manufacturer argues that it's too early to conclude that a similar effect occurs in humans."

However, your source mentions the main reason why the vaccine was actually changed, though it doesn't go into depth about it:
"The acellular vaccine was introduced because of public concerns and lawsuits arising from the whole-cell vaccine, which sometimes caused high fever and even seizures."

But I most certainly can give some depth about it. The reason why the whole-cell vaccine had these side effects is because the bacterium that causes whooping cough is gram negative. Gram negative bacteria produce endotoxins, which aren't destroyed when the bacteria die and cause many (if not all) of the disease symptoms associated with these bacteria. In short, if your vaccine amounts to a bunch of dead, whole cells, anyone that gets it will likely get a small taste of what having the disease would be like DESPITE NO INFECTIOUS AGENTS BEING INTRODUCED INTO THEIR SYSTEM. This made parents angry because they interpreted it as the vaccine making their kids sick and wouldn't tolerate it consistently giving kids a low fever that faded after a day. People particularly sensitive to the endotoxin may have worse symptoms, like seizures; unfortunately, I have no idea how frequent this side effect was compared to other vaccines that have that risk, and I can't seem to find it. In order to remove the endotoxin, one must remove the outer membrane of the bacterium it's attached to, making the vaccine no longer whole-cell. But then it also becomes less effective because that means removing what your immune cells would be first recognizing upon infection. Not sure exactly why the acellular vaccine made those baboons able to infect other baboons; maybe other bacteria were able to integrate the endotoxin production genes from the broken up cell pieces.

So, yeah, this particular vaccine could use some improving. Perhaps multiple, smaller doses of the old vaccine would be more effective and safe. In any case, one can't rely on antibiotics for this particular bacterial disease because most aren't effective in treating it. In my OP, I cover seizures and ways to handle vaccines that carry that risk, since it is the only well-evidenced side effect of some vaccines frequent enough to be a valid reason to not get vaccinated for specific diseases. If you have a family history of seizures, then I entirely understand not wanting yourself or any of your children to be vaccinated against certain diseases.

3. This source is actually the inverse of the one that came before it; it mentions how a previous version of a vaccine was less effective AND more prone to making a person transmit the disease to other people than a newer one. This source is less than a page long, and you didn't read this part?: "Immunocompromised contacts should be advised to avoid contact with stool from the immunized child if possible, particularly after the first vaccine dose for at least 14 days. Since the risk of vaccine transmission and subsequent vaccine-derived disease with the current vaccines is much less than the risk of wildtype rotavirus disease in immunocompromised contacts, vaccination should be encouraged."

-_- as if an individual so immunocompromised that they can't get vaccinated for this disease themselves wouldn't be advised to wear gloves and a face mask when handling feces in general. This type of thing doesn't do anything to people that have also been vaccinated for the disease in question.

Given also that the disease causes severe diarrhea for over a week after infection, and that they are still heavily infectious for 3 days after they no longer exhibit symptoms, having a mildly infectious kid with no diarrhea for 14 days seems a lot better than having an extremely infectious fecal fountain for 9 days followed by 3 days of still being heavily infectious despite the symptoms waning. And that's just the babies and young children that don't end up with severe disease complications.


So, what I gathered from all your sources that would actually be constructive to your point is that the pertussis vaccine needs some work. I propose that a possible solution for now would be that older children and adults get the old version of the vaccine and that young children get the new one. The fever is lower for older children and adults, and seizure risks for vaccines overall drop as a kid gets older. And babies still need to be protected from contracting it, so the new version is still better than nothing. Plus, most infants contract it from adults and adolescents rather than other infants, so it makes sense to ensure adults and adolescents can't spread it.

Be careful not to confuse vaccines for bacterial infections with ones for viral infections. The former generally are less effective and are thus only regularly used for diseases extremely difficult to control the spread of or give treatment for. It's part of why the tuberculosis vaccine isn't regularly used in the United States but it is regularly used in India. While I say I would want vaccines to be required, I don't view all of the ones you can get as absolutely critical. I'll list those that I do think are important for everyone: MMR, DTaP, Polio, Rotavirus, Influenza, Varicella, Meningococcal, and Pneumococcal. If you want to take the "T" out of DTaP, sure, because tetanus doesn't spread from person to person, so if a person would rather risk lockjaw for themselves, they can have at it. Remember, my main issue with people choosing to no vaccinate themselves is that this makes them more likely to spread disease to others and result in the deaths of those other people.

The rest of the vaccines I am aware of are more matters of career or region you live in. I mean, it would be dumb to require everyone to get the yellow fever vaccine when only people living in/traveling to South America and Africa even have a risk of contracting it.

Good job, Sarah.

 

[Go Braves]

If anyone is interested in reading more about the Leicester Method.

https://ia801304.us.archive.org/28/items/b24765284/b24765284.pdf

Well, Saricharity, that's real big of you to post a source showing that your claim that this city abandoned vaccination, relied upon sanitation instead, was false.

I was reading it, thinking, boy that sure sounds familiar. The reason for that being, is on account of how that same fellow has been quoted here talking about the Leicester Method. By 3 folks.
Why Vaccinations Shouldn't be Optional
That gal even made a screenshot for you of that source to show you that vaccination was still important to controlling the outbreaks of smallpox. That fellow vaccinated his own kids. Your source repeats that. Also important to note that outbreaks didn't happen as often by that time period anyhow on account of the vaccine being out & required by law for the better part of a century. It's not like they did this right in the middle of the huge epidemics killing off Europe.

Here's what it says on page 2

Also let it be understood that the “ Leicester Method ” has never attempted to do entirely without vaccination. Vaccination has
always been used to protect the small-pox staff, and such actual “ contacts ” as were willing to submit to it.

Now, could you kindly explain why are you so fixated on this city? In that post by @Stanfordella it shows that this same fellow explained how the Leicester Method wouldn't work for diseases like measles & whooping cough. On account of smallpox being eradicated & those diseases still being a problem, it doesn't make much sense for you to idealize how things were done with smallpox in the 1800s. Did you also read how sanitation was a failure in Cleveland & the anti-vaxxers who'd lied about how things were done contributed to the problem?

 

[Go Braves]

Society issues are not foremost in the US mindset.

It is how it affects ME and mine, and to **** with everyone else.

Dave, I'm sad to say I think you're right about that. I wish folks would have more of a Christian attitude, care about how what they do (& fail to do) affects others.