Another vaccination debate.

[velvetpage]

I did enjoy this one. I am continually surprised, however, at how people who have been reading booju for several years still don't know or appreciate things like the value of herd immunity or that vaccinated kids can still get sick. Vaccination is one of the few parenting issues where not-my-kid-not-my-business doesn't apply, because every unvaccinated kid increases the likelihood of an outbreak, the likely severity of that outbreak, and the effectiveness of everyone else's vaccines.

I have no problem with people looking at all the facts and deciding to selectively or delay-vax, especially in the States where kids get an obscene number of shots at each visit. Delaying a few months or a year or two probably isn't going to be an issue, and if you feel better about that for your child, so be it. I'm also okay with people choosing not to vax one child who has medical problems. But I really believe that failure to vaccinate most kids within shooting distance of "on time" is a public health risk and a bad idea.

Comments

[catarzyna.livejournal.com]

Thanks for bringing this topic up. I have no children as you are aware but I am a member of a few communities that are family oriented. Some of my more 'natural' oriented communities/members kinda scare me that they are so militantly against vaccination. Everything I have been taught, medically speaking, has led me to believe that vaccinations are the best option. Perhaps it is as a historian that I understand the significance of plagues and the later polio outbreak. I shudder to think of another outbreak of a preventable disease because of an extreme position. I for one, hope they find a vaccine against HIV/AIDS at some point. For myself I feel I need to do more research about vaccinations before I become a parent. It seems being natural/green needs to be tempered with more common sense and practicality.

I wonder if people take for granted the basically high mortality rate we have here in North America. Like some superman effect, as in vaccines are bad because we are injecting this into our children. I've never gotten sick like that... well yeah... you probably were vaccinated. I'm not saying that everyone is that uneducated but it does come across that way sometimes.

This got a little longer than I expected. :-D

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

When people don't see the effects of a disease (or group of diseases) they tend to underestimate it. If you kid is going to get a sore arm and a night's fever from the vaccination, and you've never seen any of the possible long-term effects of the disease, it's easy to think that the risks of the vaccination are worse than the risks of the disease itself. And it is true that better sanitation and understanding of health issues like secondary infections works to drastically reduce the mortality rate from common illnesses.

But it does not eliminate the mortality rate. The article that sparked the debate mentioned an outbreak of measels in San Diego in 1990. Nine hundred people were infected, and three died. That's not counting the probable miscarriages and brain damage that would have been experienced by unborn members of that population. Contrast that with five or so kids per year in the entire Western hemisphere who die as a result of a vaccine, noting that most of those kids had warning signs and should have been medically exempt from the vaccine. Which risk would you rather take for your otherwise-healthy child?

It's a matter of weighing actual stats and studies against hearsay and fearmongering and a lack of good science.

[kisekileia.livejournal.com]

I agree with you completely.

And you know, the sad thing about this is that especially with the autism/MMR vaccine issue, most anti-vaccination people will NEVER be convinced by sound scientific studies. If a study is done by people with enough credibility for most people to take them seriously, the anti-vaccination lobby will insist that those people are too tied in with the government/pharmaceutical companies to produce unbiased results. It's ridiculous.

[deliciouspear.livejournal.com]

I don't disagree with you, but I think the opposite is completely true as well. No matter how many studies can show something is harmful, the pro-vaccination folks will never change their minds either.

[velvetpage.livejournal.com]

I'm willing to be convinced with sound and repeatable scientific studies. The discussion in my house the other day was about the stupidity of requiring a rabies vaccine for ferrets, since they a) have never been shown to carry rabies, and b) have a very high rate of allergic reaction to the vaccine. If I were to become a ferret owner, I'd take that research into account when deciding to vaccinate my pet.

But the sound, repeatable studies are just about all on the pro-vax side.