Vaccines are good for you!

[Madge]

Hey all!

Something that has been worrying me about the world lately is the fact that many high-profile celebrities are spreading misinformation about the risks of vaccination. (Particularly Oprah and Jenny McCarthy).

They claim, among other things, that vaccines cause autism in young children. There have been hundreds of good studies that show that this is simply not true. The misconception comes from the fact that children get an MMR vaccine at around age 6, and that is also when autism tends to get diagnosed. My boyfriend's cousin has a child with autism and they have been indoctrinated into this belief.

I am basically posting this because vaccines are a good thing, they are the reason we don't have smallpox or polio and that whooping cough is almost unheard of. However, the misinformation these people are spreading is causing whooping cough to re-emerge in parts of Australia - something like 3,000 cases were recorded a couple of years ago, when 5 years before that there were only, like, 8 or something.

Vaccines give you something called 'herd immunity' - a disease can't survive in an environment where less than 5%-20% of people can be infected. This keeps the children who GENUINELY can't be vaccinated safe (for example, kids with certain types of cancer, and children who are too young to be vaccinated).

So, yes, I just wanted to check how everybody feels about this issue. If you have any questions or doubts about the efficacy/safety of vaccines, do post about them and I'll do my best to examine them and provide explanations, if explanations exist. If explanations don't exist, I'll try and find them, and if they can't be found, I'll size up all the information and figure out how to alter my stance.

[AngharadTy]

I'm with you 100%. While I understand the reluctance to give money to "Big Pharma," there's a reason they get to charge what they do: their stuff works. Blammo. Every time I hear about parents who fell prey to the myths, I get sad and angry simultaneously. It's one of the things that frustrates me almost as much as evolution debates.

Also, even if the idiotic myths about autism were even slightly true, which they're not, it's not a death sentence; many people living with autism don't want to be cured because they don't consider it a "disease." It can definitely be life-changing for parents, and it can hinder people who don't want to be affected, but the people screaming about how vaccines "ruined" their child are offensive to autistic people.

[Madge]

Hear, hear! Let's hope this thread is just one big circle-jerk .

[EofS]

I'm in the slightly odd situation that I am anti-MMR, but only because (in this country at least) it's made it very hard to get the individual vaccinations. I'm not allowed the MMR because I reacted very badly to my measles vaccination as a baby (pre-MMR days). Consequently, I'm completely vulnerable to rubella. (I had mumps when I was little.)

Similarly, when I was fifteen I fell over and needed a tetanus injection. I was due, within the next two years, to have my general "you're about to be an adult, so we're gonna do a full medical" checkup, which they combine with giving you tetanus, diphtheria and polio - the first two combined in a single jab, last on the tongue of course. However due to my fall, I needed the tetanus early. My doctor said that although he could give me a single tetanus jab, it would be extremely difficult to obtain a solo diphtheria one. So we more or less had no choice but to do the full DPT then and there - and since I couldn't really stand due to the gaping hole in my knee, I was in no state for the full physical. Which I ended up not having.

It's not exactly ruined my life or anything :0P It's very much the mild end of inconvenience. But the rubella thing? That is potentially serious. (I'm gonna bring it up again when I get round to registering with a GP where I currently live. When I registered at uni and expressed my concern, I was told "well if you're allergic to measles, you'll be allergic to rubella too, it's the same thing" - I determined there and then not to get ill at uni!)

So I'm very much pro-vaccine, but I'm pro having a choice about how that vaccination is delivered.

Tangentially, I was very annoyed when getting vaccinations at school and they tried to make me not look at my arm. It's my damn arm, if I want to watch you sticking a needle in that should be my choice! I'm much happier if I can see you doing it. (And then a few years later, getting more jabs at school, I noticed that they were asking the boys if they were looking forward to the football match that evening, but not the girls. Humph!)

[Taeyna]

Thank you for posting that. As someone who works in the medical laboratory field, I am very much pro-vaccination for various reasons. One, I know what the diseases do to people (and how quickly they spread) and if there is a way of preventing them, then people really should use it and two, vaccines stops me from getting whatever the patient might have (thank you Hepatitis B vaccine).

Vaccination rates in New Zealand are horrible (third lowest in the OECD), as no one is required to be vaccinated before they start school (plus other reasons including misinformation). Some rates are below herd vaccination, and so far this year there has been several outbreaks of measles around the country.

I know some people don't get their kids vaccination due to possible serious side effects. As one of my lecturers said, you have to weigh up the risks of vaccinating vs not vaccinating. Vaccinating tends to be the safer option. If you want a real life case study, 2 children died from side effects of whooping cough vaccine in Japan in 1974 and 1975. This lead to many parents not vaccinating their children, and the resulting epidemic (1977-1979) killed 93 children. (I believe a similar thing occurred in Britain at about the same time)

I am basically posting this because vaccines are a good thing, they are the reason we don't have smallpox or polio and that whooping cough is almost unheard of. However, the misinformation these people are spreading is causing whooping cough to re-emerge in parts of Australia - something like 3,000 cases were recorded a couple of years ago, when 5 years before that there were only, like, 8 or something.

Side note: The interesting thing about whooping cough is that it goes through a 4-5 year epidemic cycle (well, in New Zealand it does), so it's possible that it may be on the way down again.

[Griffin]

Thank you Madge.

My son was autistic before he was vaccinated, so I knew it wasn't the case, but though I know jack about shit I was leaning towards the vaccine controversy being BS.

[Foghawk]

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/

Orac talks a lot about vaccine 'controversy', plus a host of similar issues. He is a pretty cool guy.

[KauKrazy]

I have always thought the same when it comes to vaccines. Over here also there's an increasing number of mothers who decide not to get their children vaccinated. I honestly can't understand that, though I concider myself to be a very open-minded and non-judgemental person. Obviously they haven't really thought about the diseases vaccines help protect against or they wouldn't even think of not taking the protection. A child with tetanus for example isn't pleasant or harmless. How can they live with themselves, should the child really get sick? Knowing a simple shot would have solved the problem? This is far worse that the very small chance of having a side-effect from the vaccination. And I certainly don't believe the autism story. Yeah, the drug companies are greedy and want to make money, it's not a charity. But to believe that they are out to get everyone and to make people autistic and kill them, or even spread viruses via the vaccines themselves, is ridiculous.