the doctor's hilarious comments...

[AGierald]

We visited the doc the other day, i needed a prescription refilled and my son is having allergies sooo we went. My hubby went into another room with my son while I waiting for the doc.

After she visited my son, she came into me. This bouncy young thing (im 26) tells me that she's concerned if I'm ever out of town, and my son goes to the ER, i absolutely MUST be sure i tell the hospital workers hes not immunized. She said "Being unimmunized makes him susceptible to diseases that many doctors have not seen"

Me: "why haven't they seen them?"

Her: Because Immunizations have eradicated them.

Me: If they are eradicated, how will my son get them?

:rofl: She, no lie, changed the subject! Not kidding, she didn't have another word to say about it, and changed the subject to something completely opposite of vaccination. Thats what i get for seeing someone just out of med school, huh? (no, im kidding, im sure theres fine docs just out of med school, but this was not one of them).

[Arduinna]

Too funny

[Chamomile Girl]

That's funny! I suppose that means I should run out and get my family vaccinated for smallpox...because that eradicated disease might get 'em otherwise.

[Iucounu]

I think what your doctor was half-remembering, most likely, was the recent whooping cough epidemic in California. One of the problems encountered in that epidemic was that doctors failed to diagnose some of the cases, because they were unfamiliar with the disease. Whooping cough was nearly eradicated for a number of years, but recently is undergoing a resurgence for several reasons.

[laohaire]

Whooping cough was nearly eradicated? Do you have a source on that? I understood it to be consistently endemic.

[angelpie545]

Originally Posted by laohaire

Whooping cough was nearly eradicated? Do you have a source on that? I understood it to be consistently endemic.

I think that's what's funny about the doctor's comment-the only disease declared to be eradicated by immunization is smallpox. All of the other diseases are still occurring, albeit in smaller numbers, but still there nontheless.

[smeep]

[mama1803]

Originally Posted by laohaire

Whooping cough was nearly eradicated? Do you have a source on that? I understood it to be consistently endemic.

I would like more on this as well. My understanding was that whooping cough followed a 3-4 year cycle and that cycle really doesn't change according to changes in the vax rate.

[Iucounu]

Originally Posted by laohaire

Whooping cough was nearly eradicated? Do you have a source on that? I understood it to be consistently endemic.

Here's one article on the delayed diagnosis problem. Replace "nearly eradicated" with "beaten down" or another term, if you like. The delayed diagnoses occurred because doctors were so unfamiliar with the appearance of the disease in infants. Pertussis would be effectively eradicated if everyone were vaccinated, of course, and the recent resurgence is due to fading vaccinations in adults in large part, but that's beside the issue, I suppose.

http://www.scpr.org/news/2010/09/07/...-cough-deaths/

This is just my best guess as to what the doctor in the OP meant.

[smeep]

Originally Posted by Iucounu

Pertussis would be effectively eradicated if everyone were vaccinated, of course

Well considering vaccines aren't even close to 100% effective to begin with, even IF everyone were vaccinated I can't imagine that it would ever be effectively eradicated. Not to mention those for whom vaccinations are indisputably contraindicated (severe immune system problems, etc.) they would have to risk very possible death just to try and eradicate it. And isn't the DTaP a vax that doesn't start until 12 or 15 months? (I seriously don't remember, it's been four years since I did my massive research to decide whether or not to vax DS.) Therefore that's a good chunk of time for a lot of people to not be vax'd. Then you add in people who just don't keep up with their vaccines (even parents who regularly and fully vax their kids are rarely up to date themselves). Eradication is just not going to happen, at least not due to vaccines.

[Chamomile Girl]

Originally Posted by Iucounu

Here's one article on the delayed diagnosis problem. Replace "nearly eradicated" with "beaten down" or another term, if you like. The delayed diagnoses occurred because doctors were so unfamiliar with the appearance of the disease in infants. Pertussis would be effectively eradicated if everyone were vaccinated, of course, and the recent resurgence is due to fading vaccinations in adults in large part, but that's beside the issue, I suppose.

http://www.scpr.org/news/2010/09/07/...-cough-deaths/

This is just my best guess as to what the doctor in the OP meant.

Well this is problematic for a number of reasons. First is that the Pertussis vaccine does not prevent transmission, only lessens the severity of the symptoms of the disease. So its true that the infected patient may spread less sputum from coughing less, but at the same time if they don't know they have pertussis they are more likely to be circulating in public. Anyway because of this pertussis will never be eradicated through the DTaP vaccine.

Secondly, it is very sad that the babies were not diagnosed immediately, but the DTaP vaccine is not given to infants as young as those who died, so obviously adhering to a traditional vaccine schedule would not have mattered in those cases.

Pertussis is a cyclical disease. It ebbs and wanes (like most diseases I guess).

[Fyrestorm]

I think if you look back to the measles vaccine, they said they were going to eradicate that too. The CDC thought they could get rid of it by 1967 hmmmm...never happened.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...6830-1,00.html

So much for that whole herd immunity thing

[Iucounu]

I see claims often here that the pertussis vaccine flat-out does not prevent transmission, but believe that to be inaccurate; in fact any effect on transmission is simply poorly understood at this point. If a heavily vaxed population experiences fewer reported cases of pertussis, it seems like a natural inference that there are fewer actual cases, and that somewhere along the line there were fewer successful transmissions. And there have been studies actually showing a reduction in transmission IIRC, including one showing a quite dramatic decrease in a NICU setting based on vaccination rates of nurses caring for the infants.

Based on that, I believe it is quite credible that pertussis could be eradicated by vaccinations. Of course this will never happen, since we can't force people to vaccinate barring a pandemic here in the US, and I don't see that happening with pertussis barring a particularly nasty mutation. And, of course, even if we got over that hurdle, we couldn't force the entire world to vaccinate. But back to our regularly scheduled thread...

[Iucounu]

Originally Posted by Fyrestorm

I think if you look back to the measles vaccine, they said they were going to eradicate that too. The CDC thought they could get rid of it by 1967 hmmmm...never happened.

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...6830-1,00.html

So much for that whole herd immunity thing

Right, it's only been reduced to about 100 cases annually here in the US. Definitely not eradicated, like smallpox.

[Fyrestorm]

Originally Posted by Iucounu

Right, it's only been reduced to about 100 cases annually here in the US. Definitely not eradicated, like smallpox.

Except for that 'measles like rash ' that kids get after vaccination

oh...and those 'unclassified' viral rashes with fever and light sensitivity that people are diagnosed with since mass vaccination

[Iucounu]

Originally Posted by Fyrestorm

Except for that 'measles like rash ' that kids get after vaccination

oh...and those 'unclassified' viral rashes with fever and light sensitivity that people are diagnosed with since mass vaccination

The article linked to concerned measles, or rubeola; we have 100 cases of that in the US annually.

[Fyrestorm]

Originally Posted by Iucounu

The article linked to concerned measles, or rubeola; we have 100 cases of that in the US annually.

cases that are actually diagnosed correctly anyway......

[Iucounu]

Originally Posted by Fyrestorm

cases that are actually diagnosed correctly anyway......

Yep, true.

[Fyrestorm]

Just like pertussis maybe?

[Iucounu]

Originally Posted by Fyrestorm

Just like pertussis maybe?

Not really. The linked-to article discussed an attempt to stamp out rubeola, during a time when there was not such a strong resistance to vaccination as there is today. The lingering effect of the attempt to eradicate rubeola is that we have only 100 cases of reported rubeola today in the US. With pertussis, there has been no announced attempt to eradicate it in the US; we live in a time when there is significant resistance to vaccination, and relatively poor vaccination levels for pertussis in comparison to 1960s and rubeola; and we have over 10,000 cases reported per year.

So they got pretty darn close, and I think it was probably a poorly chosen example-- it certainly doesn't show that diseases can't be eradicated, or that herd immunity is not a real phenomenon. Keep in mind that smallpox was only eradicated with a worldwide effort. I am confident that if there were a concerted, sustained worldwide effort, pertussis would be eradicated eventually as well (but for logistical reasons it's not going to happen, no argument then).

Now, back to our regularly scheduled thread...