Setting up a delayed/Selective Vax Schedule - Page 3

[siddie]

Richelle, I KNOW that you are the person who has the utmost concern for your daughter's health. We all have to evalutate the numbers and decide if the risks from the shot are worse than the risks of the disease. You are correct in saying that in this country, there are more cases of problems with the shots than the disease. In other countries where the disease is highly prevalent, the risk is much greater so if I were traveling to one of those countries I would want my ds vaxed. It just sounds like you may be interpreting the stats for adult infection of hepB as if they are the same for children. Children cannot fight off the infection as well as adults. From the cdc website:

http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/diseases/hepatitis/b/fact.htm

Chronic infection occurs in:
90% of infants infected at birth
30% of children infected at age 1 - 5 years
6% of persons infected after age 5 years
Death from chronic liver disease occurs in:
15-25% of chronically infected persons

So, if your child is exposed under age 5 and is not vaccinated, the child has a 30% chance of becoming a chronic carrier and if a chronic carrier a 15-24% chance of dying.

more from the cdc:
Number of new infections per year has declined from an average of 260,000 in the 1980s to about 78,000 in 2001.
Highest rate of disease occurs in 20-49-year-olds.
Greatest decline has happened among children and adolescents due to routine hepatitis B vaccination.
Estimated 1.25 million chronically infected Americans, of whom 20-30% acquired their infection in childhood.

I am a nurse (since 83) and the study I am referring to where 10=17% of heatlhcare workers were previously exposed and immune was conducted at the hospital I worked at by the infection control department before vaccinating. It is possible that if you touched a countertop/telephone or other object containing the virus and touched a mucous membrane (eye, nose, mouth) without washing your hands you could get it. Or if you get a paper cut or puncture from a staple and then contact the virus on a surface, you could get it. This link talks about the virus living on surfaces for prolonged periods of time and how 45% of the world's population is affected by this disease. http://www.worldwidevaccines.com/hep...idemiology.asp

[Gitti]

Siddi,

It is beyond me how we have survived all these millions of years when the world is such a dangerous place. Gosh, just darn good immunity I would guess?

And no fear of disease, no fear of propaganda, no fear of microorganisms, no fear of the unknown. Just plain livin...and staying healthy!

[janellesmommy]

Originally Posted by becca29

I plan on adding either the DTap or just the DT, but I'm still looking for more information on that one. I feel tetanus is an important one( all my doctors say if I give only one, that should be it), but I'm not sure which version to give. If anyone has info on that it would be great.

Well, the pertussis component of the DTaP scares me, but the 25 micrograms of mercury in the DT, TT, or Td scares me a lot more. There is no low mercury version of those.

[saganaga]

Originally Posted by Electra375

Richelle -- read very carefully what I wrote again. I did not say that bfing had no immunities, I said that your vaccinations will not carry to the bfing infant.

I understand that my vaccinations will not carry to my bfing baby, BUT if my shot (like the flu shot) has thimerosal in it, then the mercury will be carried in my breast milk & into my bfing baby. Right?

[amnesiac]

So, if your child is exposed under age 5 and is not vaccinated, the child has a 30% chance of becoming a chronic carrier and if a chronic carrier a 15-24% chance of dying

Sounds scary & all but one very important thing is missing -- what is the likelihood of a child born to hep B-negative mom being exposed under 5 years of age?? Any percentages available for that?? I'm guessing it's somewhere between slim & none.

I am a nurse (since 83) and the study I am referring to where 10=17% of heatlhcare workers were previously exposed and immune was conducted at the hospital I worked at by the infection control department before vaccinating.

So then it's likely that those showing immunity in or after 1983 (the year HIV was identified) from previous exposure would have actually contracted the virus prior to their big HIV paranoia. So where can I read this study? Was it unpublished?

It is possible that if you touched a countertop/telephone or other object containing the virus and touched a mucous membrane (eye, nose, mouth) without washing your hands you could get it. Or if you get a paper cut or puncture from a staple and then contact the virus on a surface, you could get it.

Please show me a documented case where this has happened. Preferably something that isn't a hep B vax manufacturer's sales pitch like the previous GSK link.

I don't see anything here about getting Hep B from countertops:
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/diseases/hepatitis/b/fact.htm

[siddie]

Okay, last time here because I can see I am being flamed as a delayed/selective vaxer amongst the unvaxers here.

Gitti, diseases are much more easily spread today because of travel, immmigration, population density, and other cultural factors. Children were not in daycare in the numbers they are now 30+ years ago, nor did people start them in preschool at age 3. Some sources say aids was around as early as the 50's but it didn't become the worldwide epidemic it is until travel and promiscuity in the 1980's.

AMnesiac, the percentages IN THIS COUNTRY are probably low, I am talking about the rest of the world where in endemic areas 45% of the population has been exposed and is a potential carrier. The op stated they were going to be traveling and possibly going to some of those countries. I am sure youa re capable of doing a search yourself if you are truly interested. The nurses study I refer to was unpublished but the point is, the healthcare workers did not have any known exposure to the disease, they were using precautions. PLease check this info out for transmission and refer to the original studies ref. 2 and 5 at the bottom for documented cases of transmission from other sources. http://www.worldwidevaccines.com/hep...idemiology.asp

[amnesiac]

Not flaming you at all, just questioning your implications that hep B is so readily acquired from daily living environments.

they were using precautions.

Doubtful that they were using "precautions" as we know them today. I wouldn't be at all shocked to find nurses going to lunch with blood in their ring settings have history of Hep B exposure. Things were different even that recently & healthcare professionals were not always so careful so I can't buy it that transmission happens as easily as you've implied. Neither do I buy the GlaxoSmithKline sales pitch that it's easily acquired.

Even if you ARE travelling overseas, how would you be at increased risk of acquiring hep B in daily life? Maybe if you require medical care & get injected with dirty needles? Having unprotected sex with locals? Getting a blood transfusion?
http://www.cdc.gov/travel/diseases/hbv.htm

As for Glaxo's sales pitch references, looking at the CDC one because it's easiest, it says:

"Contamination of mucosal surfaces with infective serum or plasma
may occur in mouth pipetting, eye splashes, or other direct contact
with mucous membranes of the eyes or mouth, such as handto-
mouth or hand-to-eye when contaminated with infective blood or
serum. Transfer of infective material to skin lesions or mucous
membranes via inanimate environmental surfaces may occur by
touching surfaces of various types of hospital equipment.
Contamination of mucosal surfaces with infective secretions other
than serum or plasma could occur with contact involving semen."

This is gross contamination. There is no discussion of any documented cases from contacting something like a countertop in a household.

I don't have access to the full text of the Alter reference, but since Miriam Alter's an associate director of the CDC's Viral Hepatitis Division it strikes me as odd that this one paper she wrote would contradict her division's fact sheets which I posted previously.


If it makes you sleep better at night to get Hep B vaxes then go for it, no flames for that from me. It's just not as easily contracted as I perceive you to be saying.

[KellyB]

As to HepB, I'm getting the picture that here in the US there's really no need for an infant or small child to be vaccinated against it, but in some places elsewhere in the world it would possibly be a good idea.
Child to child transmission is supposedly one of the ways it's commonly spread (*outside of the US).

[amnesiac]

Child to child transmission is supposedly one of the ways it's commonly spread (*outside of the US).

Why would it happen that way outside the US any more than it would within the US?

[Sasha_girl]

Gitti, diseases are much more easily spread today because of travel, immmigration, population density, and other cultural factors.

This isn't against anyone, but simply an observation. It's interesting that we are to believe that diseases are much more easily spread in this day and age then in the times before sewage sanitation, clean water and food, and non-crowded living conditions. True, I might live close to my neighbors, but we don't walk to work though each other's feces, draw water from wells tainted with said feces, or live fifteen people to an apartment.

[Sasha_girl]

I just think a lot of people who choose not to vax against this disease are making their decisions without fully understanding how the disease is transmitted and that an infant or child getting it is much more serious than an adult getting it.

I love when people ASSume that if I choose not to vax I must be uninformed about it. ::rolling my eyes up in my head::

I second whoever suggested Sherri Nakken's class. I've got, like, eight 2-inch binders full from info I got from her class.

[plantmommy]

Just a note on the HepB vax... my pediatrician won't vax her kids for it until they are 12. She sees no danger to younger children from this one, unless mom has it and they are exposed at birth.

[KellyB]

Originally Posted by amnesiac

Why would it happen that way outside the US any more than it would within the US?

I don't have a link on it or anything like that, but I would assume that in the areas of the world where HepB is at truely epidemic proportions, there are lots of children that contract it at birth from infected mothers, creating a large population of infected children (which we don't have in the US) to transmit the virus in the ways outside of sex and IV needle sharing....
I could be wrong, but it makes sense to me..
Edited to add:
I found a link...
http://www.who.int/vaccines-diseases...atitis_b.shtml

Transmission from child to child, often called horizontal transmission, is responsible for the majority of HBV infections and carriers. Although the relative importance of the various modes of transmission from child to child have not been established, many hepatitis researchers believe that skin lesions such as impetigo, scabies, abrasions, and infected insect bites play an important role. These lesions provide a route for the virus to leave the body of infectious children, and a route into the body of susceptible children with whom they have skin to skin contact such as wrestling or sharing the same bed

[alex-lynne]

I understand that my vaccinations will not carry to my bfing baby, BUT if my shot (like the flu shot) has thimerosal in it, then the mercury will be carried in my breast milk & into my bfing baby. Right?

Saganaga..this is an excellent question..
Since I have been here there has not been an in depth discussion concerning this point..I'll share what I've learned and I will be looking up old links to support.
I have an enormous amount of "silver fillings" (they contain mercury). I learned while pregnant that baby was being exposed in-vitro to this mercury.
It would also be concentrated in my breastmilk.
My very dear friend (who vax'd her son..he was born in '98) believes that genetics, her dental amalgam, the fish she ate while pregnant (this was before the recommendations not to) the filling that broke while she was pregnant and the repair of it that was done while she was nursing her infant (even though she asked the dentist if it was ok since she was nursing)and the vaccines all cumulatively played a role in her son's autism diagnosis in 2000.
It is true that there are differences in mom's body protecting baby while in vitro, ingesting sources with mercury contamination, breathing vapors (that is concerning amalgam), injecting via vaccine,and being injected while breastfeeding...frankly as far as I know..we really don't know all of the answers...we just try to minimize mercury exposure as much as possible..because it is unavoidable in our environment.
You are a filter for baby...so if you are avoiding other sources..the benefits of your nursing outweigh the risks at this point IMO.
Great point!! Great question..
al

[amnesiac]

Okay I see now. So the child-to-child hep B transmissions in developing countries are household transmissions just as happens in the US in households with a chronically infected person. More infected households means more household transmissions. That would correlate with the CDC's travel recommendations that explain the need to consider the duration of travel & extent of contact.

[Belleweather]

This whole Vaccinations/antibodies arguement isn't making ANY sense to me, ya'll.

It seems like arguement that 'your vacciantions won't protect a breastfed infant' is spurious if indeed babies will pass their infections on to the mama when nursing. Look at it this way, let's say that my baby is developing whooping cough, and let's just provisionally say that I've been Vaxed against it and have functional vax-related immunity. So, those germs enter my body, and my immune system goes "Wow... look, it's Whooping Cough! We know how to deal with THAT!" and starts producing a bloody great pile of antibodies against whooping cough, letting all my immune cells know how to knock out those germs. Then according to what you are saying about passing antibodies through breastmilk, those antibodies would pass to the baby and let the baby's immune system learn how to fight off whooping cough. So the baby would be profiting from the mama's vaccinations, even though they don't get full immunity because their body never learns how to produce it's own antibodies.

In that way, it would be no different from what would happen if I had, for example, gotten whooping cough as a child. My body would still know how to produce the antibodies and they would be passed to the child via breast milk.

Maybe I'm missing something here, but this arguement seems to be something of a non-starter. Anyone want to expain to me why this is something worth talking about?

[Plummeting]

I don't know if I understand exactly what you're saying about breastfeeding, vaccinations and antibodies, Belleweather, but it is true that sometimes when the baby gets passive immunity through bfing, they will not develop their own immunity to a disease. It isn't true all of the time and I don't know if anyone knows under what conditions a baby's body will "remember" the illness and be able to prevent it later. My DD was recently exposed to chicken pox at 5 months and never got them, but I can't say if she's now immune or not. Guess we won't know until she's older.....

[CallMeIshmael]

Originally Posted by Belleweather

Maybe I'm missing something here, but this [breast milk antibodies] arguement seems to be something of a non-starter. Anyone want to expain to me why this is something worth talking about?

I think the concern is more with transplacental antibodies than those found in breastmilk. Since vaccine-derived immunity generally results in lower titers of antibodies, fewer of them pass to the baby during pregnancy, and the supply runs out more quickly.

But memory cells are memory cells. If mom has them, she can generate new antibodies pronto should the need arise. Those would get passed on in her breastmilk.

To further muddy the issue, though, consider this: the biggest role of breastmilk antibodies is in baby's first six months of life or so. Only then are the antibodies able to make it through the GI barrier into the bloodstream. After that point, the baby's gut becomes (or should become) impermeable to proteins. Only single or very short chains of amino acids should make it through. Mom keeps making the antibodies and they may have an effect in the mouth and throat, but they won't do much for a systemic illness.

[CallMeIshmael]

Originally Posted by Richelle

My DD was recently exposed to chicken pox at 5 months and never got them, but I can't say if she's now immune or not. Guess we won't know until she's older.....

Yeah, at that age it's quite likely that transplacental antibodies would have wiped out any stray pox virus before your daughter got a chance to work up her own immunity. That's the rationale for waiting until a child is at least 12 months before MMR or varicella vax, for the record: transplacental antibodies generally get in the way before then -- they wipe out all traces of the virus in the vax before it can replicate and stimulate an immune response.

You are planning to test her blood for antibody or re-expose her to pox, right? Based on my personal experience with adult pox, I'm advising everyone I know to make sure their kids get it while they're still kids!

[KellyB]

Originally Posted by CallMeIshmael

Yeah, at that age it's quite likely that transplacental antibodies would have wiped out any stray pox virus before your daughter got a chance to work up her own immunity. That's the rationale for waiting until a child is at least 12 months before MMR or varicella vax, for the record: transplacental antibodies generally get in the way before then -- they wipe out all traces of the virus in the vax before it can replicate and stimulate an immune response.

You are planning to test her blood for antibody or re-expose her to pox, right? Based on my personal experience with adult pox, I'm advising everyone I know to make sure their kids get it while they're still kids!

First of all, Ishmael, I have the deepest of respects for you.
So I, in no way, want to contradict whatever you believe.

But as I see it, ideally, the breastfed child will come into contact with whatever pathogen numerous times, as will his or her mother, and after several exposers to said pathogen, the breastfed child will become virtually immune, with rare exception.

Much like vaccines, except there are other forces at play that cause many more children nowadays in the US to become vax damaged.
And no one knows exactly why this happens so often as it does here in the US. It might be the fish that we eat...or the air we breathe...or the shots we hold our kids down for.
We just don't know.
But we do know what protected the babies of past generations against Polio.

So, would you say, should we all try to expose ourselves and our children as often as possible to illneses we, as mothers, know we might be able to give our children immunity to?

I ask as I really don't know...