I wanted to address this:
I totally believe in herd immunity. But how protected our kids are kinda breaks down when you look at everything disease by disease.
WC is one of the scarier VPDs, but the vaccine doesn't create any kind of herd immunity. Same with tetanus and diphtheria.
Mumps is basically becoming endemic again, because the vax wears off (not a big deal, though, because mumps is actually less deadly than chickenpox)...rubella is only an issue for pregnant women in the first trimester.
Measles is more severe, but even that one usually isn't that big of a deal for healthy kids. If anything, our kids are mooching off other kids' ability to not transmit measles to an infant or immunocompromised person.
With smallpox, it was isolation and "ring vaccination" that eradicated it; not mass vaccination. Plus, smallpox was successfully eliminated in areas that didn't use the vaccine at all. Because smallpox is unique in that it's not contagious before there are classic smallpox "pox", quarantine and isolation alone could have eradicated it. But the vaccine probably did help it become eradicated a little faster than if there was no vaccine.
Anyway, break the VPDs down disease and vaccine by disease and vaccine at a time, and you'll see that the whole "antivax kids are protected by others who vax" thing is really grossly overstated.
Quote:
| I do think there is truth to the concept of "herd immunity" and to the claims that those who don't vaccinate are getting the benefit of diseases being rare but not willing to take the risk that others take to create the benefit. If everyone was afraid of vaccinations like I am - we'd probably still be dying of Smallpox. |
WC is one of the scarier VPDs, but the vaccine doesn't create any kind of herd immunity. Same with tetanus and diphtheria.
Mumps is basically becoming endemic again, because the vax wears off (not a big deal, though, because mumps is actually less deadly than chickenpox)...rubella is only an issue for pregnant women in the first trimester.
Measles is more severe, but even that one usually isn't that big of a deal for healthy kids. If anything, our kids are mooching off other kids' ability to not transmit measles to an infant or immunocompromised person.
With smallpox, it was isolation and "ring vaccination" that eradicated it; not mass vaccination. Plus, smallpox was successfully eliminated in areas that didn't use the vaccine at all. Because smallpox is unique in that it's not contagious before there are classic smallpox "pox", quarantine and isolation alone could have eradicated it. But the vaccine probably did help it become eradicated a little faster than if there was no vaccine.
Anyway, break the VPDs down disease and vaccine by disease and vaccine at a time, and you'll see that the whole "antivax kids are protected by others who vax" thing is really grossly overstated.
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