You are entitled to your own opinions but not to your own facts

You are entitled to your own opinions but not to your own facts

I hope the backlash against anti-vaxxers has a positive outcome, i.e., they stay out of the public or get vaccinated. There is ignorance about how the immune system works and therefore how vaccines work. Some anti-vaxxers claim that the Amish don’t get sick and do not vaccinate but that’s not correct. They suffer from some horrible diseases. Here’s an interesting article from The Atlantic (h/t Mary Mangan) 

https://plus.google.com/u/0/+MaryMangan/posts/X1SkdjrxDgJ

Here’s a two-second primer on the immune system:

Exposure to a foreign body (antigen) causes the immune system to generate antibodies. The antibodies identify the antigens so that your immune system (T cells) can remove the foreign body. In the case of naturally acquired immunity, you are exposed to the live virus, e.g., influenza. In the case of a vaccine, you are given an attenuated virus, i.e., one that cannot replicate. Would you rather go to a so called Chicken Pox party and get real Chicken Pox or get the vaccine where you have milder symptoms if you get Chicken Pox at all? It’s true that not all vaccines are 100%. That’s partly due to biodiversity. It should be easy to understand that we all aren’t identical. However, in the case of measles, the vaccine is 95% effective and measles is one of the most contagious diseases, more than ebola. If you are not vaccinated, you have 90% chance of getting measles.

Herd immunity is essential for those who can’t get vaccinated because they are too young or are allergic. Read more about herd immunity here:

If you have a minute, really just 60 seconds, and you want to learn what herd immunity is

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=brNscgAG3Nc

More on Herd Immunity if you have more time

http://www.health.harvard.edu/video/herd-immunity/

For those who actually want to be educated, here’s a great article from Liza Gross

Doubt and Denialism: Vaccine Myths Persist in the Face of Science

http://goo.gl/f7Y1f

Regarding thimerosal as a preservative in vaccines:

Furthermore, all new vaccines licensed since 1999 are free of thimerosal as a preservative

http://goo.gl/v0KRe

Yet the rate of autism increases? Where’s the link? There is none.

https://plus.google.com/+livescience/posts/iqzXqH1eHwC

And you are aware of the increase in Pertussis in Washington state due to anti-vaxxer parents? Here’s how science is presented (by Philip Plait) 

http://goo.gl/8xRa7

Here’s a few more links:

Tussle with Pertussis – Whooping cough

http://goo.gl/b8wWHn

It does matter, Alijah should not have been in ICU

http://goo.gl/cvknyY

Finally, I’ll point you to as disturbing story about anti-vaxxers going after a family that lost their infant to whooping cough. http://goo.gl/saspV

#ScienceSunday  

Originally shared by Yonatan Zunger

As a measles outbreak spreads across the US, with 14 states now affected, the advocates of letting deadly epidemics run wild are finding themselves suddenly unpopular:

Members of the anti-vaccine movement said the public backlash had terrified many parents. “People are now afraid they’re going to be jailed,” said Barbara Loe Fisher, the president of the National Vaccine Information Center, a clearinghouse for resisters. “I can’t believe what I’m seeing. It’s gotten so out of hand, and it’s gotten so vicious.”

This is not, to be honest, an unreasonable fear: it turns out that when you recklessly engage in conduct which places another person (or the general public) in danger of death or serious bodily injury, you may well have a reason to fear that people might want you to go to jail. The technical term is “reckless endangerment.” And when people — especially children — start actually dying because of your actions, you may well have reason to fear that your neighbors may suggest that you find some other neighbors, starting right away.

The reaction to this outbreak has, however, offered me some real hope. I suspect that as soon as people remember just why people were so terrified of these diseases, the popularity of the “anti-vaccine” movement is likely to plummet, largely at the hands of people who don’t feel like being put in mortal danger by their neighbors’ fears. Hopefully, this movement will be gone and forgotten before too many people die. (But I want to be honest here: people are going to die. Mostly kids.)

We should recognize that there are real access problems in some parts of the country: the government pays for vaccines but not the doctor’s time, and if you get paid by the hour and don’t have a car, simply the time to go to the doctor is a major factor. But we know how to fix these problems: the mobile vaccination stations that helped end the polio epidemic of the 1950’s are proof of that.

The best proof by far, though, is that some states are doing a great job to this day. It turns out that the winner is Mississippi, which has managed to achieve a 99.7% immunization rate for the most serious diseases! They’ve done this through a combination of a strong public health program and not messing around with their laws. You can read more about what they’ve done, and how they stack up against other states, at http://wpo.st/QKT20 .

I suggest a three-point strategy:

(1) Make sure that the CDC-approved vaccine schedule is available to every person. Task an agency with achieving as close to 100% coverage as possible; the only people who shouldn’t be getting these are people for whom there is a medical reason not to.

(2) Educate the public about what’s going on and why. Don’t be afraid to pull out the old videos and show people of just why measles is not a “thing you just get over.” 

(3) Starting in areas where vaccination is already reliably available, and ultimately spreading to all areas of the country, impose criminal liability for the deliberate failure to vaccinate without medical reason, under existing laws for reckless endangerment and/or child endangerment. 

My parents and their generation got to watch their families and their friends die from these diseases. I don’t want to do the same.

h/t to Kyla Myers for the WaPo article about Mississippi’s success. Another very interesting article to read is http://goo.gl/BYp3iF, from the Journal of the American Academy of Physician Assistants, which goes through the reasons why people aren’t getting vaccinated and proposes several ways to help fix it. Thanks to James Salsman for that one.

Special thanks to Steve Esterly for his thorough critique of a previous version of this post, and in particular catching that I had misinterpreted the JAAPA article in a rather important way. 

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/31/us/vaccine-critics-turn-defensive-over-measles.html?_r=1