Slashdot Mirror
Diphtheria Returns To Spain For Lack of Vaccination
TuringTest writes: A six-year-old child was admitted to a hospital in Barcelona and diagnosed with diphtheria, which hasn't occurred in Spain since 1986 and was largely unheard of in western Europe. The boy had not been vaccinated despite the vaccine being available in free vaccination programs. Spanish general health secretary called anti-vaccination campaigns "irresponsible" and said: "The right to vaccination is for children, not for the parents to decide." The child is in critical condition, though he's now being treated with a serum expressly brought from Russia through an emergency procedure.
... so why are you listening to medical advice from him?
A Public Service Announcement from Get Your Brats Immunized
No. Vaccination rates are highest in the Bible belt, while they are lowest on the west coast. I think it has less to do with political affiliation and more to do with who reads idiot granola mommy and food blogs.
I strongly think that parents who elect to not vaccinate their children (absent a documented medical condition preventing safe vaccination) should be liable for child endangerment. This is reckless behavior that is reasonably likely to result in bodily harm to another human being. This is a public safety issue with a clear and benign and effective solution. Those who opt out should be liable for the consequences of their actions.
I didn't know there WAS a Bible Belt in Europe, especially the Netherlands. Here in the US, non-abortion-related medicine is usually without any religious controversy, save for the Christian Scientists (who are, depending on what angle you view them from, neither Christian nor scientific), a relatively small, fringe sect that believes that all medical care represents faithlessness.
Here in the deep-south, there's a modern-day parable that goes around Christian circles that demonstrates the general philosophy in this regard: A man goes over a cliff overlooking treacherous waters and manages to grab hold of a thin root half-way down. In desperation he cries out to God, "Save me! Send me deliverence!" Having thus prayed, he resolves to place his trust in God. A man walks by the cliff and lowers a rope. "Grab the rope!" he says. The hanging man replies, "I cannot! I have placed my trust in the Lord, and I will await His deliverance." Next a boat drives by under the cliff. The man in the boat says, "Jump! I'll catch you!" The hanging man replies as he did to the first. Next, a rescue helicopter hovers nearby, and a man lowers a ladder. "Grab the ladder!" he says. Again the hanging man replies as he did to the previous two. Slowly, the hanging man loses his grip, falls into the swirling waters, and drowns. He arrives at heaven, meets God, and cries, "Why did you never answer my prayer?" To which God replies, "What are you talking about? I sent you a man with a rope, a boat, a helicopter..."
Bible Belt states have some of the highest AND the lowest vaccination rates.
http://www.motherjones.com/pol...
And as usual, it is probably a combination of factors which influence the anti-vaccination attitudes.
Though one factor does seem to be common - clustering.
I.e. It's social. Where there's one anti-vaxxer, there's more anti-vaxxer.
Overall, national vaccination rates seem high: The median rate of coverage for the measles, mumps, and rubella (MMR) vaccine, administered to most before entry into kindergarten, was 94.7 percent for the 2013-14 school year. But, as Schuchat points out, the rate is lower in communities where unvaccinated families tend to cluster. In some areas, low rates might have more to do with access to clinics than with beliefs about vaccinations.
"The national estimates hide what's going on state to state. The state estimates hide what's going on community to community. And within communities there may be pockets," Schuchat said. "It's one thing if you have a year where a number of people are not vaccinating, but year after year in terms of the kids that are exempting, you do start to accumulate."
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
how is it a public safety issue, the ones who do get vaccinated aren't at risk... so they only endanger themselves and likeminded folks
Wrong. Not everyone can get vaccinated because some people legitimate medical conditions making it inadvisable. Sometimes they are too young. Sometimes they have allergy or other medical conditions that prevent their vaccination. These people depend on herd immunity to avoid the illness. If people start avoiding vaccines for non-medical reasons then these people who cannot be vaccinated are endangered by those who recklessly decide to avoid vaccination for no good reason.
Furthermore diseases have a substantial and measurable cost to society. We have finite resources both financial and time to devote to treating diseases and if we waste them on something that could be solved with a cheap and safe vaccine then we necessarily cannot spend those medical and financial resources on something else. Should we spend a few dollars for a vaccine or thousands on a treatment. THAT is a public health issue.
The Diphtheria vaccine doesn't prevent infection, it only immunizes against the effects of the toxin the bacteria produce.
Thus, it's still around and kicking, it just doesn't kill people anymore as most people can fight off the infection on their own without the toxin wreaking havoc on their body. And most people won't even notice anything other than "flu-like symptoms" as all the effects of Diptheria are caused by the toxin, rather than the presence of the bacterial infection.
The poor kid probably just got coughed on, or touched something and then cross-contaminated something he put in his mouth.
We had the choice to get vaccines growing up (2nd grade, 6 y/o). ..., and that pretty much scared people more than the needles (which I would say didn't really bother half the class).
They explained it to us, and most took it because of the dire warnings and videos of people with diseases.
They showed us filmstrips from the 40s and 50s about measels, diphtheria, whooping cough, scarlet fever,
For the few who didn't want to, they were just goaded into it by peer pressure of all their friends and classmates (either by comforting or mocking, depending on gender). Kids are cruel, and also don't want to be excluded for chickening out / being afraid (and then teased). It's pretty effective.
I don't think it survives in the environment, and it doesn't seem to have any animal hosts. There are places in the world where it's endemic and somewhat common, and it can live in the pharynx of vaccinated or asymptomatic humans. So it probably comes into a country from an immigrant or traveler with some frequency, it just doesn't spread because of vaccination.
Then there's this kid.
From microbewiki (emphasis added): "C. diphtheriae is a Gram-positive, aerobic, nonmotile, toxin-producing, rod-shaped bacteria belonging to the order Actinomycetales, which are typically found in soil, but also have pathogenic members such as streptomyces and mycobacteria."