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Vaccines May Soon Be Mandatory For Children In France (theverge.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Verge: Last week, the French Health Ministry announced plans to make 11 vaccines mandatory for young children by 2018. French law currently mandates three vaccines -- diphtheria, tetanus, and polio -- for children under the age of two. The government's proposal would expand that list to include eight other vaccines -- including those against Hepatitis B, whooping cough, and measles -- that were previously only recommended. The proposal, which is to be presented to lawmakers by the end of this year, comes amid an ongoing measles outbreak across Europe, which the World Health Organization (WHO) attributed to low immunization rates. Italy passed a similar decree in May, requiring children to receive 10 vaccines as a condition for school enrollment. Germany, while stopping short of a mandate, has moved to tighten its laws on child immunization. But some experts question whether a vaccination mandate will sway public opinion in France, where distrust in vaccines has risen alarmingly in recent years. In a survey published last year, 41 percent of respondents in France disagreed with the statement that vaccines are safe -- the highest rate of distrust among the 67 countries that were surveyed, and more than three times higher than the global average.
For fucks sake, did you actually read my post *at all*?!
Yes, vaccines *work* in the same way - I didn't say they don't. What I did say is that in quite a few cases it can be easier to produce a vaccine for a child than for an adult - and it is, in quite a few cases you can't simply use the child vaccine in an adult, it simply won't work due to the immunological response the adult body will have. There is a reason why Chicken Pox is a *serious* illness in adulthood that can cause death but not really considered a fatal illness for children - because children's bodies work differently! Which is why the shingles vaccination has to be done very carefully for older patients (its a much higher concentration than children are given for chicken pox).
Vaccinating adults is entirely possible, but what can be effective for a child isn't necessarily so for an adult - and in any case, vaccinating in an underdeveloped immune system will always produce better long term results than vaccinating in a developed immune system. That is why we target kids - for both the immediate benefit and for the long term benefits.
My wife (a doctor) is currently laughing her head off at your post...
Take a look at how Tdap vaccine is given based on age - the adult vaccine is formulated differently with a lesser quantity of antigens than the child vaccine, because the vaccine in adults can trigger swelling of the arm its given in, while that doesn't occur in children. Other vaccines require significantly more active ingredient in the adult vaccine because of the immunological response - but increasing the concentration means the formulation of preservative etc has to also change...
There are many many ways in which the age contributes to the vaccine given. Doesn't mean the process of vaccination works differently, but it does mean that the same treatments may be ineffective in an adult, requiring a different vaccine to be developed.
When the anti-vaccine hysteria was peaking about 15 years ago, the consensus was that it would last until a bunch of children all died from a preventable disease. 35 dead in the current outbreak - we get mandatory vaccines.It's sucks to be right sometimes.
None of them can see the clouds; The polished wings don't care.