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US Is Slipping Toward Measles Being Endemic Once Again, Says Study (arstechnica.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Ars Technica: With firm vaccination campaigns, the US eliminated measles in 2000. The highly infectious virus was no longer constantly present in the country -- no longer endemic. Since then, measles has only popped up when travelers carried it in, spurring mostly small outbreaks -- ranging from a few dozen to a few hundred cases each year -- that then fizzle out. But all that may be about to change. With the rise of non-medical vaccine exemptions and delays, the country is backsliding toward endemic measles, Stanford and Baylor College of Medicine researchers warn this week. With extensive disease modeling, the researchers make clear just how close we are to seeing explosive, perhaps unshakeable, outbreaks. According to results the researchers published in JAMA Pediatrics, a mere five-percent slip in measles-mumps-and-rubella (MMR) vaccination rates among kids aged two to 11 would triple measles cases in this age group and cost $2.1 million in public healthcare costs. And that's just a small slice of the disease transmission outlook. Kids two to 11 years old only make up about 30 percent of the measles cases in current outbreaks. The number of cases would be much larger if the researchers had sufficient data to model the social mixing and immunization status of adults, teens, and infants under two.
This is unfortunately, possibly not enough to stop them getting measles, or even dying from it :(
Herd immunity also protects a small proportion of the vaccinated who for various reasons can still catch the disease; it's not abnormal for some vaccinated people to be part of an outbreak.
Nice try at stirring up some hate there but it's not the Mexicans who are the slackers.
http://theweek.com/articles/53...
So what was the point?
While its extremely non-PC to suggest this, but illegal immigration has a role here. The study was done in Texas (a border state). While parents should vaccinate their children, herd immunity should prevent any large-scale outbreaks unless there is an injection of sick people who are acting as carriers.
A lot of outbreaks are also happening in West Coast states (where you have enclaves of non-immunized children due parents' belief in misinformation) where non-immunized foreigners are visiting and spread diseases that are otherwise no longer endemic in the US. Oregon is a good example.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
1) Not a decline, more like a plateau. It's also very recent, and doesn't correspond with the rise of the anti-vax campaigns, which happened years earlier.
2) Autism rates did not increase when vaccinations were introduced; again, the rise in autism only happened later--in this case, decades later.
3) Correlation is not causation.
Not that you will read any of this. You've reached your conclusion, and evidence that doesn't fit it will be ignored.
You are mostly right. Except the hospital thing. As far as I know these deseases are so contageous because they have an incubation period. The simptoms only appear after a certain time but it is contagous before. So the most victims have already been made by the time the first patients arrive in hospital.
Then they have to track down who was in contact with these childeren (family, school, hobby's...) in the last X hours...
Cheers!
[Citation Needed]
It falls on you to back up your claim, first.
Uh, that post is almost certainly trolling, in the original internet sense of the word: somebody who is posting for no other reason than to get a reaction. Responding to him in any way does nothing other than feed the troll; the correct reaction was to ignore him and wait for him to be moderated "troll".
It's too late for that now, though. To deal with facts: the actual response is that autism rates are not declining: http://blogs.discovermagazine....
Here's a good correlation graph, if you're looking for correlation: https://www.sciencebasedmedici...
It would be great if libertarian principles applied to vaccines (my base ideology is libertarian), but: 1. Vaccines are not anywhere near 100% effective, so even a fully vaccinated person may be relying on herd immunity. 2. You can't vaccinate a newborn, so everyone relies on herd immunity for the first 6 months or so of their life. 3. Some people can't be vaccinated at all.
So we're left with a social solution, which is vaccinating everyone who can be vaccinated, whether they like it or not.
Not in MN where I live. Here are the vaccinations a child must have at 2 months, more at 4 months and yet more at 6 months:
Rotavirus (oral), Haemophilus Influenzae Type B (HIB), Pneumococcal Conjugate Vaccine (PCV13), Diphtheria, Tetanus, Pertussis, Inactivated Polio Virus (IPV) and Hepatitis B (HBV).
They might all be needed for the survival of the race, but that's a lot of vaccinations.
Peace is easy to achieve, just surrender. Liberty is much harder get/keep.
Just make sure *your* children have their vaccinations. The kids of all the dumbasses will be weeded out due to genetic stupidity. It is as it always was... thank you Mr. Darwin.
If only it were that simple. Problem is that the asshats who don't vaccinate by choice cause illness in those who cannot get vaccinated for valid medical reasons. If it was simply people competing for darwin awards along with their spawn I could almost not give a damn. But unfortunately I do actually care about the kids of these dumbass parents. You don't get to pick your parents and just because they are idiots doesn't mean the kid necessarily is.
Personally I think anyone who doesn't vaccinate without a valid medical excuse should have to live in quarantine.
The reason you can get lifelong immunity (10 or 20 years, anyhow, since that is how long your B cells live) from the vaccine is that these viruses don't mutate much and with attenuated live virus you're getting the whole organism. So all of its proteins would have to mutate enough to evade the immune system at once. Like with us, many proteins will be highly conserved. With fast mutating, killed virus or antigen only vaccines you might need to get one every year like flu. Comparing efficacy across lots is probably done by ELISA and would be very easy. I don't have firsthand knowledge with MMR testing but each manufacturer would be required to run a QA lab that would routinely check the lots being manufactured. No one made a giant vat in the 70s that we are still consuming.
Where is the line when it becomes justified? I don't advocating for forced vaccinations, but a little coercion is certainly in order. I do not see religious or philosophical objections as legitimate excuses for allowing unvaccinated children to attend public school.
Chickenpox kills about 0.003% of victims and hospitalizes about 0.26%. The overall death rate is low, but one quarter of a percent for hospitalizations makes for a lot of unnecessary strain on healthcare systems, especially for a disease that will infect around 95% of unvaccinated individuals.
Measles, besides the immediate death rate (about 0.15% in the US), Encephalitis (0.1% in the US), and hospitalization rate (about 25% in the US) brings a potential for a delayed neurological disease that is 100% fatal for those stricken with it. Around 1.7% of infants who get measles and 0.07% of children under 5 who contract measles will later develop this neurological disease. The mortality rate for subacute sclerosing panencephalitis is 100%. The mortality risk for individuals who contract measles as infants is the most concerning for me because it can happen before they are old enough to get the vaccine.