It's good that most children escaped the consequences of Wakefield's BS because enough were vaccinated to make it pretty hard for disease to spread. But the numbers are there showing that there were hundreds of excess deaths and life-changing disabilities, such as blindness or retardation, from kids not getting measles vaccines.
Where are the numbers showing hundreds of excess deaths and life-changing disabilities? From all the studies I've looked at there were "few deaths" as a result of non-vaccination, usually in children with pre-existing immunodeficiencies such as leukemia.
Actually it is a smart point, if you value the available scientific studies.
The Cochrane Library study (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20614424) shows that the flu vaccine has zero effectiveness against transmission whether in adults, infants or seniors. It also shows that in best-case scenarios it has 4% effectiveness against catching the flu, but more likely scenarios would be 1% effective.
The herd immunity argument fails miserably when it comes to the seasonal flu vaccine.
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It's good that most children escaped the consequences of Wakefield's BS because enough were vaccinated to make it pretty hard for disease to spread. But the numbers are there showing that there were hundreds of excess deaths and life-changing disabilities, such as blindness or retardation, from kids not getting measles vaccines.
Where are the numbers showing hundreds of excess deaths and life-changing disabilities? From all the studies I've looked at there were "few deaths" as a result of non-vaccination, usually in children with pre-existing immunodeficiencies such as leukemia.
Actually it is a smart point, if you value the available scientific studies. The Cochrane Library study (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20614424) shows that the flu vaccine has zero effectiveness against transmission whether in adults, infants or seniors. It also shows that in best-case scenarios it has 4% effectiveness against catching the flu, but more likely scenarios would be 1% effective. The herd immunity argument fails miserably when it comes to the seasonal flu vaccine.