Herd Immunity
milhayser | August 11, 2017"Who fears or rejects vaccines, why do they do so, and how might we reach them to change their minds?" On Aetiology, Tara C. Smith answers these questions with a new paper written as a primer for those who want to stand up for vaccination. She says, "for many individuals on the vaccine-hesitant spectrum, it’s not only about misinformation, but also about group identity, previous experience with the health care field, and much more." The stakes of the vaccine debate are high. On Respectful Insolence, a mathematical model from Stanford shows that slight dips in uptake of the MMR vaccine would…
oracknows | July 26, 2017One of the most common tropes used by antivaxers is to attack herd immunity as not being real. Herd immunity, or as its sometimes called, community immunity, is a name for a phenomenon in which in a population with high levels of immunity to a disease members susceptible to the disease are protected. Basically, because the vast majority of members of the population are immune to a disease, that disease can't gain a foothold in the population and lead to an outbreak or an epidemic. Basically, transmission from person to person is interrupted because any susceptible person who becomes infected…
oracknows | May 30, 2016Andrew Wakefield, his claims to the contrary, is antivaccine to the core. To be honest, I’m not sure if he was always antivaccine. After all, around 20 years ago when he was doing his “research” into whether the MMR vaccine causes autism, he was being generously funded by a barrister seeking to sue vaccine manufacturers and he was developing a competing measles vaccine (for which he filed for a patent) that would be unlikely to be profitable unless the MMR became discredited. In retrospect, knowing what I know now about these aspects of Wakefield’s “research,” I consider it highly likely that…
milhayser | March 30, 2016A new review of the scientific literature confirms the truth about vaccine exemptions; they endanger everyone. On The Pump Handle, Kim Krisberg outlines the horrible realities of vaccine-preventable disease, and writes that vaccine refusal has "accelerated the resurgence of whooping cough and measles here in the U.S." On Respectful Insolence, Orac writes "the MMR [vaccine] is very effective against measles, over 90%, but not 100%." Meanwhile, with whooping cough, vaccine-induced immunity wears down over time.
These windows of opportunity for infection would be inconsequential in a fully…
kkrisberg | March 27, 2015In a somewhat frightening illustration of anti-vaccine trends, a new report estimates that among groups affected in the recent measles outbreak, the rates of measles-mumps-rubella immunization might have been as low as 50 percent.
Earlier this month, a report published in JAMA Pediatrics concluded that MMR vaccination rates in many of the populations affected by the Disneyland-related measles outbreak are well below the necessary numbers to maintain herd immunity. Led by researchers at Boston Children’s Informatics Program, the project used disease data from the California Department of…
oracknows | February 15, 2015 Baratunde Thurston and Zanny Minton Bedoes react to a particularly ignorant bit of antivaccine misinformation by Bill Maher on Real Time With Bill Maher. (February 13, 2015)
I really don't want Mondays to be come "let's refute and make fun of the conspiratorial antivaccine nonsense Bill Maher said on his show Friday night." I really don't. However, I figured that I might have to devote Monday to that one more time this week after Maher really let his antivaccine freak flag fly again for the first time in five years on his February 6 show. As a result of the criticism, Maher apologists…
oracknows | September 8, 2014
I've said it before, and I'll say it again. I don't much like "Dr. Bob" Sears. Actually, I rather detest the guy. The reasons are obvious. There isn't an antivaccine trope Dr. Bob won't repeat in the service of pandering to the vaccine-averse parents base who bring him patients. They're all there in his The Vaccine Book: Making the Right Decision for your Child and have been thoroughly deconstructed by pediatricians (and others) ranging from Paul Offit to John Snyder, the latter of whom quite appropriated dubbed Sears' book to be cashing in on fear. Basically, at ever turn, Sears either…
milhayser | June 13, 2014When a parent chooses not to vaccinate their child, they put many other people at risk. Some infants cannot be vaccinated due to medical complications, and even fully-vaccinated people are not always fully protected. Jessica Parsons tells the story of baby Finn on Aetiology, who was diagnosed with Ewing’s Sarcoma at the age of 3 months and has been undergoing chemotherapy, surgery, and blood transfusions ever since. Because he was immunosuppressed, Finn could not be vaccinated, and despite responding well to cancer treatments, his life was imperiled by a case of whooping cough. Meanwhile, on…
oracknows | March 18, 2014As hard as it is to believe, there was once a time when I (sort of) gave "Dr. Bob" Sears the benefit of the doubt. You remember Dr. Bob, don't you? Son of the famous pediatrician Dr. William Sears, who was best known for his "Sears Parenting Library" and is a not infrequent guest on TV, where he goes by the name of "Dr. Bill." Like his father, Bob Sears, likes to do the "Dr. First Name" thing and calls himself "Dr. Bob." (What is it with pediatricians and this annoying affectation?)
Along with his wife Martha Sears, RN, Dr. Bill is known as a major proponent of "attachment parenting."…