New Immunization Law in California

Parents Forum
41

@TranquilMind you say your parents generation got almost none and are just now dying off. Do you not remember our good old friend smallpox, killer of 300 million people in the 20th century alone, which is no loner around naturally solely because of the VACCINATION campaign against it? Would you prefer to have smallpox epidemics rampaging through the population like they did during the generations where there was almost no vaccination?

Also you clearly did not read the article i posted which still seems very relevant to you. There is a reason booster shots are available. When people are exposed to high risk situations they get booster shots or their initial vaccination. In sparsely populated locations which have a very low abundance of natural reservoirs there is no need for re-vaccination of people. Herd immunity, the goal of and reason vaccination works, is eliminated by the sparse population. College campuses are densely populated, ideal places for herd immunity to be implemented.

"That seems better to me. Lifelong immunity, vs immunity of several years.

So what about when the third one wears off? The fourth one? The fifth? How many times are people to get these temporary immunity vaccinations? When is enough enough? How many vaccines are ok? I think that has to be for the person to decide, not the government."

Diphtheria, tetanus, polio, hep b, measles, mumps, rubella, and smallpox all have vaccines which last a decade or more, significantly more than several years. You would need to be vaccinated at most 8 times in your life to ensure lifelong immunity to these diseases. The government is looking out or the best interest of the public with requiring vaccinations. Do you think that the vaccination campaigns that decimated the previously mentioned diseases were done by random people just deciding they were going to get a vaccination and walking up to a random vaccine store?

“My kids got chickenpox when I was in my 40s. I never had chicken pox at all, so the doctor titered me, because it can be dangerous when you are older. Yet even though I never had it, I had complete immunity and antibodies showed in my blood precisely because my antibodies mobilized again(sounds like a military operation) right when my kids got sick. If you try to titer when you are not exposed, it often shows no immunity.”

You use a metaphor for your immunity which displays your clear and supreme lack of how the immune system actually functions. A titer is a representation of the antibody concentration a person has floating around their system. They antibodies are not the only thing involved in immunity. You have immune cells which recognize surface antigens of the pathogen and then start to crate more and more immune cells which produce antibodies which identify the pathogen. Your antibodies did not mobilize against the pathogen your entire humoral immune system did (have another article which should but probably wont read http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/20636814).

“Anyway, my kids have lifelong immunity now.”
Your final statement, trying to make yourself feel like you didn’t make the wrong decision. I have one word for you. Shingles (http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/shingles/basics/definition/con-20019574). Because your children got chicken pox they are not probable carriers of the virus that causes this debilitating condition. Infections can have long lasting consequences which are not immediately noticeable which is why it is important TO NOT GET INFECTED and unless you have found some way to magically prevent these infections vaccines are what offers salvation.

“Why do we immediately jump to, “Well, we need vaccines more often!” instead of “Maybe vaccines aren’t working.”?”

Because the vaccines are working. We know they are working because we don’t have these epidemic diseases anymore. We know it inst because they aren’t working, we know it is because they only have a specific length of time in which they are effecting. We want to vaccinate more often because we prefer people to not become sick and dangerous to other members of our population because we are fed up with the days of smallpox and polio.

42

Husband’s brother died of measles as a baby. Enough said.

43

@californiaa

That was my surprise that such a “backward” state like Mississippi would have the highest level of vaccination. I guess Mississippi does not have a very high level of paranoid parents.

44

I totally believe in vaccines, which eliminates me from the label of “vaccine naysayer”, if that happened to have been directed at me.

I also believe in freedom of bodily integrity, and not merely limited to abortion only. Do what you think is best for you, given what you know about how your own body reacts (and family history). Some will choose all. Some will be selective, based on reactions. Some may do none. Stay out of other people’s veins.

The whooping cough is spread through vaccinated people, not unvaccinated, according to NBC news, Sciencemag, and others who reported this. So be careful that you are blaming the right parties:

http://news.sciencemag.org/health/2013/11/whooping-cough-vaccine-does-not-stop-spread-disease-lab-animals

http://www.nbcnews.com/health/cold-flu/whooping-cough-vaccine-may-not-halt-spread-illness-f2D11655363

"A government study offers a new theory on why the whooping cough vaccine doesn’t seem to be working as well as expected.

The research suggests that while the vaccine may keep people from getting sick, it doesn’t prevent them from spreading whooping cough — also known as pertussis — to others."

Similar story in KPBS in San Diego:

“Of the 621 people who contracted the illness, 85 percent had all their preventative shots — calling into question the efficacy of the vaccine.”

twoinanddone, that is PRECISELY what needs happen. Every person should be on an independent vaccine schedule, and vaccines should always be done only when the person is well. The hyperbole about being there at 6 am exactly six months later is ridiculous and unnecessary. And guess what. If the kid gets there in 7 months or 8, that’s pretty irrelevant in most cases. We manage to get our teeth cleaned about every six months (or year, for some). We do what makes sense, and that makes sense. I guess I trust parents more than you do to have the best interests of their own children at heart. Who has more investment?

We don’t line people up in an assembly line and do any other medical procedure or offer any other medication to everyone, because people individually react to procedures and medications. This is no different. Any adult who is mature enough to have children is mature enough to create and follow a medical plan in conjunction with his/her doctor for the children.

45

@TranquilMind a direct quote form your article “The research suggests that while the vaccine may keep people from getting sick, it doesn’t prevent them from spreading whooping cough — also known as pertussis — to others.” THIS IS WHY WE MUST ALL HAVE VACCINES. The inability to prevent it from spreading to others would be covered if EVERYONE WAS VACCINATED. Read your articles before you send and preach about them. It prevents the people from getting sick which is the goal of the vaccine. If it wasn’t for people who choose not to vaccinate those cases where people become sick would not happen because, as BOTH articles point out, the vaccine prevents people from getting sick. There are specific failure rates for all vaccines. This is the reason efficacy trials are done. Science is not about being 100% right the first time, there is trial and error and more trial until a meaningful result is produced. Even if the vaccine is not working 100% in a third of all people it is still working infinitely better than not getting the vaccine.

" I guess I trust parents more than you do to have the best interests of their own children at heart. Who has more investment?" As you clearly demonstrated previously most parents to not have the knowledge of immunology to make educated decisions about these matters. There is a reason that people with PhDs are the ones doing the research on vaccines and not just any parent with a computer and google define.

“We don’t line people up in an assembly line and do any other medical procedure or offer any other medication to everyone, because people individually react to procedures and medications. This is no different” That is because vaccines are different from most medical procedures in the fact that they work indiscriminately. Surgery is dependent on the blood loss of a person and their weight for drug purposes. Chemotherapy is dependent on what type of cancer the person has. The humoral immune system functions the same way in all normal people which is why vaccines can work. If a vaccine had to me optimized for every person they would never be able to be implemented the way they are now.

“Do what you think is best for you, given what you know about how your own body reacts (and family history). Some will choose all. Some will be selective, based on reactions. Some may do none.”
As you have shown many times most people do not have the understanding of immunobiology to make informed decisions about these things. Its the same reason why cancer patents don’t prescribe their own chemotherapy.

“Stay out of other people’s veins.”
We would not need to go into other peoples’ veins if they did not spew their diseased particles out whenever they exhaled or could guarantee that they wouldn’t spread the disease. People with smallpox did not go around thinking “I want to see how many people I can infect and thus kill.” but that doesn’t change the fact that they were a vector for a very virulent disease. It also puts at risk those people who have compromised immune systems. A little prick in the is a steal when compared to someone’s life and lifetime of illness that would be put at risk if these diseases were just floating around in the population.

46

Alright, I intern in a lab where we develop vaccines, and it absolutely baffles me as to why people think vaccines should not be required. While there are instances where vaccines aren’t as effective as they could be, I’d like someone to name just ONE instance where a vaccine had a malignant effect on the general population. Sure, sometimes vaccines aren’t properly attenuated/inactivated, but these are on individual cases that occur once every few million; the chances of this happening are far lower than actually getting the disease.
Those arguing that it should be a “choice” are just apathetic towards the lives of the young and old. These people either can’t get the vaccine yet, or have very weak immune systems; If you are not vaccinated and get the disease, you’re endangering countless others. If you want to be ignorant and increase your risk of potentially dying, then go play Russian Roulette or something, just don’t drag everyone else down with you.

47

The issues with the acellular pertussis (whooping cough) vaccine are specific to that vaccine, not generalized to all vaccines.

Still, someone with an asymptomatic infection is not coughing the disease agents all over the place.

48

" I guess I trust parents more than you do to have the best interests of their own children at heart. Who has more investment?"

This is a hilarious statement. In the last day alone (courtesy of CNN) a woman admitted to murdering her three children (an infant and two toddlers) so that her husband would have more time to spend with her. A toddler is accused of shooting his father in the head with a loaded handgun which he found. Do you actually need evidence that there are lots of parents out there who have no ability to keep the best interests of their own children at heart?

49

And those who can afford it can pay a doctor to come up with an individual vaccination plan and stay out of public programs like schools and rec centers until they meet the requirements.

For the rest of us, we’ll take the economical route and get the vaccinations on schedule. I remember lining up for the ‘spoonful of sugar’ vaccinations and it didn’t hurt me one bit. I also remember the boy who lived across the street from my grandparents who used crutches because of polio. I’m sure his parents wished everyone had had the vaccines.

50

No. Your interpretation of the article is wrong.

Whooping cough can be spread by both vaccinated and unvaccinated baboons (which may be the way that humans respond as well). However, “as expected, the unvaccinated baboons developed severe whooping cough, while the baboons that had been sick previously [and those that were vaccinated] remained well.”

51

The house I grew up in was next to a small country church and graveyard. In the small graveyard were many family plots. In several of them there were gravestones for 3 or more children who died in the span of weeks in the late 19th/early 20th century. Diptheria epidemics and the like.

My mother had polio as a child. In the hospital, she shared a room with another girl with bulbar polio, and an iron lung sat between them in case either should need it to survive. She was lucky to escape with muscle weakness on one side of her face. She was also lucky that her mother had learned of the Sister Kenny method and instead of leaving the tapes on her face used warm compresses and massage to stimulate her facial muscles. (Sister Kenny was A Might Girl :slight_smile: )

Vaccination is a good thing.

52

In the past year, both of my children have had close friends who contracted whooping cough even though they were vaccinated. My youngest daughter’s friend lost a semester of athletics, and continues to struggle with chronic coughs whenever she gets a virus. and that’s a mild case.

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@shoot4moon How old were they? The vaccine for that is only good for around 5 years so even if they were vaccinated at some point the immunity might not have remained.

54

This reinforces my opinion that people who fail to vaccinate their kids are unpatriotic.

55

Interesting fact - psychological research shows that facts and figures are completely ineffective in getting people to change deeply-held opinions based on personal bias, such as regarding vaccines. It’s always our first instinct to quote science and statistics to people who are seemingly unreasonably intransigent about their irrational opinions. But those types of arguments actually have the opposite effect of causing opinions to become even more deeply entrenched. I think we can see a little bit of that playing out in this thread.

What has been shown to work is hearing personal stories from people that have been affected by not being vaccinated. There’s tons of those stories out there; truly heartbreaking stories that I can hardly stand to read. That approach is what’s been shown to work for changing minds.

So don’t bash too hard on the anti-vaxxers. This is a tendency we’re all subject to because of the way our brains are designed (or maybe it’s a societal artifact, idk). Honk if you find human pscyhology fascinating!

56

Personally, I whole-heartedly agree with that statement. Any most Americans do to. But you need to think it through…

As a parent, I have my kids’ best interests at heart. Thus, I mobilize other like-minded parents and we adopt public policy to eliminate any unvaccinated kids from public schools because we have our own kids; best interests at heart. In other words, you are 100% free to keep your kids best interests at heart as long as they don’t put my kids at risk.

You can’t have it both ways (unless you are selfish).

57

I think it also makes a big difference in how medically needy your own kid is, or if you know any medically fragile kids who can’t be vaccinated.

My daughter was a preemie. For her first two years, we spent 4-8 hours in the hospital every winter month to get respigam infusions, to prevent RSV which would have been deadly to her. Her pediatrician insisted she get the fairly new chickenpox shot because, again, her system couldn’t take the infection. She became one of the healthiest kids in the world, missing no more than 5 days of school for being sick in k-12.

We also know lots of kids who cannot get vaccinations, so I believe in herd immunity. I have no problem with people not wanting to get vaccinations, just with them being in society, going to public schools, shopping in stores, going to movie theaters. If you want to live in the bubble, do it, but don’t come into my space.

58

Perhaps the list of medical travel advisories relating to immunizations recommended for travel to places where infectious diseases are a significant risk should include places within the US where immunization rates are low and therefore more risky to travel in with respect to those infectious diseases.

59

A childhood friend of mine wore hearing aids and struggled in school because she was hard of hearing. Why did this happen to her? It was a result of her mother having caught rubella during her pregnancy.

You don’t see that sort of thing much anymore. Let’s keep it that way.

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The last cases of naturally occurring paralytic polio in the United States were in 1979, when an outbreak occurred among the Amish in several Midwestern states. I don’t know anyone who had polio. I don’t think polio vaccine is that important nowadays, unless you are planning to travel to Africa or Pakistan / Afghanistan.