True. Though I am starting to see some stories out there of regret written by parents whose kids have contracted an infectious disease that could have been prevented. I think we may see more of those stories in the future (she said wryly).
Leslie Manookian + Micheal Moore + Jenny McCarthy …now that’s a polyamory show I would watch!
I’m confused, Leslie Manookian’s film The Greater Good, lists Paul Offit MD as one of the experts? He is a leading doc at CHOP in Philly who advocates for vaccines? http://paul-offit.com/about/
“…measles virus RNA has been detected in the urine of the vaccinees as early as 1 day or as late as 14 days after vaccination.”
It means ZIPPO! A piece of DNA or RNA sequence needed to confirm where it came from is very, very short. Much shorter than the entire viral genome or even the piece of said genome that would be capable of infecting others. “Detected” =/= “virulent”.
I would be curious to look at the original reference, not what the anti-vaxxers selectively quote out of it.
OK - found it in PubMed.
Here is the link:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC228449/pdf/332485.pdf
So, to make long story short. The authors developed a very sensitive method that can detect pieces of the measles virus in the urine. There is nothing in the article that even remotely suggests that these bits and pieces of viral RNA can somehow miraculously infect others.
My guess is that Manookian’s film might quote Offitt somewhere and thus he has to be cited. He’s at CHOP and is a very very smart guy.
Absolutely, but the average lay person/concerned mama is going to see that and say “Oh no! My baby could be infected by YOUR VACCINATED child. You are the menace!”
In fact, many of the anti-vax blogs and sites are already attempting to lay the blame for the Disney spread on vaccinated individuals.
It’s so incredibly unethical/disingenuous what many of these sites knowingly do, and I am being generous with my characterization.
It really infuriates me when people knowingly and unethically twist scientific facts suggesting that the facts prove their position. Reminds me of certain I used to battle on certain other message boards.
If anti-vaxxers believe that all it takes to get infected is to come into contact with chunks of viral genetic material, they really should avoid using the subway in NY!
I actually know a handful of families in the autism community who delayed vaccination of a child born subsequent to an autistic child, and before the articles debunking the speculated link between vaccines and autism came out. So far as I know, there was never an intention to delay indefinitely, just until age 4 or so. Our pediatrician did not permit children in his practice to remain unvaccinated; I am assuming that these families were able to find pediatricians who agreed to their requests, and who would sign the paperwork for medical exemptions.
In one of these families, it became obvious over a course of a couple years or so that the unvaccinated child was also autistic, and the parent (in this case, an MD) promptly took the child to be caught up on vaccinations and expressed regret that they had been deluded into putting their child at risk for infectious disease. It is entirely possible that other families, with a subsequent child who did not turn out to have autism, decided that by delaying vaccination, they dodged the autism bullet.
In the families that I know with kids on the autism spectrum, including my own, it’s pretty darn obvious that autism is genetic. Now, when I look at my family and Mr. Fang’s family, I figure Fang Jr didn’t have much of a chance not to be on the spectrum.
But I do have a friend whose son is autistic, and who is convinced that his autism was caused by his vaccinations. A wonderful woman, but susceptible to woo-woo medical theories. Her daughter is currently undergoing some sort of woo treatment for alleged Lyme, and some other alleged conditions.
Something I’ve wondered and someone here may know – my youngest got the varivax shot at 18 months. At age 5 she had a full-blown case of chicken pox (we stopped counting spots at 50). She got the HepB series as an infant. When she was getting ready for college the doctor did a titer and found she didn’t have immunity so she had the series again. Are there some people who have a tendency not to gain immunity from vaccinations? If so, why might that be?
Well, it seems like we’re being relatively civil here on CC. But it goes without saying that we’re not the only ones discussing this issue right now!
http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-vaccine-forums-20150207-story.html
I got into an online ‘discussion’ on a bloggers’ FB group with someone who argued that it was safe to bring measles back because the Flintstones and the Brady Bunch had mild cases. I kid you not.
Our civility may have something to so with our being in relative agreement on the topic and based on the idea that most of us don’t share known geographic proximity. If I had a medically fragile child in my kid’s apparently “vaccine hesitant” public high school I would likely been jumping up and down a lot more vigorously than I am. For me and my kids (who are fully vaccinated) it is still a fairly academic discussion.
@my3girls yes, some people just don’t ‘convert’. Probably genetic. I had a friend in residency who was nonimmune to one of the things in MMR (I can’t remember, prob measles), got vaccinated, tested, vaccinated, etc and just never converted.
I have a close friend whose 15-year-old daughter has an immune deficiency. In spite of monthly infusions of immunogammaglobulin, she catches everything and is able to attend school only about 25% of the time. My friend is terrified of this measles business for her daughter, as she rightly should be.
@jaylynn you are probably right re:Offit, but I find his name on her website very misleading!!
Yes. It’s confusing!
Or, more like, “Oh no! My baby could be vaccinated by exposure to your vaccinated child!”, since any actual or theoretical spreading of live virus from live virus vaccines will be of the weaker vaccine strain, rather than the virulent wild strain.
Of course, persons infected by the vaccine strains tend to shed much less than persons infected by the wild strains, since spreading mechanisms like coughing, diarrhea, etc. are much more evident with infection by the wild strains.