

One unvaccinated child was patient zero of a measles outbreak - lettergram
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/06/19/1308169/-One-unvaccinated-child-was-patient-zero-of-a-measles-epidemic?detail=email

======
rdtsc
This will invariably lead to the argument whether government can or should
mandate vaccinations.

Currently parents probably cannot be prosecuted for not vaccinating their
kids. I think they should be (child endangerment comes to mind, kind of like
putting the child in the car without a special car seat).

But in all likely-hood I can see easier laws being passed that might exclude
un-vaccinated people from various venues. Travel (flying is not a right
apparently), schools, hospitals, doctors' offices, concerts. "Show your
vaccinations card and come and enjoy the music" kind of deal. Parents throwing
birthday parties for their kids and checking vaccination cards at the door.
Pretty strange, but maybe more viable that forcing vaccinations otherwise
(forced medical treatment).

Or to look at it anther way, what is the legal precedent of parents refusing
medical treatment over religious beliefs? You know let "Jesus un-break her arm
instead of the doctor". Maybe this is in the same category.

~~~
tzs
> But in all likely-hood I can see easier laws being passed that might exclude
> un-vaccinated people from various venues

What about people who are not vaccinated for medical reasons, such as an
allergy to the vaccine?

~~~
jessaustin
Is that a thing? I mean, how would you know? Many vaccines are administered
once or twice in a lifetime...

~~~
jpollock
I believe people with severe egg allergies avoid some vaccines because of the
presence of egg protein - eggs are used as bioreactors to grow the vaccine.

However, it looks like that's only the influenza vaccine, and that's not how
the MMR vaccine is produced.

[http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd-vac/should-not-
vacc.htm](http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vpd-vac/should-not-vacc.htm)

~~~
johnpmayer
Yes, until I outgrew my egg allergy, I could not take certain vaccines. I was
too young to remember which ones I could not take. I suppose that I relied on
herd immunity for those specific diseases.

------
transfire
My niece got here measles vaccine two weeks ago. Ten days afterward she came
down with, you guessed it, the measles. My first reaction was utter fear that
she was going to die. But the doctor wasn't at all concerned. She'll be sick,
it will suck for a little while and she'll get better.

So what the hell? First of all, the vaccine gave her the fracking measles! So
who is actually spreading these diseases around?! Secondly if there's no
concern of it being deadly than why the endless hyperbole over the few hundred
people, out of 300 million, who get it per year?

~~~
cmrivers
The measles vaccine is live attenuated, so in the rare case it does cause
disease, it's less severe than wild type.

Measles is one of the most infectious diseases known to man. In a fully
susceptible population, one infected person can expect to infect 14 other
people. The reason only "the few hundred people" get infected annually now is
because of widespread vaccination campaigns.

Measles used to be all but inevitable, infecting literally millions, and
killing hundreds each year in the US. The only reason we have come to fear
vaccines is because we as a society no longer remember fearing these diseases.

[http://www.cdc.gov/measles/vaccination.html](http://www.cdc.gov/measles/vaccination.html)

------
_red
Question. How are vaccines different than "over-use of antibiotics" that we
always hear about?

Are the constant use vaccines creating superbugs?

~~~
Bluestrike2
They're entirely different. Simply put, all a vaccine does is stimulate
antibody production to improve immunity against a given disease. What you're
effectively asking is if the human immune system itself is creating superbugs.

So the simple answer is "no."

~~~
_red
What is the net functional difference between an "antibiotic" and "stimulating
antibody production"?

~~~
hga
"Stimulating antibody production" means you're protected from the antigen for
some period of time, be it a virus, or at the other end of things in the case
of tetanus, against the neurotoxin that's produced by the bacteria responsible
for it. If there are enough antibodies in your system, they'll latch onto
their specific antigen, which triggers other parts of the immune system to
deal with it.

Antibiotics only work while their level in the body is high, and they pretty
much are limited to zapping bacteria, by going after things that are different
in them from the class of more evolved organisms that includes everything from
yeast to humans (many have cell walls like plants, their protein producing
machines are slightly different, etc.).

They are largely derived from compounds molds evolved to produce, to allow
them to better ecologically compete (there are also some bacteria produced
antibiotics, although I don't know if any are used as drugs).

------
hitchhiker999
Is HN also going to have a weekly anti-anti-vax post too? We're converting to
Reddit format right?

..a place where we can all pretend we understand this stuff, suddenly
manifesting degrees in medicine and/or a full understanding of the research.

------
uptownJimmy
Who would ever have guessed?

