

The Vaccination Effect: 100 Million Cases of Contagious Disease Prevented - murtza
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/11/27/the-vaccination-effect-100-million-cases-of-contagious-disease-prevented/?hpw&rref=health

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dhughes
It's nice to see such long term data put to use and to be shown in graphical
form what everyone has been screaming vaccines save lives!

Yes I get vaccinated yearly for the flu, I also got one for H1N1 (?) a few
years ago.

So many people across all age ranges it's sad, the comments in the NYT article
are sad to see. A 20 something guy at work was telling me excitedly how "some
guy" on YouTube "proved" writing the word hate and love on water bottles then
freezing them makes the ice different. This same person is against vehemently
against all GM foods and Big Pharma, the "some guy on YouTube" is the all-
knowing answer.

~~~
DenisM
I think we can safely diagnose an epistemological crisis in our society -
indeed many if not most people cannot tell the difference some guy on YouTube
and a body of statistically validated controlled studies.

Not sure what the treatment should be.

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fnordfnordfnord
They've published their data, which is fantastic and by far the most important
part of the article. [http://www.tycho.pitt.edu/](http://www.tycho.pitt.edu/)

I have to take issue with some parts of the article. Lohr (the NYT article's
Author) cites 38,000 cases of Pertussis in the US. It may just be a
coincidence, but 38,000 is the number of cases recently reported in Australia.
The CDC reports[1] 27,550 for 2010 (an awesomely precise estimate), so, 38k
doesn't sound out of line, but I didn't find a source for that number. Going
back to Australia where they have 95% compliance according to this news
article[2], they suspect that mutation of the pathogen is responsible for the
rise in cases. The NYT article OTOH, lays the blame on non-compliant parents.
Additionally, the acellular Pertussis vaccine apparently doesn't always
prevent illness, but lessens the severity and duration of infection. So, it
could well be that most of the reported cases were vaccinated as was the case
in Australia.

I wonder why authors feel the need to keep re-writing the standard pro-
vaccination puff pieces. They don't seem to do anything to convince skeptics.
I'd like to see a study of why people choose to refuse vaccines and apply
those results to efforts to increase vaccination rates.

[1]
[http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/whooping.htm](http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/whooping.htm)

[2]
[http://www.abc.net.au/health/thepulse/stories/2012/08/14/356...](http://www.abc.net.au/health/thepulse/stories/2012/08/14/3567495.htm)

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phy6
Does the average HN reader get vaccinations? How about for their children? I'm
interested in peoples' critical thought, since we as a loose community often
take an investigative/contrarian approach to assumed best practices. It seems
many of us are acutely aware of herd mentality, collusion and corruption when
it comes to the combination of tech subjects, the media and
government/societal norms.

Personally, I am for vaccination. I'm way over vaccinated due to trips to
third world countries -- sometimes I would get 6 shots over 2 days. However
the spacing for vaccinations in infants seems rushed, and the ingredients are
something I wouldn't let my kid touch or eat. (kind of like how you wouldn't
feed your kid honey until after they're one) I recently told our doctor we
wanted an ingredient list of the vaccines they were planning to administer, so
we could attempt to understand, before following their schedule in ignorance.
I definitely don't want my kid to have the diseases our grand parents grew up
with, and that means vaccinating.

I'm wondering if a doctor would balk at signing a document of liability for
{x} resulting from vaccination. If she wouldn't put her career behind her
belief, should I believe her?

Does herd immunity require herd mentality? Can one investigate, or at least
try to be diligent without being vilified?

~~~
dmm
> However the spacing for vaccinations in infants seems rushed,

What does that even mean?

~~~
yapcguy
Vaccines come in multiple doses. Some countries space out each dose every
other month, others do it every two or three months. It varies. The US
schedule is similar but not the same as many countries in the EU.

Big pharma also keeps pushing cocktail shots, multiple vaccinations in one
single shot, whereas before you would take multiple visits and each time it
would be a separate vaccine.

~~~
carbocation
The body can tolerate millions of antigens being presented to it
simultaneously. In fact, it does every day. So do the bodies of children.

This is not some push by the "pharma" bogeyman. It's a push by doctors to
reduce the chance that a child fails to complete his or her vaccination
series.

If the probability of missing a visit is, say, 0.05, then the probability of
missing a shot in a series of 3 is (1 - 0.95^3) ~= 14%, as opposed to 5% if
you can actually do it all at once.

~~~
Fomite
Hell, the moment a baby passes through the vaginal canal they're probably
exposed to more antigens than the entire vaccine schedule, let alone their
first few hours in a hospital.

~~~
ceejayoz
Plus, by breathing, they're taking in a lot more mercury than they'll ever see
out of a vaccine, thanks to coal power plants.

