From: kaminski@netcom.com (Peter Kaminski)
Subject: Re: Vaccinations?
Organization: The Information Deli - via Netcom / San Jose, California
Date: Sun, 3 Jan 1993 20:25:15 GMT

Disclaimer: This is not professional medical advice.  Do your own research
and consult your qualified health care professional before relying on any
information posted to Usenet.

In article <1993Jan2.192148.20043@spdcc.com> dyer@spdcc.com (Steve Dyer)
writes:

>It is worth noticing Traub's sleight of hand here--he's conflating a mostly
>innocuous disease of childhood (chicken pox) which has no vaccine with two
>more dangerous diseases (mumps and measles) which do have vaccines.

(BTW, a chickenpox vaccine was developed in 1973, though it hasn't been
widely used.)

According to the sources I've read, measles, mumps, and rubellla were
historically common childhood diseases with rare complications.

Since the MMR vaccine was introduced, the diseases are much less common
among children, but have increased in incidence among adolescents and
young adults, when complications are much more common.

(Rubella immunization is actually not given to protect the children who
get it, but rather to prevent the circulation of the disease, so that
pregnant women won't contract it, since it can cause birth defects.  Some
feel that it would be safer and more effective just to immunize
susceptible women of child-bearing age.)

>Traub is forgetting that the reason your child is unlikely to be infected
>is a direct result of widespread immunization.  Epidemics do not spread in
>populations where there is "herd immunity", as a result of vaccination.

This is not always true.  Randall Neustaedter writes in _The Immunization
Decision_, "The [measles] vaccine has apparently resulted in a dramatic
decline in measles cases.  In the light of these promising statistics, a
national goal was set to eliminate measles by 1982.  Notwithstanding these
hopes, reports of epidemics in fully vaccinated populations have appeared
periodically and consistently since the vaccine's introduction."  He
offers these cites as illustrative cases:

Shasby, D.M., Shope,, T.C., Downs, H., Herrmann, K.L., Polkowski, J.
"Epidemic measles in a highly vaccinated population." New England Journal
of Medicine 1977; 296:585-589.

Weiner, L.B., Corwin, R.M., Nieburg, P.I., Feldman, H.A. "A measles
outbreak among adolescents." Journal of Pediatrics 1977; 90:17-20.

Hull, H.F., Montes, J.M., Hays, P.C., Lucero, R.L. "Risk facotrs for
measles vaccine failure among immunized students."  Pediatrics 1985;
76:518-523.

Gustafson, T.L., Lievens, A.W., Brunell, P.A., et. al. "Measles outbreak
in a fully immunized secondary-school population." New England Journal
of Medicine 1987; 316:771-774.

>Once the incidence of vaccination falls below a threshold, the incidence
>of the disease increases, sometimes to the level of an epidemic.  This has
>been happening in the past 10 years due to such failures on the part of
>parents who have been deluded into thinking they're acting responsibly in
>their failure to immunize their children.

If the vaccines work, the epidemics must only be amongst the unimmunized,
right?

We haven't touched on the issue of serious side effects of the various
vaccines, yet, either.

Pete
Newsgroups: misc.health.alternative