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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: Vaccinations against measles
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Barnabas62
Host
# 9110
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Posted
This very encouraging news item was followed up on morning radio in the UK. Measles has been eliminated from the UK, no recorded cases in 36 months. The recovery of trust (after the Wakefield scares) in vaccinations in the UK seems to have had a major part to play in this welcome result.
The radio article also mentioned that there are still quite powerful anti-vaccination beliefs in some other countries. It's a discussion we've had before, but in view of this latest news, I wondered what the current position was in other countries, both in terms of the incidence of measles and the attitudes to vaccination?
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Jane R
Shipmate
# 331
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Posted
This is great news, but as measles is still around in other parts of the world (there were outbreaks in mainland Europe this summer) there is no room for complacency.
The increased take-up of vaccination in the UK is probably a direct result of the well-publicised outbreak in 2012. People keep forgetting that measles is a serious illness. Pictures of children being hospitalised remind them. ![[Frown]](frown.gif)
Posts: 3958 | From: Jorvik | Registered: May 2001
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jane R:
The increased take-up of vaccination in the UK is probably a direct result of the well-publicised outbreak in 2012.
I think it also helps that people in the UK don't have to pay for vaccinations.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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que sais-je
Shipmate
# 17185
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Posted
Not quite?
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"controversies, disputes, and argumentations, both in philosophy and in divinity, if they meet with discreet and peaceable natures, do not infringe the laws of charity" (Thomas Browne)
Posts: 794 | From: here or there | Registered: Jun 2012
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Latchkey Kid
Shipmate
# 12444
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Posted
I live in the area of Australia which has the worst vaccination rate.
There are all sorts of snake oil merchants peddling alternative medicines.
Amber necklaces are believed to ward off any number of illnesses. A person on a table near me in a cafe declared that it protected you against Wi-Fi radiation.
The "MMR causes autism" belief is rife. "The vaccine contains mercury, thiomersal and foetal tissue" was stated to me last Thursday. People will try to evangelise you with articles as though you have never come across the arguments before. It's all a conspiracy of the drug companies and the medical professions to make money, they believe.
Some people here are amazed that I have vaccinations (flu and pneumonia for my hospital chaplaincy visits).
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'You must never give way for an answer. An answer is always the stretch of road that's behind you. Only a question can point the way forward.'
Mika; in Hello? Is Anybody There?, Jostein Gaardner
Posts: 2592 | From: The wizardest little town in Oz | Registered: Mar 2007
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la vie en rouge
Parisienne
# 10688
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Posted
The French government has made what I consider to be an excellent move on the subject of vaccinations: having had all one’s shots is going to become a precondition for registration in state primary schools. No shots, no school place. (Presumably the small number of children for whom vaccinations are genuinely medically contraindicated can show a doctor’s certificate and still be admitted. I haven’t checked the detail.) This is important. Children are dying of measles in France.
I have a feeling some hippy parent somewhere is going to test this in the courts at some point. I’ll be interested to see what happens.
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Rent my holiday home in the South of France
Posts: 3696 | Registered: Nov 2005
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
I'm not aware of any private school around here - even a kindergarten - which will take an unvaccinated child. So fa the State has not brought the same rule into operation for public schools. That must surely happen soon, as the sort of people to whom LKK refers are most unlikely to vote for the present State government.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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Pangolin Guerre
Shipmate
# 18686
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Posted
I don't know that it's still the case, but I recall that as a child I was vaccinated at school by the local health board. All 30 kids at at time (6 years old?) got our booster and flu shots. There was no doubt that the herd was 100% vaccinated.
This may have been because this was shortly after the Hong Kong flu of 1968.
Posts: 758 | From: 30 arpents de neige | Registered: Nov 2016
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
Education is compulsory; attendance at a state school is not.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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jbohn
Shipmate
# 8753
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by la vie en rouge:
The French government has made what I consider to be an excellent move on the subject of vaccinations: having had all one’s shots is going to become a precondition for registration in state primary schools. No shots, no school place. (Presumably the small number of children for whom vaccinations are genuinely medically contraindicated can show a doctor’s certificate and still be admitted. I haven’t checked the detail.) This is important. Children are dying of measles in France.
I have a feeling some hippy parent somewhere is going to test this in the courts at some point. I’ll be interested to see what happens.
I wish we were as strident here. In Minnesota (US), all the parents need to do is sign a form stating they object to vaccinations, and the child is exempted. We had ah outbreak this last summer of measles cases in unvaccinated children, new Somali immigrants - some anti-vax jackass has been going around convincing them their kids will get autism. I'd like to punch said jackass straight in the gob.
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We are punished by our sins, not for them.
--Elbert Hubbard
Posts: 989 | From: East of Eden, west of St. Paul | Registered: Nov 2004
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Cod
Shipmate
# 2643
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Posted
![[Mad]](angryfire.gif)
A few months back I had to endure a 4-hour round journey in a car with a hippy who was into homeopathy and a lady whose son suffered from something that sounded like chronic fatigue syndrome. The hippy, whose breath was absolutely rank with (I imagine) yesterday's garlic, had a barely cordial conversation with me about vaccination: she was absolutely against it, said it caused autism, and suggested it may have caused the other lady's son's condition. The other lady's ability to keep her temper at this load of nonsense was an object lesson in control.
There are a lot of people round here like that: many of them living on large rural sections and trying to live a simpler life. They don't trust mainstream medicine on the basis that it requires lots of treatments that are very divorced from nature, and are biased in favour of what seem to them to be more 'natural' solutions. Also a fair number of people in the towns pick up those ideas as well.
These ideas also perculate through to Maori and those keen on promoting Maori culture, some of whom like the idea of reviving pre-colonial methods of medical treatment (which they'd probably call 'healing'). The attempts to restore Maori to a fair place in NZ society is a very good thing, but the drive to do so has brought some distinctly unscientific - if not harmful - ideas in its train.
The results have been a measles outbreak causing a shutdown of a local school within the last year or so, and relatively high rates of non-immunisation generally. It's also caused a long-running and extremely tedious (and briefly successful) campaign to stop fluoridisation of the local water.
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"I fart in your general direction."
M Barnier
Posts: 4229 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Apr 2002
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L'organist
Shipmate
# 17338
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Posted
We do have to be careful with vaccination.
For example, there is good evidence that vaccinating too early for whooping cough may be linked to the development of asthma at or shortly after puberty; and vaccinating smaller children and babies who are asthmatic for whooping cough may be unwise.
Similarly, care should be taken over the smallpox vaccine and people with eczema.
A paediatrician friend is, like me, pro-vaccination but says that the one-size-of-dose-fits-all approach is not helpful and that more work should be done on correct dosages for very small infants and children.
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Rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet
Posts: 4950 | From: somewhere in England... | Registered: Sep 2012
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no prophet's flag is set so...
Proceed to see sea
# 15560
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by L'organist:
We do have to be careful with vaccination.
For example, there is good evidence that vaccinating too early for whooping cough may be linked to the development of asthma at or shortly after puberty; and vaccinating smaller children and babies who are asthmatic for whooping cough may be unwise.
Similarly, care should be taken over the smallpox vaccine and people with eczema.
A paediatrician friend is, like me, pro-vaccination but says that the one-size-of-dose-fits-all approach is not helpful and that more work should be done on correct dosages for very small infants and children.
I am unable to find anything other than "anecdata" to support your speculation. There isn't such a link between whooping cough vaccine asthma.
Posts: 11498 | From: Treaty 6 territory in the nonexistant Province of Buffalo, Canada ↄ⃝' | Registered: Mar 2010
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Baptist Trainfan
Shipmate
# 15128
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Posted
Our son was born in West Africa and received his vaccinations through Unicef. We were so grateful for this because, when he was only about a year old, there was an outbreak of whooping cough. He got the "whoop" and a mild fever, but that was all. Without the vaccination he might have died.
In any medical intervention - down to the taking of one aspirin - there is a risk. The question is one of quantifying that risk and comparing it against other possible outcomes. Tragically, there are a few times when the good option turns out to have been bad in that particular instance.
Posts: 9750 | From: The other side of the Severn | Registered: Sep 2009
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BroJames
Shipmate
# 9636
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Posted
There does appear to have been some concern that whooping cough vaccine might be associated with asthma onset, but this paper states that the concerns were not borne out in larger scale more robust studies.
Smallpox vaccine is not routinely given these days. It is one of the higher risk vaccines. There is a listing of smallpox vaccine risks here
Posts: 3374 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2005
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Jemima the 9th
Shipmate
# 15106
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by jbohn:
quote:
Originally posted by la vie en rouge:
The French government has made what I consider to be an excellent move on the subject of vaccinations: having had all one’s shots is going to become a precondition for registration in state primary schools. No shots, no school place. (Presumably the small number of children for whom vaccinations are genuinely medically contraindicated can show a doctor’s certificate and still be admitted. I haven’t checked the detail.) This is important. Children are dying of measles in France.
I have a feeling some hippy parent somewhere is going to test this in the courts at some point. I’ll be interested to see what happens.
I wish we were as strident here. In Minnesota (US), all the parents need to do is sign a form stating they object to vaccinations, and the child is exempted. We had ah outbreak this last summer of measles cases in unvaccinated children, new Somali immigrants - some anti-vax jackass has been going around convincing them their kids will get autism. I'd like to punch said jackass straight in the gob.
Oh, that jackass. Wakefield. He's one of ours, sorry about that. http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2017/05/12/the-somali-measles-outbreak-in-minnesota-thanks-again-andy-and-american-antivaxe rs-for-the-measles/
Posts: 801 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2009
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Marvin the Martian
Interplanetary
# 4360
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Cod:
They don't trust mainstream medicine on the basis that it requires lots of treatments that are very divorced from nature, and are biased in favour of what seem to them to be more 'natural' solutions.
Which is fine, as long as they’re willing to face up to the fact that a lot of the time the ‘natural’ solution is “the patient dies”.
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Hail Gallaxhar
Posts: 30100 | From: Adrift on a sea of surreality | Registered: Apr 2003
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BroJames
Shipmate
# 9636
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Posted
And even if they survive there can be life changing consequences. The brother of a friend of mine caught measles when he was ten. He recovered but was paralysed form the waist down. It put a very final stopper on his ambition to play rugby for Wales (or at all).
Posts: 3374 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2005
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cliffdweller
Shipmate
# 13338
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by BroJames:
There does appear to have been some concern that whooping cough vaccine might be associated with asthma onset, but this paper states that the concerns were not borne out in larger scale more robust studies.
Smallpox vaccine is not routinely given these days. It is one of the higher risk vaccines. There is a listing of smallpox vaccine risks here
smallpox vaccine is not given because the disease has been eradicated, not because of the risks.
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"Here is the world. Beautiful and terrible things will happen. Don't be afraid." -Frederick Buechner
Posts: 11242 | From: a small canyon overlooking the city | Registered: Jan 2008
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Jemima the 9th
Shipmate
# 15106
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by jbohn:
quote:
Originally posted by Jemima the 9th:
Oh, that jackass. Wakefield. He's one of ours, sorry about that. http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2017/05/12/the-somali-measles-outbreak-in-minnesota-thanks-again-andy-and-american-antivaxe rs-for-the-measles/
That's the one, all right. I work in schools that had measles cases reported in them; I spent quite a bit of time worrying about transmitting to my (then) 3 month old...
My sympathies. My youngest was a newborn during the last whooping cough outbreak here. He was too young to be vaccinated, and the recommendation for whooping cough vax during pregnancy was yet to be adopted (and believe me, I'd have had it if it had been). I remember listening on the news to stories of babies dying daily from WC. It was awful.
Posts: 801 | From: UK | Registered: Sep 2009
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balaam
Making an ass of myself
# 4543
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Posted
It's nice to read so many arguments being debunked, but...
...no vaccine is risk free. But the risk is far lower than not taking the vaccine. The risks are not balanced, smallpox has been eradicated due to vaccination. Measles is going that way in the UK.
Vaccination is the only thing that makes sense.
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Last ever sig ...
blog
Posts: 9049 | From: Hen Ogledd | Registered: May 2003
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
That's the whole point, isn't it? There's no vaccine that's 100% effective in each and every case and is absolutely without side effects. Probably never will be. What we do have are vaccines which are very effective in drastically reducing the odds of getting measles etc in almost every case and at extremely low risk. Given that choice, of course you'd go with the vaccine.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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BroJames
Shipmate
# 9636
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by cliffdweller:
smallpox vaccine is not given because the disease has been eradicated, not because of the risks.
Oh yes indeed. I didn’t mean to suggest a link between the risk and the non-use of the vaccine. If smallpox were a risk, the vaccine risks are tiny by comparison.
Posts: 3374 | From: UK | Registered: Jun 2005
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Callan
Shipmate
# 525
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Gee D:
That's the whole point, isn't it? There's no vaccine that's 100% effective in each and every case and is absolutely without side effects. Probably never will be. What we do have are vaccines which are very effective in drastically reducing the odds of getting measles etc in almost every case and at extremely low risk. Given that choice, of course you'd go with the vaccine.
Vaccination is by no means unproblematic, although the safety levels have improved dramatically. I used to know a lady, God rest her soul, whose daughter was mentally handicapped as the result of her vaccinations and whose mental abilities never progressed beyond that of a child. (This was in the 1950s). I remember her exhorting me to remember that medical science had advanced somewhat since then and that I was to make sure that my daughter got all her shots. And vaccination is one of the most heartbreaking things you do as a parent, you take your unsuspecting child into a surgery and a complete stranger sticks a needle into them and their face dissolves into tears. It's not difficult to see why the anti-vaccination sentiment lives on. It's tragic, it's understandable but it is completely wrong.
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How easy it would be to live in England, if only one did not love her. - G.K. Chesterton
Posts: 9757 | From: Citizen of the World | Registered: Jun 2001
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Gee D
Shipmate
# 13815
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Posted
Yes, a result such as that is tragic - and there's no way of knowing what would have happened had the girl not had the vaccination. But how rare such a reaction is.
AFAIK, TB has been eradicated here and the vaccination programme brought to an end. That means that when Dlet and others went to the US, Canada and other places on school activities, they had to be tested to show they were clear, and vaccinated to give a protection now unnecessary at home.
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Not every Anglican in Sydney is Sydney Anglican
Posts: 7028 | From: Warrawee NSW Australia | Registered: Jun 2008
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