Immunisation, right or wrong?

[Julia]

I've never had the flu vaccine either and never get flu, or even ordinary colds.

It's a whole different and much less important question than immunisation from dreadful childhood diseases like polio, diptheria, whooping cough etc.

And if you have to pay for a top-up every ten years or so, I don't know why anyone would balk at that for the protection it affords.

It's not difficult to keep a diary note of when, for example, a tetanus booster is required.

 

[cynic]

As it happens the very last immunisation that I ever received was, in fact, a tetanus shot. That same evening I experienced intense muscle aches across most of my torso. By the following day I had a fever and spent most of the subsequent four days in bed with my body quivering and teeth chattering.

Despite having had the Sabin vaccine administered several times throughout my childhood and teeenage years, I have tested positive for the presence of either the Polio, Echo or Coxsackie enteroviruses (apparently the test is unable to differentiate between these three infections). Around the same time that these results were received, my GP measured an approximately 3kg decline in my active tissue (i.e. muscle) mass. Given that I've never physically travelled outside of Australia, I think the implications of these observations, and the reasons for my intense anger at societial attitudes, will be clear.

I've no doubt that the many members of society, whom do not share my rare and unusual genetic characteristics, will have benefited enormously from immunisations. As such, I would not want to see the practice prohibited, but I reiterate my strong objection to the reckless assumptions being made by the medical profession and society at large, regarding safety and efficacy for anyone and everyone.

A little more care in the genetic screening and assessment of candidates for such treatments, combined with a lot more respect for the rights of parents/guardians to make informed choices regarding the care of their children, would go a long way towards alleviating my concerns. Had such practices been in place half a century ago, I may well have been spared much physical and emotional torment.

 

[sydboy007]

A little more care in the genetic screening and assessment of candidates for such treatments, combined with a lot more respect for the rights of parents/guardians to make informed choices regarding the care of their children, would go a long way towards alleviating my concerns. Had such practices been in place half a century ago, I may well have been spared much physical and emotional torment.

I'm sorry to hear you've had such an adverse reaction to immunisation

Have you done any research on how widespread this issue is?

Is there a way to screen people prior to immunisation for this kind of issue?

If screening is possible, what would the costs be?

Are the risks of not being vacinnated lower / higher than the risks of having a response similar to yours?

As with all things in life, nothing is 100% safe. It's usually about what we believe is the safer path at the time.

 

[boofhead]

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-23244628 is worth a read for outbreaks that are happening in 1st world places. The article mentions 95% immunisation rate for measles is needed for herd immunity.

 

[cynic]

I'm sorry to hear you've had such an adverse reaction to immunisation

Have you done any research on how widespread this issue is?

Is there a way to screen people prior to immunisation for this kind of issue?

If screening is possible, what would the costs be?

Are the risks of not being vacinnated lower / higher than the risks of having a response similar to yours?

As with all things in life, nothing is 100% safe. It's usually about what we believe is the safer path at the time.

What would be the better choice for someone with children of my genetic background, I wonder?

(i) the certainty of disease infection via a direct pharmacological assault on the child's immune system, or

(ii) the uncertain efficacy of the child's natural immune response to infections, if and when, encountered.

My GP is a lot more thorough than any I'd encountered previously, however, given that he was able to quickly identify contra indicators during my initial consultation, I fail to understand how other medical practitioners can be so readily dismissive of their duty of care.

Doesn't the Hippocratic Oath actually mean anything these days? Or is it just another one of those "guidelines" that can be readily dismissed in favour of pragmatic considerations (i.e. "perceived" benefits for a majority outweighing the devastating consequences to a minority) ?

@Sptrawler : My apologies for having distracted your thread from the intended topic.

 

[sydboy007]

What would be the better choice for someone with children of my genetic background, I wonder?

(i) the certainty of disease infection via a direct pharmacological assault on the child's immune system, or

(ii) the uncertain efficacy of the child's natural immune response to infections, if and when, encountered.

My GP is a lot more thorough than any I'd encountered previously, however, given that he was able to quickly identify contra indicators during my initial consultation, I fail to understand how other medical practitioners can be so readily dismissive of their duty of care.

Doesn't the Hippocratic Oath actually mean anything these days? Or is it just another one of those "guidelines" that can be readily dismissed in favour of pragmatic considerations (i.e. "perceived" benefits for a majority outweighing the devastating consequences to a minority) ?

@Sptrawler : My apologies for having distracted your thread from the intended topic.

Would you be willing to share what those contra indicators were? The information may help others on this forum.

Did the GP provide and idea of how reliable the contra indicators are?

In your case I'd say you'd have to weigh up the risks yourself in terms of having your children vacinated. have you determiend if they too have the contra indicators?

It is hard to deny the benefits that immunisation has give the vast majority though.

 

[cynic]

I've got an even better idea!

I'll just courier hair, tissue, blood and bodily secretion specimens to one of the moderators so that they can independently verify my pathological and genealogical background. Then said moderator can report back to this thread with the findings. That way everyone will be able to appreciate the importance of exercising greater care in their approach to popular medical procedures!

If my personal disclosures thus far are insufficient to alert people to the need for greater discernment, then I fail to understand how full disclosure of my inherent genetic characteristics will alter their viewpoint!

 

[sydboy007]

I've got an even better idea!

I'll just courier hair, tissue, blood and bodily secretion specimens to one of the moderators so that they can independently verify my pathological and genealogical background. Then said moderator can report back to this thread with the findings. That way everyone will be able to appreciate the importance of exercising greater care in their approach to popular medical procedures!

If my personal disclosures thus far are insufficient to alert people to the need for greater discernment, then I fail to understand how full disclosure of my inherent genetic characteristics will alter their viewpoint!

I'm not questioning your truthfulness.

I was just thinking that if someone is worried about a similar issue that they could give their doctor some specifics.

Sometimes you need to show the medical profession a bit of prior knowledge so they take you seriously.

Telling a doctor you'd like to be genetically screened to see if certain vaccines might have an adverse effect on you or a family member may be met with a lack of knowledge.

To give you a personal example I've been doing shift work for the last 20 years and finding it more and more difficult as I get older. About 4 years ago I read an article about a newish drug call modanafil. It basically blocks the receptors in your brain that detect the chemicals that build up while you are awake and make you feel sleepy.

I have a good GP - she actually listens to me - and went to see her for a prescription. She hadn't heard of the drug before - it's primary use is for people with narcolepsy. I gave her the run down on how it works and some of the main side effects. It helped she could tell I'd done my research on it. She gave me a script for 2 month supply as a trial to see if I'd have any of the documented side effects. Aside from the odd mild headache it's worked a treat for me. It's a private script though, so works out around $3 a tablet. Same price as a coffee but lasts for about 10 hours. Now I no longer stress out when I have trouble sleeping, which means I've been sleeping better since getting the medication.

 

[cynic]

SPTrawler, please accept my apologies for once again having diverted this thread away from the original theme.

Regretfully, the persistent efforts of a certain poster to elicit further information have given rise to my intense desire for a more emphatic response. Given that the content of this post will be intentionally provocative and offensive, the moderators, should it be deemed necessary, have my advance consent to having this post moved to a more appropriate thread ("Religion is crazy!" might be a suitable candidate).

People seem to display a wide variety of personality traits and behaviours, some delightful, some less so.
There are a few behaviours and attitudes that I have nothing but utter contempt for:

(i) The use of feigned altruism in concealment of ulterior motives
(ii) The presumption of infallibility
(iii) The presumption of the right to make decisions on anothers behalf.

Sydboy007,firstly, thankyou for so kindly providing an excellent example of one of the many perils of internet supported, medical self diagnosis!
Secondly, in reading and responding to several of your posts this past week, the presence of the three aforementioned behaviours is evident. If you are truly as intelligent as you like to believe, then you should already be well aware that polite words and feigned altruism are insufficient to conceal your truly hostile motivations. Of course, you were so caught up in your elitist fantasy, that you couldn't even recognise just how woefully inept your repeated attempts at deceit were! I now suspect that you may have even been sufficiently self deluded to believe that your posts were clever!

I'm not questioning your truthfulness.
...

You must think I'm really stupid! During this past week you posted the following sentiments to another of the general chat threads:

I hear ya. I just can't let something so blatantly incorrect stand.

If we don't challenge it and show it to be the false propaganda it is, then it unfortunately becomes accepted as fact which does no one any good.

My hope is if people see certain people are factually wrong with their claims most of the time, they'll start to ignore what they say.

Isn't it truly amazing how easily such an ill-conceived philosophy can backfire!

 

[sydboy007]

Seems the countries that have more experience with a lot of preventable diseases are much more willing to vaccinate than Australia.

Australia compares unfavourably to many countries on immunisation.
Immunisation coverage in Australia is 94 per cent for measles and 92 per cent for diphtheria, tetanus, whooping cough, polio and Hib, which causes infant meningitis.

This puts it behind countries such as Bangladesh, which has comparable coverage rates of between 96-99 per cent, Eritrea with 99 per cent and Rwanda, which has rates between 93-98 per cent.

While Australia's vaccination rate for measles is higher than the global average of 85 per cent, it is below the east Asia-Pacific average of 95 per cent.
-----------

Then I found this study for Australia used by anti immunisation groups.

For the years 2008-2010, there were a total of 9333 cases of whooping cough reported in children aged 0-4 years. Among them were 754 who were either too young or otherwise not eligible to have been vaccinated, and 1497 for whom vaccine status was not known.

Of the remaining 7082 cases whose vaccine status was known, and who were eligible to have received the vaccine, 5296 (75%) were fully vaccinated for their age. A further 986 (14%) were partly vaccinated. Only 800 (11%) were un-vaccinated.

-------------------------

problem is their figures seem to be way out.

Australia recorded 38,000 cases in 2011, the highest number since records began in 1991 and most states are only now recovering from a major epidemic that began in 2008.

So if immunisation programs have been successful, why is whooping cough still a problem?

The short answer, according to immunisation expert Professor Peter McIntyre, is because the pertussis vaccine is good at reducing the risk of severe disease and death, but is not necessarily going to prevent infection altogether.

"It's not like measles vaccine where if you have the vaccine you just won't get measles infection," says McIntyre, director of the National Centre for Immunisation Research and Surveillance of Vaccine-Preventable Diseases at the University of Sydney.

"The pertussis vaccine is decreasing the amount of infection to some extent, but mostly what it's doing is decreasing how sick you get."

This means children who might otherwise have got extremely sick and ended up in intensive care on oxygen or even died, now get a milder infection or sometimes show no symptoms at all. Also if you've had the vaccine you're less likely to transmit the disease to those around you.

However, it does mean that a significant proportion of infections will occur in vaccinated individuals.

"You'd expect that because if 95 per cent of kids are immunised and if you find that 95 per cent of the cases are also immunised, then that means that the vaccine's not doing anything," McIntyre says.

But that's not the case. Only about 70 per cent of reported cases of whooping cough occur in people who have had the pertussis vaccine.

"That's telling you that the vaccine is working and if you do the numbers, that equates to about an 80 per cent effectiveness of the vaccine."

 

[sptrawler]

Interesting post Sydboy, I wasn't aware that immunisation didn't give almost 100% protection.
Also I wasn't aware that 'third world' countries had such high vacination rates.

 

[medicowallet]

Doesn't the Hippocratic Oath actually mean anything these days? Or is it just another one of those "guidelines" that can be readily dismissed in favour of pragmatic considerations (i.e. "perceived" benefits for a majority outweighing the devastating consequences to a minority) ?

Off topic, but:

Any new doctor who actually swears the hippocratic oath is a fool.

MW

 

[sydboy007]

Interesting post Sydboy, I wasn't aware that immunisation didn't give almost 100% protection.
Also I wasn't aware that 'third world' countries had such high vacination rates.

It seems the level of protection is different based on the disease. Measles and mumps, polio too seem to have near 100% protection.

I thought I'd post the information because at first glance what these anti immunisers are saying seems worrying, and while the information might be correct, it fails to show that the majority of hospitalisations for whooping cough are for those not immunised.

Now that we've moved away from using live attenuated virus vaccines to subunit ones that use just a few of the main antigens we've traded efficacy for far lower negative response to the vaccines. Since this was done a lot more parents have been willing to vaccinate their children.

My hope is once the needle free ways of administering vaccines become available that immunisation rates will start going up again. Keep a lookout for the nano patch (an aussie project) and the PharmaJet’s Stratis as they seem to be close to going mainstream. The nano patch has been trialled with the tetanus vaccine and has been shown to provide a much higher immune response while using less vaccine - up to 1/100th of what is required in a needle dosage. Win Win. It's also able to be stored without refrigeration. It's so easy to use you can literally just hand them out to people to apply to themselves. Perfect for poor countries.

It should certainly make providing the flu vaccine a lot easier - might be tempted to try it since you will be less likely to get mild flu symptoms from it - and should also encourage people to get boosters. I do wish the Govt would provide free whooping cough boosters to all parents. It would probably work out a cost effective program compared to the expense of hospitalisation or just the time off work parents have to take when they have a sick child.

Personally I'd like to send some of the anti immunisation lobby to some poor countries just to see first hand how deadly and debilitation a lot of "childhood" illnesses can be. We can send polio, measles, mumps and possibly some other diseases to live with small pox and the dodo.

 

[matty77]

Its well known Whooping Cough vaccine doesn't guarantee you wont get it but it does reduce the risk.

If it was 99.9% coverage though I am sure we would see even less of it, just as if it was 75% coverage we would see plenty more people catching it.

 

[bellenuit]

Texas Measles Outbreak Traced To Anti-Vaccine Megachurch

http://gawker.com/texas-measles-outbreak-traced-to-anti-vaccine-megachurc-1197363514

 

[sydboy007]

Texas Measles Outbreak Traced To Anti-Vaccine Megachurch

http://gawker.com/texas-measles-outbreak-traced-to-anti-vaccine-megachurc-1197363514

Sigh. Just like religion the basis for being against vacinnation (99% of the time) is based on fear and belief rather than on scietific reasoning.

I wouldn't be surprised if the Church claims this is some attack by Satan

 

[burglar]

Had whooping cough myself in my late 30s. Felt like someone was sitting on my chest and couldnt get a real lungful of air and would 'whoop' to breath after a coughing fit. So debilitating and remember being thankful that i could at least gag and slag some of it out (sometimes vomitting). I felt incredibly sad knowing a baby couldnt do that. Went on for weeks.
Shortly after I recovered there was an advertising campaign on TV/radio - could hear a baby 'whoop'. It took some effort to stop getting very tearful whenever i heard it.

I would recommend immunizing. Highly.

+1
My eldest had croup in infancy.
Very scary, but not as scary as whooping cough.

 

[burglar]

SPTrawler, please accept my apologies for once again having diverted this thread away from the original theme. ...

cynic, my friend,
I can't see where you diverted.

It does say "Immunisation, right or wrong?"

 

[sydboy007]

Health authorities are fearing a measles outbreak in Victoria after 10 cases of the potentially fatal virus were diagnosed in Melbourne over the past three weeks.

Measles, which is also known as rubeola, is a very contagious virus. Estimates suggest one person will infect about nine in every 10 people who have not had the illness or are unvaccinated.

The Victorian clusters come after an alarming surge of measles in the UK this year prompted an urgent vaccination campaign.
British health authorities believe the outbreak was caused by a lack of herd immunity among young people who were not vaccinated in the early 2000s.

Low vaccination rates around the turn of the century were caused by now discredited suggestions that the measles mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine was linked to autism.

In 1998, Andrew Wakefield published research implying a link between the two, however the research has since been withdrawn and Mr Wakefield was struck off the medical register for using falsified data.

Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/m...rus-spreads-20130826-2skyo.html#ixzz2d5Yiflbx

Ah Mr Wakefield, the lie that keeps on giving eh.

 

[cynic]

The cognitively challenged amongst us seem somewhat reluctant to allow inconvenient facts to get in the way of grand scale media based public lynchings!

http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(05)75696-8/fulltext

http://www.thelibertybeacon.com/2013/06/21/new-published-study-verifies-andrew-wakefields-research-on-autism-again-mmr-vaccine-causes-autism/