More Questions About Whooping Cough Vaccine In Kids 8 To 10

[mhatrw]

http://www.kpbs.org/news/2011/mar/29/cdc-says-whooping-cough-vaccine-effective/

Washington — On the tail of the biggest whooping cough outbreak in California in more than 60 years, federal health officials said Monday that while the vaccine is highly effective, immunity may be waning for children ages 8 through 10. The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) worked with the California Department of Public Health to study whooping cough cases in 15 counties, including San Diego, where two babies died from the disease and more than 1,000 were treated for it. Officials from the CDC are presenting preliminary results of the studies this week at a national immunization conference in Washington, D.C.

“In looking at the breakdown of cases by age and vaccine status, there was a higher number in the 7 to 10-year-olds that had been fully immunized,” said Lara Misegades, an epidemic intelligence service officer with the CDC. ...

For the current studies, epidemiologists examined the vaccine’s effectiveness in three age groups: 4-5 year olds, 6-7 year olds and 8-10 year olds. They found that while the vaccine was 95 percent effective for the first group, effectiveness dropped to 84 percent for the second group and then to 81 percent for the last group. “It’s that drop we’re going to be looking at more closely,” Misegades said. ...

Misegades said that while pertussis cycles through the population in California every three to five years, officials still aren’t sure what caused the high case counts in 2010. California is the only state in the nation to declare the pertussis outbreak and epidemic, but other states, including Ohio, Indiana and Texas, reported high numbers of cases last year. “Kids can be susceptible to pertussis even if they are completely vaccinated, and that’s something that was reaffirmed in our assessment as well,” Misegades said.

[villager]

1. dutifully unrecc'd by the "we don't dare have an actual discussion" crowd...

n/t

[Buzz Clik]

2. -1

[villager]

3. ...which sort of proves my point...

n/t

[laconicsax]

4. Of course pockets of unvaccinated carriers isn't possibly a factor.

:eyes:

[mhatrw]

5. The point is that every time someone gets an illness for which a vaccine exists

Paul Offit and the rest of the Phamy Army automatically deride "pockets of unvaccinated carriers" as the culprit, evidence be damned.

Here the main culprit appears to be a natural disease cycle and a vaccine that wanes in effectiveness after a few years. But that doesn't stop people from their knee jerk blaming of anyone who dares question any vaccine for any spike in any illness for which there is a vaccine.

[laconicsax]

6. No vaccine is 100% effective. This isn't some big secret.

Vaccination relies on having enough people vaccinated so that disease doesn't have enough avenues to spread and affect those for whom the vaccine didn't work, and those for whom vaccination is impossible. If people choose to not vaccinate they put every one else at risk.

No one is an island.

[mhatrw]

7. Here's what Offit said about the whooping cough resurgence in CA in Time magazine.

http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,2053517,00.html?xid=rss-health&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+time%2Fscienceandhealth+%28TIME%3A+Top+Science+and+Health+Stories%29

Vaccine refusal also spans non-Western cultures. In Nigeria, some people believe the polio vaccine causes AIDS. Why are vaccines so universally scary?

If you look at immunization rates in the United States, they are pretty good: in the high 80% or low 90% range. What's changed is that now some communities are making the choice not to vaccinate — in Southern California, Ashland, Ore., or on Vashon Island, off the coast of Washington State. You have a lot of people in daycare centers or schools who are making the same choice, so there are communities where outbreaks are starting to occur. We saw that with the whooping-cough epidemic in California this past year. It was the largest in more than 40 years.

Offit has point blank blamed people questioning anything about the recommended vaccine schedule for the recent resurgence of pertussis is California in about ten different major media venues now. The meme goes like this, "Those crazy Californians questioning vaccines are not harmless. Just look at the recent upsurge in whooping cough cases in California."

Now it turns out that the majority of California's whooping cough cases are among fully vaccinated individuals, despite an inherent diagnosis bias that assumes otherwise.

[laconicsax]

8. I like how you label people who refuse to vaccinate as simply "questioning the schedule."

Disease will spread among vaccinated individuals if there are enough unvaccinated individuals to compromise herd immunity. That the pertussis vaccine seems to be less effective in older children exacerbates this issue. Unvaccinated kids increase the chance of vaccinated kids coming in contact with the disease, and the vaccine doesn't seem to be as effective in older children, thus it has a greater ability to spread through a population.

This is a very basic concept, yet it seems to be completely foreign to you. People who refuse to vaccinate put their entire communitites at risk.

[mhatrw]

9. Show us the numbers.

Seriously. Let's see the numbers.

[laconicsax]

10. 4, 8, 15, 162, 3420

and THAT'S numberwang.

You're asking me to show you "the numbers" that support the basic concept that people can catch a disease for which they have no immunity? Seriously, do you have any idea what you're talking about? Are you just trying out a new catchphrase?

[SidDithers]

11. Shinty-six!...

:rofl:

Sid

[Confusious]

12. Here's what you don't see...

200% proof is your burden.(you also have to prove common sense. Like a screw and a nut fit together. prove it!)

A study from a crank and anecdotal evidence from one case is theirs.

Hope that clears things up! :)

[HysteryDiagnosis]

13. Garlic stewed down in olive oil rubbed on the chest and back, an old peasant

woman in Europe saved children by making a poultice and having them wear it on the soles of their feet while sleeping. I got the "stewed in olive oil part" from the BMJ circa 1860ish.

[PADemD]

14. I was fully vaccinated and got the whooping cough at age 12.

That was many years ago.

I asked my doctor for a booster shot last year.

Believe me, you don't want to catch the whooping cough.

[trotsky]

15. The challenge, for those who choose to understand the facts here...

(instead of bashing vaccines or those who acknowledge how very important they are to public health)

...is that pertussis, like diphtheria and tetanus, are caused by bacteria - not viruses, like other diseases we vaccinated against (such as polio, measles, etc.). And the real danger from these bacteria - the reason for their deadliness - is the toxins they produce. So the DTaP vaccine triggers our immune system to dispatch those toxins - and as such, they contain toxoids (inactivated toxins). These toxoids, and indeed the toxins themselves, do not actually reproduce in our bodies like viruses do, so our immune system response will not be permanent. Boosters are necessary. That's why we need tetanus boosters every 10 years, and why DTaP bundles them all together.

As has been pointed out above, this does not mean the vaccine doesn't work - it just means we need to get booster shots, AND make sure we are vaccinating as many people as possible.

[laconicsax]

16. Show me the numbers.

:rofl: