California Whooping Cough Cases "an Epidemic" 387
As reported by the San Jose Mercury News, the state of California is "in the throes of a whooping cough epidemic, state health department officials announced Friday. Dr. Ron Chapman, director of the California Department of Public Health, said 3,458 cases of whooping cough have been reported since Jan. 1 -- including 800 in the past two weeks. That total is more than all the cases reported in 2013." Public broadcaster KPBS notes that of the 621 people known to have come down with whooping cough in San Diego county, the vast majority (85 percent) were up to date on their immunizations.
So there's 100 or so unimmunized? (Score:5, Insightful)
So there's 100 or so unimmunized kids who got sick in just that last two weeks?
Without those kids, would the other 500 or so gotten sick?
There's a reason it's called herd immunity.
Fuck Jenny McCarthy. With a 50-year-old telephone pole that's had linemen up and down it with spiked shoes thousands of times. Soaked in gasoline. On fire. Up the ass.
Re:So there's 100 or so unimmunized? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:I don't think we need to immunize child so earl (Score:1, Insightful)
We do require; the problem is many states allow an exemption for personal beliefs.
The vaccination should be required regardless of beliefs or conscientious objection by the parents, because other People's safety is at risk.
Furthermore... if the reason for exemption is medical; this should require at least two healthcare officials to verify it and sign off on it, and there should be a requirement to renew the certification every year.
Also, the immunization certificates should have conspicuous expiration dates before the next booster is needed for each vaccine, and schools should be required to verify these annually.
The certificate should also be required to be admitted to an institution of higher education, to buy or own real property, to register a vehicle, to obtain airplane tickets, boarding pass, or to step into an airplane, to obtain and renew a driver's license or other ID with a stamp making it an immunization ID as well, proof of immunization (or presentation of drivers license/ID that certification is required for) should be necessary to enter publicly owned buildings where a large number of people may be present, and employers should be required to verify certificate (or require vaccination) before employing any new worker. Obtaining social security, unemployment, welfare benefits, should also require an active immunization certificate.
In other words: there should be gates requiring citizens to have proper immunization or medical exemption from them.
Re:So there's 100 or so unimmunized? (Score:5, Insightful)
This idea is applicable to other things. Short Sigtedness paralleled with business shows rapid depletion of its resources in exchange for an increase in profit; like a child that has more free time because it doesn't have to wait in line for a vaccine shot. Then when the resources run out, the business colapses; the outcome is the abandonment of its employees, and its customers; now the community is damaged, also the death of the business. The survivers must now spend time, money, and resources that they would not have to before; the impact cripples.
Re:So there's 100 or so unimmunized? (Score:5, Insightful)
There are precisely two viruses like this that have been "eradicated" by medicine, in the entire history of humankind. Two.
And one of those is suspected of making a comeback in a related form.
"Immunisation" buys you time, not immunity. We can't get 100% of people to pay taxes or abide by the law, what makes you think we can get 100% immunised?
Like using one particular chemical in weedkiller or rat poison - doesn't matter how many rats you kill, one will get immune to it and breed a generation immune to it really quickly, or a branch of the same genetic family will evolve to take it over. Even if you legislate (as some countries do) that you MUST use 2 or 3 totally unrelated chemicals at all times and never deploy them singly - still there are rats. And still there will be diseases getting through that are related to those you immunise.
Hell, we offer flu shots to the elderly for free in my country - hasn't even dented flu-like diseases. Immunisation helps. Blaming those percent that choose to decide what they put into their own bodies is just peer pressure and bullying. And, guess what, if you were actually "immunised" you wouldn't be able to catch it from them, or the evolved strains...
The biggest issue with the flu is that there are so many strains of it (it mutates quite easily). Your flu vaccination is for the one strain which is believed to be the most common one for that particular year. Unfortunately they could have guessed wrong as to which strain will be the most common or you could just as easily pick up some other strain.
As for immunisation protecting you from evolved strains, what happens when that one little mutation is a change in the protein coating which makes your immunity a moot point? Vaccines work by giving you a dead or harmless version of the virus so that your immune system knows what it is and that it should react to it. One of the ways this is done is via the protein coating of the virus. If that changes enough then the immune system no longer recognises the virus as being one it has encountered already. Tying back into the flu virus, it mutates quite easily and more often then not the protein coatings change, hence why the flu vaccine does not always stop you from getting the flu.
It is the ease that viruses mutate that makes getting as many people as possible vaccinated important. The fewer hosts a virus can infect mean the less likely hood of the virus getting to mutate.
As for your comment on only 2 viruses being eradicated via vaccinations, how many people do you know or have heard of catching stuff like german measles, rubella, smallpox, pertussis, tuberculosis, mumps, etc? And how many of those live in countries where vaccination is readily available (eg, most non-thirdworld nations). Myself, I don't know anyone who has had any of these diseases outside of outbreaks in the UK and the USA due mostly to the anti-vaccination crowd...
Re:So there's 100 or so unimmunized? (Score:4, Insightful)
So yes, 80% effective, only targeting key specific seasonal strains they think will cause the most havoc.
But, at the end of the day, it's a gamble. Do you want to take your life or the lives of loved ones at such risk? I don't get a flu vaccine, in part because I haven't had the flu in a long, long time (Colds and I, however, have problems). Also because I'm not around little kids or super elderly folks, and don't work in a hospital/doctor's office, etc. But it's a choice I make. If I were to get the flu more often, I'd probably get vaccinated.
Re:So there's 100 or so unimmunized? (Score:3, Insightful)
There are precisely two viruses like this that have been "eradicated" by medicine, in the entire history of humankind. Two.
No, they have not been eradicated.
1. One lives in labs
2. The other one is still in wild because of fucked up Islamists.
Aside from that, your comment is stupid. You do not require 100% immunization to eradicate a disease. You only require good enough level of immunization. And comparing this to some specific strain flu vaccine, really? Flu vaccine has nowhere the same effectiveness as polio vaccine.
"Immunisation" buys you time, not immunity.
What a gem.
Re:Yes, be good sheep and take big pharma shots (Score:1, Insightful)
Do you mean thiomersal, the mercuric component of which is readily excreted by the body in less than a month with no ill effects and hasn't been used as a vaccine preservative in US, Europe and elsewhere since 1999?
Ignorant fear monger.
Re:So there's 100 or so unimmunized? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So there's 100 or so unimmunized? (Score:3, Insightful)
The US have one of the highest rates of antibiotics (ab)use. I'd be surprised if you found worse strains of germs in our hospitals than you find in the average US hotel air condition.
Re:So there's 100 or so unimmunized? (Score:4, Insightful)
If it was just for him, I'd be cheerleader for the vaccine-naysayers. Darwin should be right at least sometimes and all that.
But sadly it's not just about him. There are people who cannot get immunized, who cannot get vaccines, for various reasons. Very real reasons, unlike that anti-vac crowd. Some people would love to get vaccinated because they do not want to get sick. But simply cannot. For them, we "vaccinated ones" are the protective shield. Because if there is no strain to infect them (because we don't carry it around since our vaccinated immune system kills them), we effectively protect them.
Those anti-vac nuts endanger them.
Re:So there's 100 or so unimmunized? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Mexico Vaccinates Better Than The US (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:So there's 100 or so unimmunized? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, personally I'd rather get vaccinated than die.
You know, if vaccination is wrong, then it's wrong in a really right way. Let's put theory to a rest for a moment and ponder reality. Some diseases vanished entirely. Others have been pushed back considerably. All just due to a better sanitary situation? Certainly that is a factor too. But not sufficient to explain everything. Take tetanus. It's a fairly well understood disease, mostly because it used to be very troublesome before we understood it fully. And all cases of tetanus since WW2, at least, have been in people who were not vaccinated against it, despite the bacterium responsible for tetanus still being pretty much ubiquitous (it's fairly impossible to eliminate it from our life).
So if vaccination doesn't work, how would you explain this?
Re:So there's 100 or so unimmunized? (Score:4, Insightful)
The US have one of the highest rates of antibiotics (ab)use. I'd be surprised if you found worse strains of germs in our hospitals than you find in the average US hotel air condition.
It's not so much an issue of them not being in the hotel air as them not being trivial to find. But as it turns out, they're all over the hospitals, which are typically nowhere near as sanitary as they're alleged to be, mostly by health care professionals. Basically nothing in the typical hospital aside from some of the purpose-built equipment can actually be properly cleaned for the variety and load of contaminants which pass through it.
Re:So there's 100 or so unimmunized? (Score:4, Insightful)
I know it's very fashionable to have allergies these days but a tummy ache is not anaphylaxis. Try taking it with food next time.
Anaphylaxis is not the only allergic reaction. Not even the only life threatening one. And NVD (Nausa, vomiting, diarrhea) during a respiratory illness is very deadly.
Re:So there's 100 or so unimmunized? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Mexico Vaccinates Better Than The US (Score:2, Insightful)
"...and was speaking from personal experience."
This is a huge red flag. He probably is not a trained epidemiologist, and as such his observation bias is no different in that area then anyone else.
Of course, he wears a white coat so you assume is an expert in all things.
Re:Mexico Vaccinates Better Than The US (Score:5, Insightful)
"...and was speaking from personal experience." This is a huge red flag. He probably is not a trained epidemiologist, and as such his observation bias is no different in that area then anyone else.
Nonsense. He knows what he sees in his work. He wasn't making an epidemiological statement, he was making an observational one: the TB cases he was seeing were disproportionately illegal immigrants. Observation is not necessarily "observational bias."
Of course, he wears a white coat so you assume is an expert in all things.
No, I just assume he's an expert on the characteristics of his patients and their diseases, because that's his job.
Re:Mexico Vaccinates Better Than The US (Score:4, Insightful)
Experience at a free clinic would be suggestive of issues faced by the poor and lower middle class in general. To really draw conclusions from experience, he would need to have worked in a free clinic far from immigrant populations and in a clinic (free or not) in a wealthy area.
Re:I don't think we need to immunize child so earl (Score:2, Insightful)
I'll pass on your over paranoid, over centralized, over sanitized, overregulated society.. jesus fucking christ..
Re:Mexico Vaccinates Better Than The US (Score:5, Insightful)
You have to be careful with making statements like that
do you ever buy from places that use aliens as cheap labor to keep prices low?
do you pay every cent of tax you are supposed to?
the Rich are bigger freeloaders than the aliens because they don't pay their fair share of personal tax and do their best to avoid it.
Global companies do their level best to avoid paying any tax.
Aliens are a very small part of any problem