Why I Will Vaccinate My Kids (if i have any)
I know a young woman who isn't vaccinated against any "childhood" disease. Why? When she had her first shots, she developed encephalitis and had to be hospitalized. The doctors said that she shouldn't have any more shots.
People who feel the risks from vaccines are too much would probably stop there and say "See, that's why I'm not vaccinating my kids! Look what happened to her!"
They're forgetting that this young woman survived and grew up to have children of her own. She's out there, sometimes pregnant, among all of YOUR unvaccinated kids. There are thousands of others like her out there who are unable to be vaccinated because of true legitimate health reasons, such as allergies to the components of the vaccine or in my friend's case, bad reactions to vaccines, many pregnant women. The children of these unvaccinated women lack maternal antibodies against these diseases, so even though my friend breastfed her babies, she wasn't able to pass on her own immunity since she had none. Not all moms have the luxury of staying home and taking care of their children until they're able to get their first shots -- my friend worked in customer service and was lucky her job allowed her to take breaks to pump.
She wasn't so lucky when someone who hadn't gotten vaccinated for pertussis came in contact with her when her baby was less than three months old.
Both mom and baby survived, but had to be hospitalized.
-----
The "herd immunity" effect occurs when a sufficient amount of people are vaccinated against a disease to make the spread of an epidemic difficult if not impossible. We're not always sure where that number is going to be -- it depends on a lot of things, including a population's likelihood of exposure to foreign travelers from areas with lower vaccination and higher disease rates. Overall, there's no evidence that in the US measles outbreaks are associated with lower childhood vaccination rates when you look at state by state numbers, but on the smaller scale, the associations are pretty obvious:
http://www.npr.org/2013/09/01/217746942/texas-megachurch-at-center-of-measles-outbreak
There, 21 people — the majority of whom have not been immunized — have gotten the disease, which began at a vaccine-skeptical megachurch.
<snip>
Pearsons set up vaccination clinics on church property, but at the same time, when she preaches to her congregates, the message is for them to put their faith in God.
"So I'm going to tell you what the facts are, and the facts are the facts, but then we know the truth. That always overcomes facts," she has said.
Measles is a particularly difficult disease to diagnose. It doesn't help that few residents get to see it in their training, but even back when my mother was a child and had it, they weren't sure exactly what she had at first and treated her for scarlet fever. They naturally took the precautions of the time like keeping her at home and having the doctor come to her -- which we aren't doing now when our kids get sick. Prevention of medically-based transmission of the disease when the kids come in for treatment is extremely costly, when vaccines are cheap -- and overall, safer than catching the disease that the shot prevents.
Vaccines aren't a 100% thing, nor are they 100% safe. I'm not saying that. But I will vaccinate if I have kids, and do my best to keep my child away from yours until they've had their shots. Don't be sheep depending on the herd immunity or you will ruin it for everyone.
= new reply since forum marked as read
Response to moriah (Original post)