Six Reason to Question Vaccinations

[Deetee]

I'm sure they put the complications in context for the parents, just like PISANI did for the mother in the transcript I quoted.

You're "sure".......
but have nothing to back up your assumption.

In the whole of the UK there is typically 200 cases per year of pneumococcal meningitis, of which 150 cases are in 0-16 year olds. Given a fatality rate of less than 20%, that's about 30 deaths per year of children from pneumococcal meningitis. That is not "an awful lot of deaths".

So was she scaremongering or not?

[In fact she was criticised for not being pushy enough ].
For the bereaved parents, I am sure that it was "awful".

Some observations:
1. the UK cases of pneumococcal meningitis in under 15 year olds was actually only 107 for the last recorded data set (2005).
2. These are lab reports and are likely to be a considerable underestimate, as many cases of meningitis are culture-negative because of prior antibiotic administration.
3. Over 90% of kids who get pneumococcal meningitis and who survive are left with some long term neurological sequelae - it is a worse disease to get than meningococcal meningitis.
4. Considerable morbidity and mortality occurs through what is termed "invasive pneumococcal disease" - septicaemias, pneumonias etc. which is much more common than meningitis alone, but still is potentially lethal and which is preventable through vaccination.

I take the Newtonian view that people are reluctant to move from a position unless prompted to do so.
With regard to human behaviour, people only change if they are concerned/scared about the consequences of failing to change.

If you want to call the alerting of someone to the possible adverse consequenses of his behaviour "scaremongering", that is your choice and opinion.

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

You're "sure".......
but have nothing to back up your assumption.

I am assuming nothing, other than they said what they reported. It is you who are assuming they said more.

[In fact she was criticised for not being pushy enough ].
For the bereaved parents, I am sure that it was "awful".

Yeah, let's bring up the sobbing parents. Do you have pictures of little white coffins too?

Some observations:
1. the UK cases of pneumococcal meningitis in under 15 year olds was actually only 107 for the last recorded data set (2005).

I was using the figures from this page.

2. These are lab reports and are likely to be a considerable underestimate, as many cases of meningitis are culture-negative because of prior antibiotic administration.

So my figure may be more accurate?

3. Over 90% of kids who get pneumococcal meningitis and who survive are left with some long term neurological sequelae - it is a worse disease to get than meningococcal meningitis.

I have only been able to find reports that quote up to 63% long term neurological sequelae. Even so, that is still a high percentage.

4. Considerable morbidity and mortality occurs through what is termed "invasive pneumococcal disease" - septicaemias, pneumonias etc. which is much more common than meningitis alone, but still is potentially lethal and which is preventable through vaccination.

The vaccines do not provide complete protection. What are the chances that, in the future, the other types and subtypes not included in the vaccines will take over where the others left off?

I take the Newtonian view that people are reluctant to move from a position unless prompted to do so.

With regard to human behaviour, people only change if they are concerned/scared about the consequences of failing to change.

Absolute nonsense. Scaring people is just the lazy way to go about changing peoples' behaviour. You could try educating them and allow them to make mistakes. The world will not end tomorrow if they don't do what you want them to.

If you want to call the alerting of someone to the possible adverse consequenses of his behaviour "scaremongering", that is your choice and opinion.

How about just presenting accurate information in an unbiased way and let people decide for themselves?

What are you (and others) doing on a sceptics site, supposedly in support of promoting critical thinking to the general public, while at the same time believing it is acceptable to promote unthinking compliance to authority by using inaccurate and biased presentation of information to scare people into behaving how you want them to?

 

[kellyb]

The vaccines do not provide complete protection. What are the chances that, in the future, the other types and subtypes not included in the vaccines will take over where the others left off?

"In the future" is immediately, to some extent, at least.

Vaccine serotypes go down:
http://www.hpa.org.uk/infections/topics_az/pneumococcal/IPDcumuINvacc.htm

Non-vaccine serotypes go up:
http://www.hpa.org.uk/infections/topics_az/pneumococcal/IPDcumuNOTinVacc.htm


http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/sites/entrez?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12842372&dopt=AbstractPlus

FINDINGS: We noted no reduction of AOM episodes in the pneumococcal vaccine group compared with controls (intention-to-treat analysis: rate ratio 1.25, 95% CI 0.99-1.57). Although nasopharyngeal carriage of pneumococci of serotypes included in the conjugate-vaccine was greatly reduced after pneumococcal vaccinations, immediate and complete replacement by non-vaccine pneumococcal serotypes took place.

Plus an increase in Staph:
(there are inter-species competitions between bacteria, so you need to step back and evaluate more than just one species at a time)
http://cat.inist.fr/?aModele=afficheN&cpsidt=15841788

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

Thanks KellyB. That's kind of what you would expect to happen.

I propose another 50 vaccines for infants, toddlers, children and adults be added to the standard ones to tackle this problem. Monday each week will be national vaccination day, when we all get our booster shots.

 

[Eos of the Eons]

Strawmen. As if. You clearly have no idea how it really works.

If you don't care about children and other susceptible folks, then that's your decision. Health care professionals are to be commended on lives saved in the simplest, most natural, and safest way possible.

 

[Beth]

Doesn't that strike you as fudging figures to justify a decision that has already been made?

Yes. Strikes me as the same sort of computations that 'prove' how bad drugs like marijuana are. There was a finding that people who smoke pot make, on average, less money than people who don't. This finding was extrapolated across the entire US economy and then commercials were produced announcing that pot-smoking was not the harmless activity people might think. It cost the economy big time.

Vaccines are so much easier. There are a couple of very simple questions. Does the vaccine help prevent the disease, or reduce the severity? Does it cause less problems than it solves? Could the money be better spent elsewhere? The answers to the first two are yes in the vast majority of cases. The answer to the third question is exactly what this report was about, and people with far more expertise than you with far more data at their disposal than you have decided that vaccinating chickenpox would be worth the cost. I trust them a lot more than I trust you.

While you might trust them, I don't. THe problem I see, that Ivor is illustrating, is not so much whether or not the end result of the analysis is correct, it's the problem that when people actually delve into the issue, they find enough stuff that's wrong that, well, in my case, I no longer trust what they say. That's a problem. IMO, it's the big problem.

as IVOR goes on to say

The more I read about these types of tactics public health bodies are using to get compliance, the more I distrust their "advice". They appear to have been reduced to little more than pushers for drug companies' products. By behaving in this way they are bolstering the anti-vaxers claims:

"They are lying to / misleading you about this, so what else are they lying to / misleading you about?"

This is the problem. You can debate the details of the analysis for as long as you like. In the end, you end up with intelligent young parents, like the one I sat next to in our staff meeting this week, who says that she won't get the flu shot because it contains heavy metals. I'm not sure if the flue shots contain any heavy metals or not, but I can understand her distrust of the idea of injecting anything containing heavy metals into her body. Even if the CDC claims it's well worth the small risk, can we trust them? I don't. Apparently she doesn't either.

 

[robinson]

Ignoring parents concerns also makes Medical staff, Government agencies and Flu manufacturers seem either corrupt or incompetent. For example:

Flu Vaccine Facts
"I think it's absolutely criminal to give mercury to an infant." - Boyd Haley, Ph.D., Chemistry Department Chair, University of Kentucky

"The committee accepts that under certain conditions, infections and heavy metals, including thimerosal [mercury preservative in vaccines], can injure the nervous system." - Dr. Marie McCormick, Chairperson and co-author of the 2004 Institute of Medicine Report often cited by journalists that mercury in vaccines is somehow "safe".

• PutChildrenFirst commissioned a survey by Zogby International of more than 9,000 Americans regarding their views of mercury in flu shots. Results of the survey include:

- 76% of respondents are unaware that most flu shots contain mercury.

- After learning that mercury is an ingredient, 74% are less likely to get a flu shot and 86% say they are less likely to get their child a flu shot.

- 77% believe mercury should not be an ingredient in flu shots given to pregnant women and children.

- 73% believe the government should warn pregnant women not to get a flu shot if it contains mercury.

- More than 70% agree that Congress, doctors and medical groups (e.g., the American Academy of Pediatrics) should take responsibility for ensuring vaccines do not contain mercury.

- 80% of respondents and 84% of parents are willing to pay the $2.50 additional cost for a mercury-free flu shot.

• Approximately 115 million doses of flu vaccine will be available during the 2006-2007 flu season from 4 different vaccine manufacturers

• More than 90% of this year's flu vaccine supply will contain 25 micrograms of mercury, which means there is not enough mercury-free flu vaccine available for children under the age of 3 and pregnant women (8 million being made versus a 15-20 million estimated need)

• A Sanofi-Pasteur spokesman, the only vaccine manufacturer making Thimerosal-free flu vaccines, confirmed that enough vaccine to supply all children could be made, and in this article he noted "he had no idea why health officials were not ordering more mercury-free vaccine."

• The CDC's cost for a mercury containing vial of flu vaccine is $9.71. A comparable mercury-free package (each with 10 doses) costs $12.02

http://www.putchildrenfirst.org

A multitude of web sites and parenting magazines either question or simply warn parents against using vaccines that contain metals. It doesn't matter how many condescending, snide or rude comments people make about that fact, that kind of response only bolsters the resolve of a concerned intelligent person over the truth of the claims made about vaccines and safety.

Commentary made here is actually illustrative of the lack of understanding some people have about the fears and concerns a lot of parents have about vaccines. Even if you are correct, and mercury, aluminum and other toxins aren't really toxins when injected into kids, you won't change anyone's mind by anything other than real science.

There is no science at all to back up using mercury, for any reason. Mercury is an economic factor, not a medical one. It is not needed, does nothing to improve a vaccine, and there is nothing anyone can say that will change that fact.

Why would anyone choose a mercury vaccine when it isn't needed? At this point, no amount of "evidence" will convince people that mercury is OK to use. Why would any intelligent aware parent believe you? Why take a chance? When you don't need to?

Only because mercury free vaccines aren't available. Even then, do you risk some unknown side effect or risk the flu?

Evaluating risk, questioning facts, investigating the issues, doubting people who just make claims, these are all skeptical activities.

 

[Deetee]

Ivor, I'm getting the feeling you are now arguing for the sake of it.
Oh well....

I am assuming nothing, other than they said what they reported. It is you who are assuming they said more.

Fact:
This is exactly what was stated:

parents were asked if they would agree to have their child vaccinated and were presented information first about varicella complications and then about cost of the vaccine.

Fact: It is not stated what the information was, or in what way it was presented. I do not know, and you do not know. I am just pointing this fact out to you, because it is you who has assumed that it was merely a list of complications, indeed you specifically said so:

It says NOTHING about informing the likelihood of those complications, only that the list of complications should be presented to improve "receptivity".

Whatever way you wriggle, you cannot escape the fact that it is you who has jumped to conclusions about what was said, not me. If you can provide me with a link to the part where it specifically stated they did not inform about the likelihood of complications but only presented a list of them, then I will donate £50 to JREF and offer you my sincere apologies. If you cannot find that quote, however, I expect you to apologise to me.

I was using the figures from this page.

That's fine - they are from the same source.

So my figure may be more accurate?

Yes - I explicitly said the number of lab notified cases was less than the number you gave. I was being accurate, even though presenting you with a smaller numer of cases than you stated actually supported your claim. I thrive on accuracy, you see.

I did follow on by saying why my figures are an underestimate of the burden of vaccine-preventable pneumococcal disease.

The vaccines do not provide complete protection. What are the chances that, in the future, the other types and subtypes not included in the vaccines will take over where the others left off?

Fairly high. In fact, using the search facility will show I have pointed this very fact out to people on the forum in the past. The vaccine manufacturers will adjust their serotypes accordingly to try and deal with the emergence of these strains.

Absolute nonsense. Scaring people is just the lazy way to go about changing peoples' behaviour. You could try educating them and allow them to make mistakes. The world will not end tomorrow if they don't do what you want them to. How about just presenting accurate information in an unbiased way and let people decide for themselves?

It may be "lazy" in your opinion, but it is effective and is needed. In health education one has to present the facts - namely that certain actions have certain consequences.

As an example, how would you encourage the use of condoms? If you refuse to talk about sexually-transmitted infections and the risks of unwanted pregnancy (because these would be "scaremongering tactics"), how precisely will you go about it? Or perhaps you think condoms are unecessary because the risks of catching an STD for any sexual encounter is low?

I don't want to argue at cross purposes with you; - I too want accurate information to be presented. But you seem to both disagree about much of the factual information (being economical with some of it in order to bolster your argument) or its medical relevance and also claim that these facts are presented in a biased and innacurate way. No doubt you may find examples of this if you look hard enough, but don't assume that this is the MO of vaccination and health education policy

What are you (and others) doing on a sceptics site, supposedly in support of promoting critical thinking to the general public, while at the same time believing it is acceptable to promote unthinking compliance to authority by using inaccurate and biased presentation of information to scare people into behaving how you want them to?

Eh??
Please tell me where have I said/implied that I "believe it is acceptable to promote unthinking compliance to authority by using inaccurate and biased presentation of information to scare people into behaving how want them to"?

 

[Eos of the Eons]

Robinson, The antivaccine brigade has overblown "vaccine risks" with false anecdotes and false information. The "metals" encountered in the ONE flu vaccine are not in any type or dose that can harm anyone. Nobody cares about the facts though.

Fact is ethyl mercury is not methyl mercury. Fact is ethyl mercury is cleared quickly from the body, unlike methyl mercury that is fat soluble. Fact is any other metals or substances they freak out about in the vaccine are found in much higher quantities in foods that you eat every day. Fact is there is nothing in the vaccine in a high enough quantity to be unsafe, and you'd have to get a million shots in one day to even start considering it a concern.

Fact is that the vaccine is safe and saves lives. You want to talk about fearmongering? Those articles are clear cases of overblown fearmongering with omitted facts.

 

[Professor Yaffle]

Robinson, The antivaccine brigade has overblown "vaccine risks" with false anecdotes and false information. The "metals" encountered in the ONE flu vaccine are not in any type or dose that can harm anyone. Nobody cares about the facts though.

Fact is ethyl mercury is not methyl mercury. Fact is ethyl mercury is cleared quickly from the body, unlike methyl mercury that is fat soluble. Fact is any other metals or substances they freak out about in the vaccine are found in much higher quantities in foods that you eat every day. Fact is there is nothing in the vaccine in a high enough quantity to be unsafe, and you'd have to get a million shots in one day to even start considering it a concern.

Fact is that the vaccine is safe and saves lives. You want to talk about fearmongering? Those articles are clear cases of overblown fearmongering with omitted facts.

He knows that fine well. I pointed it out in another thread and he didn't reply. Obviously too busy looking for another thread to put his misinformation in.

 

[Eos of the Eons]

Figures. Robinson is really is dissappointing me lately

 

[kellyb]

Fairly high. In fact, using the search facility will show I have pointed this very fact out to people on the forum in the past. The vaccine manufacturers will adjust their serotypes accordingly to try and deal with the emergence of these strains.

I'm not seeing an end to this in sight. The idea seems to be to keep adding more and more and more serotypes in for forever and ever and ever and ever.
What is staph going to do when we annihilate 6 more pneumococcal serotypes from the human bacterial flora? (to make a total of 13, once the switch to PCV-13 is made)?

I'm not finding any discussion or debate about this out there, and I've looked.
How do we know what emerges next won't be worse?
We're already coming pretty close to just breaking even as it is, it appears.

ETA:
And just for fun, from the CDC's "What Would Happen If We Stoped Vaccinating" page...

http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/whatifstop.htm

Before pneumococcal conjugate vaccine became available for children, pneumococcus caused 63,000 cases of invasive pneumococcal disease and 6,100 deaths in the U.S. each year. Many children who developed pneumococcal meningitis also developed long-term complications such as deafness or seizures.

But...
From the Pink Book:

http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/pneumo.pdf

Before routine use of pneumococcal conjugate vaccine, the
burden of pneumococcal disease among children younger
than 5 years of age was significant. An estimated 17,000
cases of invasive disease occurred each year, of which 13,000
were bacteremia without a known site of infection and
about 700 were meningitis. An estimated 200 children died
every year as a result of invasive pneumococcal disease.

But then if you hop over to the ABCs data, it looks like the rate for kids under 2 is going up, as is pneumococcal meningitis.
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/dbmd/abcs/survreports.htm

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

Ivor, I'm getting the feeling you are now arguing for the sake of it.
Oh well....

Not at all.

<snip>

Whatever way you wriggle, you cannot escape the fact that it is you who has jumped to conclusions about what was said, not me. If you can provide me with a link to the part where it specifically stated they did not inform about the likelihood of complications but only presented a list of them, then I will donate £50 to JREF and offer you my sincere apologies. If you cannot find that quote, however, I expect you to apologise to me.

I can do better than that; I’ve found the study:

http://www.immunize.cpha.ca/english/consumer/consrese/pdf/93_2_114-16.pdf

…Those who then decided against vaccination were asked if they would change their decision after they were read the following information on complications: 50% of cases consult a physician; 2% develop a skin infection which requires antibiotic; 1/500 cases is hospitalized; 1/50,000 develops a serious neurological complication; 1/130,000 dies; the risk of flesh-eating disease (invasive Streptococcus pyogenes <beta> hemolyticus group A (IS<beta>HGA)) is 40 to 60 times greater than normal during the varicella episode; and the efficacy of the vaccine is 90%.

They did quote the frequency of the complications. I therefore apologise to you, though I was not aware I had offended you (over this particular point). Having said that, I still think there is a lot of information that they left out, including putting the risks into context. Also, the complications were reeled off over the phone to them. I bet most people would recall “complications…blah…hospitalized…serious neurological complication…die…flesh-eating disease…blah”, but I bet few would be able to accurately recall the actual likelihood for each of these complications. It is quite complex information to understand.

That's fine - they are from the same source.

Yes - I explicitly said the number of lab notified cases was less than the number you gave. I was being accurate, even though presenting you with a smaller numer of cases than you stated actually supported your claim. I thrive on accuracy, you see.

I did follow on by saying why my figures are an underestimate of the burden of vaccine-preventable pneumococcal disease.

Ok.

Fairly high. In fact, using the search facility will show I have pointed this very fact out to people on the forum in the past. The vaccine manufacturers will adjust their serotypes accordingly to try and deal with the emergence of these strains.

So the number of cases of meningitis may creep back up unless we have another vaccine?

At what stage do we accept that some people die or are disabled because of bad luck, rather than providing untargeted and on-mass prevention?

Here’s the report that concluded that the varicella vaccine was *not* worth the cost in the UK:

http://adc.bmj.com/cgi/reprint/88/10/862

It may be "lazy" in your opinion, but it is effective and is needed. In health education one has to present the facts - namely that certain actions have certain consequences.

They are not consequences, they are risks, which to avoid misleading people need to be put in context.

As an example, how would you encourage the use of condoms?

I wouldn’t ‘encourage’, I would provide accurate, balanced and complete information.

If you refuse to talk about sexually-transmitted infections and the risks of unwanted pregnancy (because these would be "scaremongering tactics"), how precisely will you go about it?

I would not refuse to talk about these things; I would put them in context for the person I was talking to.

Or perhaps you think condoms are unecessary because the risks of catching an STD for any sexual encounter is low?

I would probably at some point mention that while the one-off risk of contracting an STD is low from having sex with a stranger at random, repeated unprotected sex with different partners increases the risk.

I don't want to argue at cross purposes with you; - I too want accurate information to be presented. But you seem to both disagree about much of the factual information (being economical with some of it in order to bolster your argument) or its medical relevance and also claim that these facts are presented in a biased and innacurate way. No doubt you may find examples of this if you look hard enough, but don't assume that this is the MO of vaccination and health education policy

How am I being economical with the factual information? What I want is complete and accurate information to be put in context. I (and others) have not had to look too hard to find examples of misleading statements in health education to get compliance with a "desirable" outcome.

Eh??
Please tell me where have I said/implied that I "believe it is acceptable to promote unthinking compliance to authority by using inaccurate and biased presentation of information to scare people into behaving how want them to"?

Until now you have not mentioned your desire for accurate information. In your last post you mentioned that PISANI was “criticized for not being pushy enough”.

Again, information does not only have to be accurate, it has to be complete, balanced and in put into context. Only then can you say someone has given their informed consent.

 

[Acleron]

Here’s the report that concluded that the varicella vaccine was *not* worth the cost in the UK:

http://adc.bmj.com/cgi/reprint/88/10/862

Gosh, is the sensitivity of your BS detector fading, let me sensitize it with this.

The majority of studies have shown a benefit from Varicella immunisation in pure economic terms. The money is on immunisation.

You have stated that you don't care if a few kids get seriously ill or die, but from your viewpoint we might as well stop or medical treatment and let evolution take its course. Is this the real difference between you and the majority of us?

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

Gosh, is the sensitivity of your BS detector fading, let me sensitize it with this.

The majority of studies have shown a benefit from Varicella immunisation in pure economic terms. The money is on immunisation.

There's an error when I try to access that link.

Why did you think the report I linked to was BS? I had problems with some of the assumptions they used too.

You have stated that you don't care if a few kids get seriously ill or die, but from your viewpoint we might as well stop or medical treatment and let evolution take its course. Is this the real difference between you and the majority of us?

Do you want a sensible answer to that?

ETA: Here's the page:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3912/is_199809/ai_n8812996/pg_1

That's for vaccinating USAFA cadets. They are *not* children. I have already suggested the vaccine being used in 16+ year-olds who have not had chickenpox.

 

[Acleron]

There's an error when I try to access that link.

Why did you think the report I linked to was BS? I had problems with some of the assumptions they used too.



ETA: Here's the page:

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_qa3912/is_199809/ai_n8812996/pg_1

That's for vaccinating USAFA cadets. They are *not* children. I have already suggested the vaccine being used in 16+ year-olds who have not had chickenpox.

Sorry about the link, I just copied and pasted it from the browser but I see you found it anyway.

This is just another in the series showing generally a positive cost benefit analysis. This one, quite rightly, is with 16+, others which are with children you have rejected because your BS detector tells you otherwise. Being a totally logical being, what tells you the difference?

In posts that have mentioned that mortality in children must be considered as an emotional problem that impacts on society, you have derided the poster. From your comments I concluded that a few people dying wasn't of much concern to you and took it to its logical conclusion. Please correct me and say how many have to die before it does concern you.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

LOL!

How small does a risk have to be before failure to inform someone about it is *not* negligent in the US?

When the country's official public health Advisory Committee for Immunization Practices makes the recommendation that college students living in dormitories are at greater risk for meningococcal invasive disease and the meningococcal vaccine is recommended based on a careful risk benefit assessment, the university is negligent to not provide that information to the students coming into the dorms for the year.

Are you suggesting the college or people like you just use your gut reaction to the hazard and decide whether or not it is important to inform the students?

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

.....


Getting chickenpox is probably one of the safest things you could ever do in this life.

I'm starting to think public health researchers are just an extension of pharmaceutical companies' lobby groups when they come out with crap like this.

And you base your conclusion on???????

From the CDC's website on varicella (chicken pox):

One of the most common complications of chickenpox is that the blister can become infected with bacteria; this happens to about one in 20 children. One of the most dreaded complications of chickenpox is invasive Group A streptococcal infection which may be fatal. Since the vaccine was licensed this type of infection has decreased as a complication of chickenpox (3).

Children with chickenpox who are treated with aspirin are at risk of a serious complication called Reye’s Syndrome with brain swelling and liver failure; this complication decreased before vaccine was introduced when aspirin was no longer recommended for treating fever in children. Another complication of chickenpox is encephalitis (brain inflammation with abnormal gait and clumsiness that may last for a number of days (this occurs in about 1 in every four thousand cases of chickenpox).

There is a chart of the risks of chicken pox compared to the vaccine risks on the page.

Does chickenpox vaccine protect against necrotizing fasciitis (flesh-eating disease) in children?

However, 31 of 205 children (15%) for whom a history was available had had chickenpox within a month before the onset of their group A strep infection. Infection usually occurred 5 days after the onset of the chickenpox rash. Children who had chickenpox were more likely to have a group a strep infection of the skin than infection at any other site.

The majority of children with invasive group A strep infection were admitted to the hospital; 12% were admitted to intensive care units and 4.1% died.

Outbreak of Invasive Group A Streptococcus Associated with Varicella in a Childcare Center -- Boston, Massachusetts, 1997

Invasive Group A Streptococcal Disease in Children and Association With Varicella-Zoster Virus Infection

Then there are the 10% of adults who didn't get chicken pox as children.

Varicella pneumonia in adults

Isn't it prudent to have your child vaccinated instead of having to go through an uncomfortable disease when we know if not infected by the teenage years becomes a much riskier infection?

In other words, you either need to get the vaccine or the infection. Why in heck would you not make your child's life easier by vaccinating them? There is not a greater risk from the vaccine than the illness. Your logic that the disease is "safe" is that of a fool. Who cares what the odds are? The vaccine is SAFER!

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

I'd have two questions for him:

2) Will people who have already had chickenpox be more likely to get shingles if mass vaccination takes place?

This myth has been discarded.

How often does zoster (shingles) occur following varicella vaccination?

Varicella vaccine is a live virus vaccine, and may result in a latent infection, similar to that caused by wild varicella virus. Consequently, zoster in vaccinated persons has been reported. Not all of these cases have been confirmed as having been caused by vaccine virus. The risk of zoster following vaccination appears to be less than that following infection with wild-type virus. However, longer follow-up is needed to assess this risk over time.

1) Does the immunity provided by the vaccine wane?

ETA: How the figures are fudged:

http://www.slate.com/id/2114797/

Addressing the misunderstanding about vaccine in the Slate article addresses your question.

From the Slate article, first:

But now that practically every child in the United States has been given a dose of chickenpox vaccine, neither kids nor adults will have the opportunity for re-exposure.

There is a new hypothesis that repeated exposures are needed for any infection to produce lifetime immunity. It is merely an hypothesis and it is not yet understood what the role of repeated exposure is in immunity. But so what? If the hypothesis is correct (and we don't have tons of evidence it is) you have to keep the actual disease around to have lifetime immunity after either the infection or the vaccine. So the cost of getting rid of a significant disease is a booster dose of a vaccine. BFD!!!

and

Perhaps we should have seen this coming. Though a few vaccines (measles and yellow fever are good examples) seem to give lifelong protection after a single dose, most need to be repeated at regular intervals to maintain their effectiveness. Tetanus boosters are given every 10 years (when did you last have one?). That was also the recommended interval for the smallpox vaccine, back in the days when we used to give it. I keep wondering if our early-on enthusiasm for the new chickenpox vaccine might have led us to ignore our past experience.

This is pure lay person ignorance. Smallpox vaccine was given decades ago. We have accumulated a wealth of research since then. Tetanus vaccine is killed and varicella vaccine is live. That is akin to comparing apples to rocks.

And as far as including the cost of lost work time when evaluating the cost of vaccination, why is that fudging (if that's what you meant)? It's a fact of life for working parents, you stay home with kids who cannot go to daycare, in case you didn't know that.

 

[Skeptic Ginger]

The effect of vaccination on the epidemiology of varicella zoster virus.
The Journal of infection
Edmunds WJ, Brisson M.

Immunisation Division, Colindale, London NW9 5EQ, UK.

Varicella zoster virus (VZV) causes chickenpox (varicella) on primary exposure and can reactivate later in life to cause shingles (zoster). As primary infection is more serious in adults than children, and exposure to the virus might boost the immune response to both chickenpox and shingles, there are two main concerns regarding infant VZV vaccination: that it could lead to an increase in adult disease; and/or that it could lead to a temporary increase in the incidence of shingles. This paper reviews the evidence for such outcomes. The consensus view of mathematical modelling studies is that the overall varicella associated burden is likely to decrease in the long term, regardless of the level of vaccine coverage. On the other hand, recent evidence suggests that an increase in zoster incidence appears likely, and the more effective vaccination is at preventing varicella, the larger the increase in zoster incidence. Targeted vaccination of susceptible adolescents and/or the contacts of high-risk individuals can be effective at preventing disease in these individuals with minimal risk to the community. However, targeted strategies would not prevent most disease (including most severe disease), and will not lead to a long-term reduction in the incidence of zoster. Understanding the mechanisms for maintaining immunity against varicella and zoster is critical for predicting the long-term effects of vaccination. Meanwhile sensitive surveillance of both chickenpox and shingles is essential in countries that have implemented, or are about to implement, varicella vaccination.

What is the date on this? Why can't you bother with links so we can see the whole document?

From what I gather, these folks ran a computer model. IE it is just speculation. Now that we have had experience with the vaccine, these models can be tested. This one poorly predicted actual vaccine outcomes.