Real problems and uncertainties with vaccinations

[JoeTheJuggler]

Prisoner's dilemma. Do tell on that as well.

Your kid could benefit from the public health benefits of most kids getting their shots even if your kid doesn't. (In other words, your kid could avoid the relatively small risks while still enjoying a large part of the benefit of vaccinations.) Of course, if the other "players" all adopted that strategy, it wouldn't work.

 

[Ivor the Engineer]

Spin? Do tell.

Emphasizing the positives while presenting the negatives in a form which is difficult to understand.

Prisoner's dilemma. Do tell on that as well.

For many diseases, if enough people around me are vaccinated, the risk from being vaccinated is greater than not being vaccinated*, so it makes sense to refuse to be vaccinated (defect in prisoner's dilemma speak). But if everyone refused the vaccination then the risk from the disease would be greater than those from being vaccinated, so it then makes sense to choose to be vaccinated (cooperate).




*Because as more people are vaccinated the chances of an individual contracting the disease, irrespective of vaccination status go down.

 

[kellyb]

Another uncertainty:

http://www.columbia.edu/cu/news/clips/2007/11/27/ATheoryWASHINGTONPOST.pdf

Studies show the increased risk of schizophrenia appears linked to maternal infections during the first and second trimesters of pregnancy -- especially flu infections. Since the flu peaks in the fall, this might explain why babies born in the winter and spring have the higher risk.

But if research into the links between early maternal infections and schizophrenia might one day provide researchers with clues about how to attack the disease before symptoms become apparent, it also raises difficult public health conundrums.
That's because the newest studies suggest the culprit may not be infections such as the flu per se, but pregnant mothers' immune reactions to such infections. Current guidelines recommend that pregnant women get a flu shot -- and the point of the flu vaccine is to set off an immune reaction. If the risk for schizophrenia is increased as a result of maternal antibodies, might protecting mom and baby from the flu raise the risk the child could get schizophrenia years down the road?

"Obviously, the safe thing to do is to go with the experts, and the experts are the CDC," said Paul Patterson, a professor of biology at the California Institute of Technology and one of the leading researchers into the link between maternal infections and schizophrenia. "However, if it was my wife, I would not [want] her vaccinated."

 

[jdp]

Just out of curiosity what is the level of efficiency of most vaccinations? What level of effect is considered acceptable to move forward on clinical testing or onto approval? I suspect that in most cases it is pretty high, >60% but in certain specific cases lower may be acceptable.