Isn’t the gist of the argument not that vaccines work (clearly they do) but that they currently given in numbers that we older folks were not given; that is to say we got separate measles, whooping cough, rubella shots, not the current multi-vaccines that kids get nowadays.
Those vaccines are no longer available individually. I myself had apparently missed my rubella shot (which in my era was given in early elementary school days) This was confirmed by my doctor via blood test. Anyway, she said the only way I could get the vaccine was via the MMR shot. Of course I took it.
Clearly most kids handle these newer shots with no problem but I would not be surprised to learn that the more vaccines one gets at one time, the more likely someone will reach a tipping point where the immune system is “unhappy” with being presented so many things to deal with at once. The Prevnar shot alone is a vaccine for 13 or so strains of bacteria. So basically getting immunized for 13 diseases at once.
Now more suspicious minds than mind might believe the insurance companies and not the pharmaceutical industry were behind this movement; the shots are necessary and effective, but to space them out would mean more office visits, which would mean more payouts from the insurers.
The “too many too soon” argument fails for two major reasons: 1) it vastly underestimates the capacity of the immune system to respond to antigenic challenges, and 2) the modern vaccine schedule actually presents far fewer antigens than were formerly contained in a smaller number of shots.
“From the minute they’re born, a child is exposed to hundreds, even thousands, of new germs in the form of fungi, bacteria and viruses. Babies’ immune systems are designed to protect them from these bacteria and viruses that challenge the immune system daily. The vaccines given in the first two years of life are “a raindrop in the ocean” of what a baby’s immune system fends off every day.
In fact, your child is exposed to more antigens (any substance that causes the immune system to produce antibodies against it, such as a virus or bacteria) in his or her environment than in all his or her vaccinations combined. The total number of immunological components in all of a child’s vaccines is slightly less than 160, compared to the millions of pathogens (or disease-causing agents) we encounter every day by simply eating, breathing, and living our lives…
And while children today receive more vaccines, today’s vaccines contain fewer antigens. This is important because our immune system sees antigens, not shots. The combination of vaccines given today in early childhood are much less of a challenge to a child’s immune system than the combination of vaccines given in the 1980s and 1990s.”
A child who contracts measles is walloped with way more antigenic stimulus than he/she would be exposed to from the entire vaccine schedule (which is spread out over 18 years).
Jackmannii has already given a more substantial response to this, but just to point out:
that may be the gist of one argument, but it’s still just something vaguely plausible-sounding that antivaxxers have fabricated from whole cloth, based on no evidence whatsoever, and ample evidence to the contrary.
That’s a common complaint - too many vaccines. I’m older than you, and when I was a kid there weren’t measles or rubella vaccines, and I got them both. Luckily, not badly. Someone I worked with in grad school, a bit older than me, got polio, before the vaccine was available. He was lucky - he walked with a limp and had slurred speech, but lots of kids had it worse.
Which vaccines are too many? Jackmannii has it right on exposure to germs. My wife has two professionally published books on vaccines - pm me for details, since I don’t want to plug them directly. One is specifically on the vaccine debate, and covers all the reasons given that vaccines are bad or given too quickly.
Both are in lots of libraries, so you probably wouldn’t even have to buy them.
In the Congo, more people are dying of measles than Ebola. That and the fact that 110,000 people (mostly children) die of measles each year worldwide is a good response to someone who says “it’s only measles.”
Once antivax activity results in a big enough loss of herd immunity, disease outbreaks start. A bad enough outbreak (i.e. with deaths) will be a sufficient kick in the pants to legislators so they feel compelled to act, even if it means standing up to a loud antivax minority (much of which in the case of N.J. came from out of state).
They’re so smart about avoiding filters and spreading misinformation, but so stupid about the facts.
It’s so damned frustrating watching this movement happening, especially when we’re now threatened with a new viral threat.
We have movements against essential public health measures; movements against protecting the climate; movements against the very shape of the Earth and the nature of reality; and meanwhile the federal government has become completely dysfunctional.
This is an epic-good thread with an epic-good title. I have been reading it off and on for a while now.
There has not been a post here since the current shit hitting the fan, but I have been wondering, with the incredible amount of info on the airwaves these days about viruses, flu, pandemics, 1918, etc, etc… If the anti-vax movement is doomed, weakened, or might something else happen?
I was already fairly aware of these things before, but in the last week I learned even more about:
How disease spreads into the community. Even from places far away.
How people in the community are at risk (cannot get vaccines for medical reasons, immune systems compromised, very old or very young, etc.)
How heard immunity works.
I suppose there will always be fringes that will never accept science no matter what, but the anti-vax movement as a thing - will it cease to exist?
A friend of a friend on social media was trying to get her mommy group and kids together for a COVID ‘pox party’. I wish I was joking and I wish that there weren’t a few non-sarcastic “Great idea!” posts. Humanity is doomed.