There are benefits and risks to anything. You argue, thank us because your kids don’t get such and such illness. I say, perhaps it would be preferable for them TO get certain illnesses in childhood and gain lifelong immunity (chicken pox, rubella, measles, mumps) protecting not only them in adulthood, but their future children (through their own inability to get reinfected and pass it on to a fetus of infant and the maternal antibodies a naturally immune woman passes to her fetus, antibodies which are either absent of wane much sooner in vacinated women).
Thanks to all those who’ve vaccinated their children against chicken pox, the rate of shingles is reaching epidemic proportions in younger adults whose natural immunity is waning as a direct result of vaccination and the loss of natural boosting. Shingles carries about 5 times the risk of serious complications and death as does childhood CP. One very well done study predicted an epidemic of shingles lasting 50 yrs in areas practicing mass CP vaccination and resulting in many times the costs “saved” by mass vaccination. Gee, thanks.
Now, I do not argue your right to vaccinate your kids or yourself, but your choice CAN affect others in a negative way.
I do not appreciate your attacking tone.
“People like me”. Bite me.
I know more about this subject, ALL aspects of it, than you can imagine as a result of studying it in such depth and for so long. Not saying I know it all (no-one does) but that this is a MUCH more complex issue than your simplistic comments would have us believe.
BTW, I did not write that Guardasil caused the tragic case I mentioned, but that it was DPT, the former pertussis-containing vaccine, since replaced with a different formulation.
The point is to vaccinate before she becomes sexually active. The average American becomes sexually active between 16 and 17, so if we take your advice and wait until they’re 16 a lot of those girls may have already picked up HPV.
Whoa, let’s stop right here. You are confusing VAERS (the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System) with VICP (the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program). VAERS is a surveillance and reporting system designed to collect raw data and determine through strict analysis what adverse effects may be associated with vaccines. VICP is an entirely separate government program which provides compensation in the minute percentage of cases where serious adverse effects are plausibly linked to vaccine use.
Let’s see what else you may have missed during your “16 years researching the subject (in medical journals, textbooks, product inserts, other such sources” (I take it none of this involved supervised formal research or peer-reviewed publication).
Duration of immunity with Gardasil is known to be at least five years. Information is available in the literature showing that proper immunization with an anti-HPV vaccine can provide more long-lasting immunity than occurs with natural infection.
Your comments about hepatitis B do not reflect the current reality as regards infection, vaccination, and protection of disease transmission at birth. Most adults have not been protected by the vaccine; women are tested during pregnancy and if found to be infected by hepatitis B, their babies receive immunization at birth plus passive immune globulin protection. Hep B vaccine provides long-term protection; whether this may eventually wane enough so that booster shots are necessary is still under study. The evidence thus far does not show that boosters are required.
We don’t know how long this immunity lasts, or that it is of any greater duration than vaccine immunity.
What you’re missing here is that there are many different strains of HPV, and even if “natural infection” provides immunity to one of the high-risk strains, this provides no protection against other dangerous strains. Gardasil protects against multiple high-risk strains of HPV.
I must have missed the context of this remark. Are you saying this in relation to vaccines that prevent sexually-transmitted diseases, or is your opposition to vaccination all-encompassing?
They need to have it before they become sexually active. According to the Centers for Disease Control, 27% of 9th-grade females and 38% of 9th-grade males have had sexual intercourse. (Fascinating application; you enter the parameters, and it spits out the survey data.) They start 'em young these days.
The perceived benefit is that by vaccinating them before they are at risk of exposure, they will never get it an/or the organism/disease can be erradicated eventually.
And that since adults have a very poor rate of compliance (their term for not getting vaccinated as told to) the only way to achieve high enough vaccine coverage is to mandate the vaccine for infants/children, since almost all parents comply, if only because they are usually told that their child can’t attend school otherwise (not true in many states).
It IS possible to contract hep B in “casual” ways other than sexual contact, but this is not the norm. And almost all who contract it clear the infection and gain lifetime immunity. Whereas there is evidence that the vaccine immunity begins to wane after a decade or so, 20 yrs at most, which means UNLESS they can get a very high percentage of adults to get a booster dose (already known to be nigh impossible which is why they dose the babies/children) millions of young adults will lack immunity as they become at greastest risk of being exposed/infected through sex and iv drug use.
Two sides to the coin, and is debatable how the toss will land, or which side is preferable.
The chicken pox vaccine was introduced to the US in 1995 (it was invented in 1974). When the children who received it become elderly, we’ll start to see a decline in shingles (which the vaccine prevents Varicella vaccine - Wikipedia)
Except that many of these diseases are fatal or crippling. (Polio, anyone?) You don’t just recover from all of these childhood illnesses.
What are you talking about? AIUI, if you are vaccinated against chicken pox, then you don’t get shingles, since shingles is basically a recurrence of the herpes zoster virus. Cite.
Yes, your choices can affect others. Vaccinations do not necessarily provide 100% immunity, and herd immunity requires a certain level of vaccination. So people like you (yes, that phrase again) put the rest of us at risk.
My point was that by the time they’ve hit 14-15, it’s too late for around 1/3 of kids. You need to vaccinate them before they become sexually active; and since at age 11 most kids haven’t yet hit puberty, it’s reasonable to assume that that is in time. For a lot of kids, 13 would be too late.
This absolutely wonderful system of protection you postulate did not protect past generations from epidemics of these diseases with their great morbidity, occasional severe and lasting damage and sometimes death. Thanks to the “unnatural” immunity you decry, these disease have either been wiped out or made rare.
Um, cite?
"Here is my evidence (i.e. links to informed sources) works a lot better than “I know more than you can imagine”.
I do not argue your right to avoid vaccinating yourself as an adult but that right should stop at the point where you’re placing children and others in harm’s way.
VAERS is the system for reporting and compiling reports and is linked to the compensation system. All reports (and claims for damages) must go through VAERS before being considered for compensation.
Gardasil being shown to protect for 5 yrs is an issue wrt how long vaccine immunity will persist, which was my initial point. As for hepB vaccine duration, that is likewise unknown beyond a very finite limit…even 20 or 30 yrs. of protection from a vaccine administered in infancy and early childhood is not enough to prevent an epidemic among adults, assuming boosters are not universally applied. (virtually impossible in an adult population)
Of course there are different strains of HPV, any of which, including those not covered by the vaccine, may be encountered, and any of which tend to be cleared from the body in most cases.
Re’ duration of natural immunity, one citation: " Cervical HPV infection is a common sexually transmitted infection. Most women are infected shortly after beginning their first sexual relationship,[6] with the highest prevalence seen in women under 25 years of age.[7,8] Thereafter, prevalence decreases rapidly. In young and middle-aged women, HPV infections are usually transient, at least when their duration is measured by how long the virus can be detected in cytological samples.[9,10,11] Virus might be detected only intermittently; and the concurrent or sequential detection of different HPV types is common.[12-18] Cross-sectional studies indicate a second peak of infection in older women close to the age when the incidence of cervical cancer is maximum.[7,8]" (from The Natural History of Cervical HPV Infection: Unresolved Issues, Ciaran B. J. Woodman*; Stuart I. Collins‡; Lawrence S. Young*)
The best evidence to date is that naturally aquired immunity persists for quite a while, with possible waning (or possible higher risk of first time exposure, perhaps due to behavior, i.e. changes in sexual partners and increased chance of infection) in middle-age. So 20 yrs or so IF waning is what is being seen.
Even if waning of natural immunity is responsible, given the very low risk of infection persisting and resulting in cervical cancer among the young (persistent HPV infection is considered a requirement for this development, but alone is not a cause…other factors including lifestyle factors are necessary) the wiser option might be to vaccinate older women (something the vaccine has yet to be approved for) and delay mass use of such a new product on children.
My opposition is to all vaccines, at least for myself and my children. But definately, the means of transmission is a consideration when it comes to sexually transmitted infections, since the timing and nature of the exposure and/or vaccination is highly relevant.
Wow, didn’t realize how many were ignorant (and I use that in its literal sense, not as an insult) of the nature of shingles and the actual effect of the vaccine.
CP (varicella) vaccine does NOT protect against shingles. There is a recent shingles (hepes zoster) vaccine available which aims to, however. (and if current trends continue as they are estimated to, we will need it). This seems to be a common misconception, as is the idea that one can never get shingles if vaccinated against CP, when in fact, the CP vaccine is a live virus vaccine and remains dormant in the body for life, just as the wild virus does, and can reactivate as shingles in the same manner.
Just a few citations:
New modelling research presented at the Health Protection Agency’s annual conference in Warwick confirms that vaccination against chickenpox would significantly decrease the burden of this disease but would lead to more shingles among the elderly.
Researchers also found that vaccinating the elderly against shingles would only partially, but not completely, offset this increase.
Varicella Zoster is a virus that causes two diseases: chickenpox (mostly among children) and shingles (mostly among elderly), this is because the virus remains in the body after chickenpox and is able to reactivate as shingles later in life.
In most cases, chickenpox is a mild illness and around 89% of adults in the UK will develop immunity to the illness. Although a vaccine against the varicella virus (which causes chickenpox) is now licensed in the UK it is not part of UK’s routine childhood vaccination schedule.
If a chickenpox vaccine were to be added to the childhood immunisation programme concerns have been raised that there would be an increase of shingles cases in adults as a result. This is because people who have had chickenpox are less likely to have shingles later in life if they have been exposed occasionally to the chickenpox virus (for example through their children) as this exposure acts as a booster.
Post-vaccination research from countries that routinely immunise their children against chickenpox, including the US, has found an increase in cases of shingles among non-vaccinated age groups.
The Health Protection Agency researchers modelled the impact of vaccinating children against chickenpox (with a two dose schedule) and the elderly (60+) against shingles.
Building on previous modelling data the team incorporated virological, epidemiological and recent data on age-specific contact patterns to see whether a vaccine for the young would impact on the number of shingles in the elderly.
The modelling suggested that a two dose schedule at the levels of coverage likely to be achieved in the UK would lead to an increase of at least 20% of shingles in the medium term (approximately 15-20 years). This increase could be partially, but not completely, offset by introduction of a vaccination against shingles among those aged 60+."
Chicken pox vaccine associated with shingles epidemic
Published: Thursday, 1-Sep-2005
New research published in the International Journal of Toxicology (IJT) by Gary S. Goldman, Ph.D., reveals high rates of shingles (herpes zoster) in Americans since the government’s 1995 recommendation that all children receive chicken pox vaccine.
Goldman’s research supports that shingles, which results in three times as many deaths and five times the number of hospitalizations as chicken pox, is suppressed naturally by occasional contact with chicken pox.
Dr. Goldman’s findings have corroborated other independent researchers who estimate that if chickenpox were to be nearly eradicated by vaccination, the higher number of shingles cases could continue in the U.S. for up to 50 years; and that while death rates from chickenpox are already very low, any deaths prevented by vaccination will be offset by deaths from increasing shingles disease. Another recent peer-reviewed article authored by Dr. Goldman and published in Vaccine presents a cost-benefit analysis of the universal chicken pox (varicella) vaccination program. Goldman points out that during a 50-year time span, there would be an estimated additional 14.6 million (42%) shingles cases among adults aged less than 50 years, presenting society with a substantial additional medical cost burden of $4.1 billion. This translates into $80 million annually, utilizing an estimated mean healthcare provider cost of $280 per shingles case.
After a child has had varicella (chickenpox), the virus becomes dormant and can reactivate later in adulthood in a closely related disease called shingles–both caused by the same varicella-zoster virus (VZV). It has long been known that adults receive natural boosting from contact with children infected with chicken pox that helps prevent the reactivation of shingles.
Based on Dr. Goldman’s earlier communications with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), Goldman maintains that epidemiologists from the CDC are hoping “any possible shingles epidemic associated with the chickenpox vaccine can be offset by treating adults with a ‘shingles’ vaccine.” This intervention would substitute for the boosting adults previously received naturally, especially during seasonal outbreaks of the formerly common childhood disease.
“Using a shingles vaccine to control shingles epidemics in adults would likely fail because adult vaccination programs have rarely proved successful,” said Goldman. “There appears to be no way to avoid a mass epidemic of shingles lasting as long as several generations among adults.”
Goldman’s analysis in IJT indicates that effectiveness of the chickenpox vaccine itself is also dependent on natural boosting, so that as chickenpox declines, so does the effectiveness of the vaccine. “The principal reason that vaccinees in Japan maintained high levels of immunity 20 years following vaccination was that only 1 in 5 (or 20%) of Japanese children were vaccinated,” he said. “So those vaccinated received immunologic boosting from contact with children with natural chickenpox. But the universal varicella vaccination program in the U.S. will nearly eradicate this natural boosting mechanism and will leave our population vulnerable to shingles epidemics.”
For decades it was thought shingles increased with age as older individuals’ immune systems declined. However, Goldman’s new research shows this phenomenon seemed primarily due to the fact that older people received fewer natural boosts to immunity as their contacts with young children declined. "
P.S. Here’s a few cites for the failure of CP vaccine to prevent future shingles outbreaks among the vaccinated: (and it is a widely repeated myth that the vaccine prevents later shingles, the rationale usually being that the live virus in the vaccine is either 1. so attenuated/weak that it can’t trigger shingles or 2. it prevents CP infection and therefore the later reactivation of the virus as shingles. Neither of these is the case, according to the preponderance of the data to date, including that of the vaccine maker)
Herpes Zoster
Overall, 9454 healthy children (12 months to 12 years of age) and 1648 adolescents and adults (13
years of age and older) have been vaccinated with VARIVAX in clinical trials. Eight cases of herpes zoster
have been reported in children during 42,556 person years of follow-up in clinical trials, resulting in a
calculated incidence of at least 18.8 cases per 100,000 person years. The completeness of this reporting
has not been determined. One case of herpes zoster has been reported in the adolescent and adult age
group during 5410 person years of follow-up in clinical trials resulting in a calculated incidence of 18.5
cases per 100,000 person years.
5
All nine cases were mild and without sequelae. Two cultures (one child and one adult) obtained from
vesicles were positive for wild-type VZV as confirmed by restriction endonuclease analysis.
5,17
The long-
term effect of VARIVAX on the incidence of herpes zoster, particularly in those vaccinees exposed to
natural varicella, is unknown at present.
In children, the reported rate of herpes zoster in vaccine recipients appears not to exceed that
previously determined in a population-based study of healthy children who had experienced natural
varicella.
5,18,19
The incidence of herpes zoster in adults who have had natural varicella infection is higher than that in children."
And:
Laura R. Lehman, PharmD, BCPS, CACP
Shingles, also known as herpes zoster, is a painful rash caused by reactivation of varicella zoster virus (VZV) in an individual with a history of chickenpox or chickenpox immunization."
So InterestedObserver, you are completely anti-vaccination? Does that include all current and past vaccines? Because I’m curious if you really think the world would be better off if there was never a global effort to eradicate smallpox and polio (I know polio is still around, but it is significantly reduced)? Should we just have let everyone get “natural” immunity to these diseases? It would have been better if we let the whole world get it and have 1/3 of them die, with even those not dying still suffering in horrible agony?
*"Is VAERS involved in the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program? -
No. The National Childhood Vaccine Injury Act created the Vaccine Injury Compensation Program (VICP) to compensate individuals whose injuries may have been caused by vaccines recommended by the CDC for routine use. VICP is separate from the VAERS program. Reporting an event to VAERS does not file a claim for compensation to the VICP.
A petition must be filed with VICP to start a claim for compensation."*
Filing to start a claim with the VICPdoes not require reporting an alleged vaccine side effect with VAERS. I hope that’s sufficiently clear to you now.
Correction: immunity with Gardasil has been shown to last at least 5 years - the upper limit of protection is not yet known.
The 20 or 30 years of vaccine protection you postulate will carry into childbearing years even without any boosters, and that will save a lot of infants of moms who don’t get proper prenatal care from getting hepatitis B.
We’re not concerned here with “most cases” - but rather with preventing large numbers of infections, obviating the need for surveillance to make sure that those infections don’t progress to high grade dysplasia and cancer, avoiding all those Paps, biopsies, and more invasive and painful procedures to prevent cancer, and ultimately, keeping women from dying of cervical cancer.
This might work if it weren’t for the fact that “children” are sexually active at such young ages and at considerable risk of HPV transmission; thus the need to vaccinate before that activity occurs.
Thanks for the clarification. Do stick around so that your ill-conceived, ill-informed and damaging beliefs about immunization in general can be thoroughly refuted.
A few additional corrections to those already made:
The Shingles Vaccineis the chickenpox vaccine - just a double dose for adults.
Zoster (shingles) is, as your cite documents, rare after the Varivax and mild when it occurs. Interestingly the cases of zoster that did occur after Varivax apparently cultured out as wild type virus - apparently these were individuals who had mild, perhaps undiagnosed, wild type infections before (or possibly after) vaccine and the shingles was caused by that, not from the vaccine virus.
A jury of laypeople dealing with dueling testimonies from identified hired by each side and faced with a child with major problems on one hand and Pharma deep pockets on the other is not the best place to determine scientific facts about causation.
Again, I am not a huge promoter of Gardasil (although my daughter will get it), and actually I published arguing against universal chickenpox vaccination at the time, but disinformation is still to be fought against.
I’m a little surprised to discover that Gardasil only provides 5 years’ worth of immunity. Is there a booster for 16-year-olds? Seems a bit pointless otherwise (assuming that the five year baseline isn’t a huge underestimate).
InterestedObserver, your arguments against the chickenpox vaccine might be sound. Your arguments against all vaccination are, frankly, ridiculous. You do know that blanket non-vaccination programs have already been tried, and failed miserably, yes? The program was called “human history until 1796”.