St. Judes: No visitors who've recently received live vaccine

studying_torah

Wed, Feb 04 2015, 10:58 am

I am a mother for many years BH and no dr has ever told me about vaccines shedding. Until I read This thread I had no idea there was such a thing!
My daughter got a rash after a recent vaccination and I called her pediatrician about it bec I was concerned and never got a call back. Bh it faded after a day or so.
But why was I never spoken to about shedding, possible rashes and when to be concerned or anything more than- the child might have a fever and be cranky and that's normal?!
And I've used quite a few drs over the years, so it's not only one dr who doesn't educate their patients.

Scrabble123

Wed, Feb 04 2015, 11:03 am

studying_torah wrote:

A rash is very normal following the MMR or Varicella vaccine.
As for the shedding, it's a controversial topic and many doctors believe the only real "shedding" vaccine that could potentially infect someone else is the OPV which is no longer in use. That is why your doctor never spoke to you about it. Believe me, if the MMR or Varicella vaccines shed as much as people here are claiming they do, they would not be given to individuals with babies or around the elderly. We'd also be seeing hundreds more cases of measles. When you're involved with someone who has a severely suppressed immune system, doctors use an exceedingly large abundance of caution because if those people were to come into contact with even 1 cell of a disease the results could ch'v be terrible.

The Disneyland case was DNA linked to wild measles, so I'm not sure where that claim came from. Furthermore, there have also been studies such as this one ( http://jid.oxfordjournals.org/.....l.pdf ) that show that even if an individual has an inapparent infection with measles that it is very unlikely that that individual sheds enough to infect someone else. That is important to reach complete global eradication.

vintagebknyc

Wed, Feb 04 2015, 1:38 pm

Scrabble123 wrote:

The Disneyland case was DNA linked to wild measles, so I'm not sure where that claim came from. Furthermore, there have also been studies such as this one ( http://jid.oxfordjournals.org/.....l.pdf ) that show that even if an individual has an inapparent infection with measles that it is very unlikely that that individual sheds enough to infect someone else. That is important to reach complete global eradication.

can someone explain to me what "wild" measles is?

amother

Wed, Feb 04 2015, 1:42 pm

Scrabble123 wrote:

Thank you. I read the study you posted and see that based on their findings, the measles is unlikely to shed. I haven't read much on shedding yet. It is a new topic for me. I do know someone with a child that got the chicken pox from the varicella vaccine and spread it to a sibling. The chicken pox they got from it was a mild case. I hear that's not uncommon. I'm not trying to add heat to this debate, just genuinely want to know if this is a real issue or if it's nothing to worry about.

Hashem_Yaazor

Wed, Feb 04 2015, 1:47 pm

vintagebknyc wrote:

can someone explain to me what "wild" measles is?

The strains (genotype A I think) not associated with the vaccine.

ETA from CDC:
The following 19 genotypes have been detected since 1990:

A*, B2, B3, C1, C2, D2, D3, D4, D5, D6, D7, D8, D9, D10, D11, G2, G3, H1, H2

*Vaccine strains Moraten, Edmonston, Zagreb are all genotype A.
There were 2 putative wild-type cases of measles identified as genotype A in 2008.

During 2011, 8 genotypes were identified by global surveillance:

B2, B3, D4, D8, D9, D11, G3, H1

Barbara

Wed, Feb 04 2015, 1:58 pm

vintagebknyc wrote:

can someone explain to me what "wild" measles is?

It's a term generally associated with polio, not measles. The oral polio vaccine "sheds," that is, transfers to third parties. It's actually supposed to do that, to provide immunity to people who are not vaccinated. However, that has resulted in people who were not vaccinated contracting polio from a recently vaccinated person. In some places, that's the primary cause of polio cases. The US no longer uses the oral polio vaccine, in part for this reason. In any case, polio that is not caused by the vaccine is known as "wild" polio -- that is, from a wild, not cultivated -- strain. And yes, any infection can (and in the case of polio, AIUI, is) tested to see if it is from the vaccine.

While measles is a live vaccine, and a recently inoculated person could theoretically transmit the disease, it has never been known to happen, to the best of my knowledge. In any case, its easy enough to rest to see if the strain of measles is related to the vaccine, and in this case, its not.

studying_torah

Wed, Feb 04 2015, 2:13 pm

Why does it matter if it's a wild strain or not? And how can we keep safe from wild strains?
I'm still a bit confused about the shedding- is it good or not? It seems it makes other ppl sick?

Scrabble123

Wed, Feb 04 2015, 2:16 pm

studying_torah wrote:

Why does it matter if it's a wild strain or not? And how can we keep safe from wild strains?
I'm still a bit confused about the shedding- is it good or not? It seems it makes other ppl sick?

You can protect yourself by being vaccinated. Wild just means that it came from an infected individual in the general population and not from the vaccine.

I mentioned that it's wild because posters here were trying to insinuate that the Disneyland outbreak was caused by shedding of the virus after someone was vaccinated which is not the case and there are no reports of such happenings. The only reason they advise people who recently had live vaccine shots to not go around immune compromised individuals is out of an abundance of caution.

The OPV (oral polio vaccine) sheds and that's great: it's great because it helps provide immunity to those who otherwise would not have been vaccinated. It is not used in the US though because there were rare cases of paralysis (so the US now uses the IPV vaccine which is not a live vaccine and does not shed). The OPV is best for areas where there are current polio outbreaks.

Barbara

Wed, Feb 04 2015, 2:26 pm

studying_torah wrote:

Why does it matter if it's a wild strain or not? And how can we keep safe from wild strains?
I'm still a bit confused about the shedding- is it good or not? It seems it makes other ppl sick?

Shedding was considered to be good at least at one time, when certain diseases (polio) were endemic, and public health officials wanted a way to immunize large groups of people, some of whom did not have access to vaccines, or who rejected vaccines. But because polio is under control in the US, shedding is not good here.

Its important because of the health implications.

Let's say measles was basically eradicated. The only people who contracted the disease were those who got it from the vaccine. That would be very different from a situation where hundreds of people were put at risk because measles is still out there, spreading.

imaima

Wed, Feb 04 2015, 2:27 pm

Scrabble123 wrote:

AM I correct to assume that if a regular healthy person catches a virus from shedding, they won't get sick? I mean, if the amount of virus in a vaccine is small to begin with, as it is meant to be conquered by immune system, then the amount that is shed is even smaller than what is originally in a vaccine, right? So this person's system just fights off the virus and builds up immunity without this person realizing or having a lot of symptoms.

Scrabble123

Wed, Feb 04 2015, 2:46 pm

imaima wrote:

I think that it's correct to assume that it's almost impossible for someone to catch the measles as a result of shedding. As I keep saying, avoiding immune compromised individuals is out of an abundance of caution. Again, I'm not a medical professional. Much of what I know about vaccines is from personal experience, speaking to doctors and scientists, some of what I studied in college (although it was totally basic - I majored in something else), and reading science journals. A medical professional, especially one who has studied in depth virology and vaccinology would be able to answer.

amother

Thu, Feb 05 2015, 3:34 am

Barbara wrote:

So, please, provide us with the direct quote. In those pages. Stating that there is a medical consensus that vaccines do not confer immunity. And that herd immunity cannot be conferred by vaccines.

The second page specifically refers to "vaccine derived immunity," so I'm very much interested in where the paper states that its an oxymoron, and that vaccines cannot create immunity, as you stated.

Thanks.

op here

Barbara, this is from the conclusion:

Quote:

This review has avoided emphasizing any single definition of herd immunity, rather, accepting the varied uses of the term by different authors.

My whole point in posting this is ONLY to show you that scientists discuss the topic of herd immunity and that they have varying points of view - that it is a valid subject of debate and discussion and that this discussion can be respectful. There is not one consensus about how exactly herd immunity should be defined, what variables affect it, and how it works in the long-term.

Here is an interesting quote from the paper:

Quote:

it is intuitively reasonable, and was later demonstrated in theory (see be- low), that targeting vaccination to groups with high contact probabilities can be more efficient (in the sense of minimizing the total number of vaccinations required) in reducing disease than is uniform cover- age of an entire population.

In other words, it might be more effective to target measles vaccination, for example, to the geographic region where there is an outbreak, rather than to ramp up pressure to vaccinate nationwide. That is not only economically sensible, and reasonable from an epidemiological point of view, but also a rational response on an individual level.

Here's another quote:

Quote:

As a consequence the present model implies herd immunity against measles with sub- stantially lower immunization rates than are predicted from global mass action theory.

That was a scientist's finding based on a complex model of various factors affecting herd immunity (defined to include vaccine-induced immunity). Does it help you to perhaps be a little less angry and less condescending toward people who don't share your view that the goal is 100% vaccination, and that those who choose not to vaccinate are somehow engaging in criminal (or at least immoral) behavior? The science and the math leave more room for variation in personal choice than you may think.

Here's another interesting quote:

Quote:

Though Fox was reticent (perhaps be- cause of his experience) or unable (because of the modeling approach he used) to give a precise estimate of the proportion immune required to stem transmission of the measles virus, his pessimism was not shared by several modelers who subsequently published predictions based on variations of the mass action model approach. The range of these estimates, from 70 to 96 percent, is itself instructive in showing the implications of different sets of assumptions. Indeed, the range is such that those responsible for setting vaccination strategy may find that Fox's conclusion, though less precise (he provided no threshold estimates) and less apparently rigorous in its mathematical base, is the most useful of them all!

Another:

Quote:

It is evident that the incidence of measles in the United States has fallen by approximately 99 percent since the introduction of vaccination in 1963, even accepting the resurgence which began in 1989, despite the fact that a smaller percentage of individuals have been immunized. (Though approximately 98 percent of children in the United States have been vaccinated by school entry in recent years, an appreciable proportion escape vaccination until they approach school age, and it is known that only some 95 percent of vaccinations succeed in immunizing the recipients; thus, the proportion of the preschool population effectively immunized is probably less than 90 percent.) This in itself is indicative of a certain degree of indirect protection of nonimmunes by the presence of immunes and, hence, a form of herd immunity.

Here's an interesting quote about a downside of herd immunity, here in the context of influenza:

Quote:

On the other hand, herd immunity has frequently been invoked in the literature as an explanation for the changing profile of influenza viruses in human populations and the successive disappearance of specific antigenic subtypes. The argument is that increasing proportions immune to each individual influenza subtype, and varying degrees of cross protection pro- vided between subtypes, should provide a selective pressure favoring the spread of new antigenic variants.

In other words, herd immunity to a specific virus type can lead to new types of the virus emerging. Now that is very interesting, isn't it?

Here is something nice for you, validation of vaccine-induced "herd immunity," along with an interesting point that outbreaks of illness are expected even in highly vaccinated populations—sort of as an exception that proves the rule. But still, an outbreak itself does not indicate that unvaccinated people have put vaccinated people at risk; rather, sometimes outbreaks do occur despite vaccination:

Quote:

That indirect protection occurs is obvious, both in logic and in observation. Prevention of a communicable infection in any individual reduces by one the potential sources of infection—and, hence, the potential risk (which is a probability, by definition) of infection—for that individual's peers. That is indirect protection and a form of herd immunity. The observation of apparent exceptions, small communities in which infections appear to be transmitted despite very high levels of vaccination coverage, do not refute this principle, just as the failure of a vaccination in some individual recipients need not refute an overall high efficacy of the vaccine.

Since this is a very long post, I will end with this one:

Quote:

A vaccination intervention entails a massive disruption of the previous "natural" balance and can destabilize epidemiologic patterns for many years. For example, the introduction of an effective vaccination program among children may reduce infection incidence to such a degree that a large number of susceptibles can accumulate among those individuals born just too early to receive the vaccinations, and who thus escape both the natural infection and the benefits of vaccination. The accumulation of such susceptible groups may lead to changes in the age distribution of cases in the future, as has been reported for measles, mumps, and pertussis in recent years.

Is it OK with you if the writer of this peer-reviewed journal article says that? It's pretty provocative.

amother

Thu, Feb 05 2015, 3:37 am

p.s. I did not say that vaccines cannot provide immunity. I said that immunity is not the same thing as vaccinated... sometimes vaccination confers immunity and sometimes it doesn't. Getting the wild virus and recovering from that does confer immunity. So herd immunity has to be based on the percentage of people who are ACTUALLY IMMUNE, not the percentage of people who are vaccinated.

amother

Thu, Feb 05 2015, 3:39 am

Barbara wrote:

How on earth am I supposed to know who the various amothers or sock puppets are. But it is YOU who attacked ME for responding to a post that referenced other threads.

If you want your posts differentiated, use your nym.

op

I have identified myself throughout this thread as op. I may have forgotten to do so in a few posts when I did many in a row. But it is your responsibility to use a bit of common sense; I have been as transparent as possible while maintaining my privacy. I need to do that because many people know me here in a certain context and this issue is not relevant to that.

amother

Thu, Feb 05 2015, 3:41 am

Iymnok wrote:

Is there a reason you're anonymous, or just to confuse us?
Also, if you write your comment beneath the piece you're quoting its much easier to follow what you are saying. -see everyone else's responses.

op

Not trying to confuse anyone, I have identified myself as op throughout. I am anonymous for a valid reason, see my post above. And thank you for the advice about how to respond to a quote. I don't post often and I guess I missed that convention.