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immunisation against various deadly
diseases is an important preventive
measure which the doctors recommend
right from the birth. Behind the program
schedule of vaccination there is a definite
science and policy and such preventive
measures help in the long run to protect the
whole human community from diseases
and infections. When non immunized
people live with community of people who
are immunized they are indirectly protected
from getting inflicted from any disease.
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This is called as herd immunity or
community immunity. According to herd
immunity theory when sufficient amount of
people in a particular group or community
is immune to a certain type of disease, it
acts as a barrier for other non immunized
people as well. Due to this people who are
not vaccinated too are protected.
When my oldest child was a baby, after telling the
health visitor I didn’t vaccinate, she promptly
exclaimed, “Oh well, she’s lucky as she has
herd immunity from the vaccinated children
to protect her!”
She then went on to say that not everyone had the
luxury of my decision because if less than
95% of children were vaccinated, then it
wouldn’t work anymore. I thought this was a
silly concept because if vaccination truly
worked, then any child who was vaccinated
would be protected from disease, no matter
how many ‘infectious’ unvaccinated kids
there were, and if the 95% herd immunity
figure was a genuine argument, it only points
to one thing: the medical profession don’t
really believe in the effectiveness of their own
vaccines.
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What Is The Herd Immunity Theory?
The herd immunity theory was originally
coined in 1933 by a researcher called
Hedrich. He had been studying measles
patterns in the US between 1900-1931 (years
before any vaccine was ever invented for
measles) and he observed that epidemics of
the illness only occurred when less than 68%
of children had developed a natural
immunity to it. This was based upon the
principle that children build their own
immunity after suffering with or being exposed
to the disease. So the herd immunity theory
was, in fact, about natural disease processes
and nothing to do with vaccination. If 68% of
the population were allowed to build their
own natural defences, there would be no
raging epidemic.
Later on, vaccinologists adopted the phrase
and increased the figure from 68% to 95% with
no scientific justification as to why, and then
stated that there had to be 95% vaccine
coverage to achieve immunity. Essentially,
they took Hedrich’s study and manipulated it
to promote their vaccination programmes.
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Mass immunisation concept deals both
with utilitarianism and herd immunity
and hence is centrally correlated.
Utilitarianism is a sort of faith in which it
is believed that that act or rule is of
greater use or worth which provides
maximum security to optimum number
of people. On the other hand herd
immunity is the extent of immunity
towards a particular disease a group or
community of people have. Both the
terms hence are applicable and
correlated to the concept of mass
immunization. Utilitarianism deals with
greatest people and security whereas
herd immunity believes that if
maximum people are immunized
against a particular disease, practically
all people from that group are
protected as well.
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What is a good example of herd
immunity?
The most common example in this
regard is that of chicken pox which is a
contagious disease and spreads
rapidly. Children and even adults who
never had vaccination of chicken pox
are more vulnerable to this disease. But
if everyone in the near proximity are
immunized against chicken pox, then
the possibility of passing of this infection
is minimized as the virus of chicken pox
is blocked from spreading further. This
type of herd immunity works incredibly
well in children suffering from leukemia.
These children are immunosuppresed
children and cannot be vaccinated
with the chicken pox vaccination as
the vaccine virus and wild virus can
prove fatal to the child due to his low
immunity. But if such children are kept
in immunized group, they can be
benefitted by herd immunity
protection.
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Why Vaccine Induced Herd Immunity is
Flawed?
If vaccination really immunises,
then your vaccinated child will be
immunised and therefore protected
against any disease an unvaccinated
child gets. If he isn’t, his shots didn’t
work.
We should also examine whether
or not the vaccines actually do provide
immunity and in which populations
epidemics occurred. Was it the
unvaccinated children spreading
disease as they would have parents
believe? Or were those epidemics
already in previously vaccinated
people?
To do this I have listed several
epidemics that have occurred in the
last 100 years or so, including Smallpox,
which medics claim that vaccination
eradicated.
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Vaccines work by stimulating our
immune system to produce antibodies
(substances produced by the body to
fight disease) without us actually
becoming infected with the disease.
Vaccines trigger the immune system to
produce its own antibodies against
disease, as though the body has been
infected with it. This is called 'active
immunity'. If the vaccinated person
then comes into contact with the
disease itself, their immune system will
recognise it and immediately produce
the antibodies needed to fight it.
Newborn babies are already protected
against several diseases, such as
measles, mumps and rubella, because
antibodies have passed into them from
their mothers via the placenta. This is
called ‘passive immunity’.
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When a vaccination programme is
introduced, everyone in the population
of a certain age or risk group is offered
a specific vaccine to try and reduce
disease.
Vaccination programmes aim to
protect people for life. They often
concentrate on young children, as
they’re especially susceptible to many
potentially dangerous infections. Some
vaccination programmes are targeted
at older people or certain risk groups.
When a vaccination programme
against a disease begins, the number
of people catching the disease goes
down. But as the threat recedes it’s
important to keep vaccinating,
otherwise the disease can start to
spread again (scroll down to
http://www.nhs.uk/Video/Pages/vaccinationanimation.aspx
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The first step is to make the organism
(called the pathogen) that produces
the disease. The pathogen is a virus or
a bacterium. Viruses and bacteria can
be mass produced in the laboratory by
infecting cells grown in tissue culture.
The pathogen must then be altered to
ensure that it doesn’t trigger the
disease itself. This can be done by:
weakening, or ‘attenuating’ it by
growing it repeatedly to select a strain
that's less dangerous. MMR vaccines
are attenuated
taking out the part of the pathogen
that causes the immune response and
using this in the vaccine. The Hib
vaccine is made in this way
using the toxin that the pathogen
makes and inactivating it. The tetanus
vaccine is produced in this way
The treated pathogen is then
combined with other ingredients, such
as stabilisers and preservatives, to
produce a dose of vaccine.
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How long does a vaccination last?
In many cases vaccination provides
lifelong protection against a disease
but it varies. How long a vaccination
lasts will depend on the disease that
the vaccine protects against, the
vaccine, and the person who is
vaccinated.
Some vaccines provide very high
levels of protection - for example MMR
provides 90% protection against
measles and rubella after one dose.
Others are not as effective – for
example typhoid vaccine (a travel
vaccine) provides about 70%
protection over three years.
http://www.nhs.uk/Video/Pages/Vaccinationanimation2.aspx
Case Study - A measles outbreak in
Gibraltar has infected almost 1 percent
of the territory’s 28,000 people in just
three months, according to a report by
its public health director.
The outbreak, mostly in schoolchildren, made
it clear that the authorities had been wrong in
assuming that more than 90 percent of
children had had measles shots, the report
said. Gibraltar is a British territory, and
resistance to the measles-mumps-rubella
vaccine has been high in Britain since a 1998
report in The Lancet speculated that it could
cause autism.
That report has been widely discredited, and
numerous later studies showed no link
between vaccines and autism. Nonetheless,
as a consequence of dropping vaccination
rates, Britain has had several local measles
outbreaks.
There were 276 cases of measles in Gibraltar
from August to October, according to the
health director, Dr. Vijay Kumar. There were
none in the previous 10 years. The patients’
age range was 4 months to 58 years. Most
cases were mild.
Gibraltar’s inhabitants live in modern but
unusually crowded conditions for Western
Europe.
Gene analysis suggested that the virus came
from an outbreak in the nearby Spanish town
of Algeciras. Gibraltar began a vaccination
campaign this summer, but the vaccine ran
out twice because of shortages in Britain.
http://www.historyofvaccines.org/cont
ent/herd-immunity-0
Chickenpox is caused by the varicellazoster virus (VZV), which only infects
humans and some higher primates.