To wonder why on earth you would not vaccinate your DCs?

[olimpia]

I hear from another thread that some people choose not to vaccinate their DCs at all and I'm genuinely interested to hear why because I can't think of a single reason not to. I can perhaps understand opting out of the MMR if someone believes the bad press (not that I do) but all the other vaccinations? Why, oh why?
(not a troll! Just relatively new to MN)

Crikey, the responses really surprised me

Mince - pm me :)

There is no evidence that vaccines have CAUSED mutations. Mutations have occurred which are not responsive to vaccines.

There is a big difference. You're suggesting vaccines have caused mutations. There is no biological mechanism for this to occur in vaccines and there is NO evidence vaccines have caused mutations.

Natural immunity can just as easily 'cause' mutations. Which by the way are not 'caused' but are a natural event.

You do know that vaccines work very differently to antibiotics ?

Bumbley I suggest you go to the Gates website which I linked to earlier or here polio eradicationto learn a bit more about polio eradication.

Saintly What exactly is 'selection pressure' from a vaccine? Never heard of it.

And I'm sorry but I'd disagree with you mince that the majority of the poster posting against vaccinations are 'informed', I'd say misinformed personally. The amount of misinformation and distortion is just astounding!

And I do think there is plenty of scaremongering about the 'dangers' of vaccines. I'm sorry if you find this offensive but it's what I think and I'm as entitled to say this as other people are who say there is scaremongering about childhood diseases with nary a thought about children who have DIED and been DAMAGED by these diseases (I think it's actually quite the opposite by the way - we downplay these dangers as they have become distant memories). The reason we don't have hundreds of parents posting here about their measles damaged children is because of vaccinations. But deaths averted isn't quite as dramatic a story.

The first sentence in the article Saintly linked to is interesting
"Recent randomised trials have shown that live vaccines such as measles and BCG enhance general resistance, preventing other infections as well as the target infection."

So basically not only are vaccinated children immune to measles but also more resistant to other infections. That's very good!!

Elaine, would you like to point me to the part of that website that says that they will be able to eradicate polio while still using the OPV? There was a reason why most countries switched to the IPV.

Selective reading Elaine? :)

I didn't say vaccines 'caused' mutations.But they are a selection pressure. So if you introduce a vaccination then a mutation which produces a strain not recognised by the body (because it's not covered by the vaccination) will be selected for. Ie this strain will spread. In this way the circulating strain will change. The change will be random, but it will still change. Maybe more virulent, may be less. But the vaccination has introduced a selection pressure for a change in strains.

The reason most countries switched to IPV is because polio had mostly been eradicated and the emphasis was on individual protection where IPV is preferred due to the reduced side effects.

OPV is more effective at preventing transmission. In countries where polio is endemic, ideally both IPV and OPV will be used as the IPV can reduce the risk of vaccine induced polio from the OPV.

You'll find all the information on the Gates website and the Eradicate Polio website.

Saintly - and how is vaccine acquired immunity any different to naturally acquired immunity?

But we do seem to have quite a few people with vaccine damaged children on here
Surprising given the 'one or two per 100,000' quoted earlier

Here we are - selection pressure and vaccination in pertussis

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11030058

Let's hope that suggested surveillance is being carried out.

Elaine, I've previously read the WHO document that is linked to on the site. You seem to be accepting that the OPV causes polio so we're obviously agreeing anyway.

How is that relevant to anything I have posted Elaine?

Host pathogen evolution is fascinating (as previously mentioned it's why measles is relatively benign in long exposed population whilst devastating to communities on first meeting). Mass vaccination has introduced a new very recent selection pressure, will be interesting to see how the effect that has on pathogens.

The point is Saintly that you can equally get mutations in populations with no vaccine acquired immunity. Just like you do with the cold virus.

Yes but there isn't an external mass selection. Anyway the cold virus is different as it shows a lot of antigenic variation - the diseases successfully vaccinated against so far, don't.

Sorry I meant there isn't an external selection pressure selecting heavily against certain strains. And the pathogens vaccinated against are usually very stable - (unlike the common cold virus) - so the effect of a strong selection pressure is going to be different. I wonder if anyone has modelled it?

This looks a thought provoking read. Have only skimmed and looks very interesting. Especially the info about pattern 5 and escape variants.

rsif.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/4/16/787.full

That paper I linked to in the last post appears to give some other differences as well.

Bumbley, vaccine induced polio from OPV is a well documented side effect (despite all these claims that side effects aren't documented). Children (and others) who suffered paralysis as a result were indeed 'vaccine damaged'. Thankfully, we use the IPV now - but that doesn't stop tranmission which means that in countries where it is endemic or there are serious outbreaks, you need to use OPV in order to eradicate and prevent transmission.

Interestingly, for those who say 'oh, I dont need a polio vaccine, I'm not going to India', this is what happened in the Netherlands in the 1990s...

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/8041875

Well it's still not a high risk is it Elaine? Versus giving pertussis to a child known to have seizures (remember polio comes packaged with pertussis for children)

Elaine, you said yourself, 'I never said the reporting system works well'

Elaine, We're saying the same thing here! OPV causes polio so while it is still in use there will continue to be people paralysed by polio.

Elaine
"Because you're talking in the region of one or two children per 100,000 vaccines who may suffer a more serious reaction. "
"numbers are too tiny"
and so on

you don't know this you are assuming it

Interestingly, for those who say 'oh, I dont need a polio vaccine, I'm not going to India', this is what happened in the Netherlands in the 1990s...

But no one did actually say this. And since there was a 97% take up in the Netherlands, the herd immunity should have come into effect, but appears not to have done.