Rise of measles

[crosstalk]

www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/european-measles-death-toll-hits-37-after-antivax-campaigns-ztmwl9f3q

Just saying

Cathmidson could you link the primary research?

There is strong evidence that the measles vaccination will prevent other infections due to how measles pretty much strips the immune system sometimes for years after recovery. There has been quite a bit written about it, this gives the information quite clearly. I've yet to see anything to suggest not getting polio or any other infection means any population is more likely to get any other infection, typically infections damage the immune system making someone more likely to get other illnesses.

When I had my first, pretty much my only support was a very hippy group where a lot of people didn't vaccinate. I think on one hand there were parents who think if they do everything right then nothing will go too wrong and I'm not sure anything will convince them until something horrible happens, but there were many more others - I admit including myself - who through experience had a distrust and fear of medical professionals and difficulty in separating the fear stories particularly from those close to us during the difficult and emotional time of late pregnancy/the early months-years with a child. I guess some are too proud or scared to admit they can't prevent the worst, but more are terrified and confused about doing something irreversibly wrong with all the scare stories and illusions of safety.

I think there are better resources out there now than back then to help with misinformation and lack of knowledge, but the whole "educate yourself" on vaccines online is a jungle that some struggle getting through especially when emotions are high. Hopefully, that will get even better before these outbreaks get worse. I don't think most anti/non/delayed-vaxxers are 'hopeless' as often said - I've gone from terrified and delaying to currently actively searching if my older son will be able to get the HPV vaccine on the NHS or if I will need to pay (everything says it's 12-13 year olds from next autumn, but the girls ones goes up to the 18th birthday so I'm trying to find out if my 14 year old will be in that before he turns 15 and I might need to pay for 3 jabs instead of 2). I think a lot of the scaremongering and a lack of knowledge on how the body, diseases, and vaccines work is a big part of it - fear of the unknown and all that.

KEY MESSAGES from the graph
Previous studies from West Africa have found diphtheria-tetanus-pertussis (DTP) vaccine to be associated with slightly increased infant mortality.
We therefore examined the impact on survival when we introduced DTP in rural communities in Guinea-Bissau in the mid-1980s.
Compared with children who had not been vaccinated because they had been travelling, no vaccine was available, or they were too sick to get vaccinated, mortality was twofold increased over the next 6 months for the children who had received DTP, the negative effect being stronger for girls.
Mortality was lower for children who had received BCG making it unlikely that vaccine had been given mainly to high-risk children.

Could you provide the actual paper? A graph on its own isn't particularly helpful, and the sample size warrants a more detailed look

Never mind, I actually found the article here:
academic.oup.com/ije/article/33/2/374/715842

Here's the conclusion:
"In low-income countries with high mortality, DTP as the last vaccine received may be associated with slightly increased mortality. Since the pattern was inversed for BCG, the effect is unlikely to be due to higher-risk children having received vaccination. The role of DTP in high mortality areas needs to be clarified."

The key parts of this conclusion to note are "MAY be associated with SLIGHTLY increased mortality" and "The role of DTP in high mortality areas NEEDS TO BE CLARIFIED".

The paper isn't making any bold claim to say that the DTP vaccine is a cause of large scale infant mortality, it is just presenting a case for a larger study.

This is why people need to cite sources - stats and numbers often need to be contextualized within larger statistical analysis and methodological limits.

The ones who were vaccinated had less measles but more actual deaths from illness after a set period, than those that hadn’t been vaccinated

That's meaningless without knowing what the illnesses were and what was the cause of death.

What is vaccine ‘damage’ and what causes it? I assume it’s medically recognised if you can receive gov compensation for it? Is it anything to do with allergic reactions? My dd had a nasty but not life threatening reaction to her 1 year jabs and will have the next lot in hospital but reading about vaccine damage in this thread has set off my nerves again.

Nutkins24 good question.. I’ll try to answer that in more detail when I get home later

I know it might be against the rules but i am posting a youtube video of exactly why vaccinations are important (its a video about one of the last survivors of polo which thankfully is nearly extinct but only due to vaccination).

this is the reason why i feel vaccinations should be required if you want childcare, access to Schools , access to university etc while i dont want to go down the route of forced vaccinations i am VERY VERY HAPPY to make anti-vaxxers lives very difficult.

Have children want too work? No vaccinations =no childcare, want your child to go to School because you dont want to home school tough you need your child vaccinated before they can attend.

Obviously i am exculeding people that medically cannot have vaccinations i am talking about the idiots and selfish people that would see diseases such as polio to come back simply because of the idiocy.

@MairyHole the point is that the article links Wakefield and vaccination rates in the UK (not Romania / Italy) to a rise in cases this year in the UK.

In 1996, notifications were at 5,600. They have dropped since, mostly being between 2000 and 3000 per year with spikes in 2005/6 of 5,000 and in 2013 of 6,000. The last

Serbska May I also suggest you research the prevalence of vaccine induced polio in India

LOL

Can I suggest you research the prevalence of vaccine induced polio in India.

The issue isn't actually "vaccines actually CAUSE polio, STOP VACCINATING"

The issues is poor sanitation and under immunized populations where it is then allowed to circulate for at least 12 months unchecked.

And since 2015 the type 2 component in OPV has been removed anyway.

The small risk of cVDPVs pales in significance to the tremendous public health benefits associated with OPV.

It is like anti vaxers have no balance at all, no ability to see that small % risks are massively outweighed by the huge benefits.

Sorry... posted too soon... the last few years since 2014, the rates have been below 2,000. While the overall trend is down, it is far from linear.

Regarding THE UK, (which is what the article links and where the Wakefield report was published and where the press picked up the comments regarding the MMR and report anecdotes, creating hype and fears around the MMR and arguably doing more damage than the original report..). The numbers do not support a link and the numbers do not in fact show a significant upward trend.

The numbers in Italy and Romania are truly concerning but I am sure they am really not due to some press articles in the UK in 1996. Vaccine refusal / fear / scepticism / etc does not start and end with Wakefield and the MMR, in fact date back to the Smallpox era. The rise in the rate of measles is likely to be due to a complex mix of factors.

Post of 15:56 should say 2008 /2009 not 2005/2006. Posting in a field while playing football and putting up the tent.

And headaches have different causes...but generally muscle tension etc... so therefore pain killers used in this instance aren’t interefering with a specific elimination/immune reaction.

Surely they would interfere generally with that irrespective of the cause of the headaches, thus rendering the person concerned to any opportunistic infection, if your theory were correct, CathMidston?

And if it's OK to give painkillers for non-infection induced pain, I hope you allow your unfortunate children access to them for that purpose?

Travel sickness is a different phenomenon all together. Cure: get out of the car and walk about

Not always possible, is it? You can't exactly get off a ship or a plane when you want to, nor can you necessarily keep stopping for walks on car journeys.

In Romania at least, the rise in measles case seems to be directly linked to the fact that vaccine take-up has fallen from around 97% to 80%. That in turn is due to a number of factors, including apparently a fairly high profile anti-vaxx campaign run by a fairly well-known sleb supported by right wing idiots, and difficulties in importing and distributing adequate vaccine supplies. It really is almost a textbook illustration of the dangers of not vaccinating.

I see what you are trying to say but the article does not actually blame Wakefield for current scepticism. All it says is this:

"Particular concerns have been raised about young people who form part of the unprotected “Wakefield cohort”, whose parents failed to get them vaccinated as children after the disgraced former doctor Andrew Wakefield falsely claimed that the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine caused autism in the 1990s"

This is because in the wake of Wakefield (no pun intended!) MMR vaccination rates dropped by about 10% in the UK. Therefore people who were born at around that time have a lower vaccination rate in their cohort and are more likely to be at risk as an age group. It's not saying those people are solely responsible for the outbreak, as I read it, but that people of that age group are more vulnerable in an outbreak.

It was actually quite relevant in Italy because the Wakefield scare had a big impact there - a court allowed compensation to parents of an autistic child before the Lancet article was retracted. The decision was later quashed once Wakefield was struck off but it seems to have left a lasting impression there - vaccination rates actually recovered better in the UK than in Italy. But, I think the article is talking about vaccine fear more generally. It does refer to populist movements which have contributed to renewed scepticism but it doesn't refer to the religious movements in Romania which are also anti vaccination and having a big impact, nor the social factors there which can lead to lower vaccination rates.

"Posting in a field while playing football and putting up the tent."

Enjoy!

am VERY VERY HAPPY to make anti-vaxxers lives very difficult.

You'd make their children's lives difficult.

The take up rates varied in the UK. Scotland iirc maintained a high %. Some areas of England went particularly low.

You'd make their children's lives difficult

Their parents would be responsible for making their children's lives difficult you mean

I'm really a G'netter but had to log in. At about 4 in the Fifties I had measles very badly even for those days. Everyone I knew had all the childhood illnesses in varying degrees. I have very poor sight from that even though I was whisked into a darkened room at the first sign of the spots. Also had the whole summer term off school. I then had chicken pox very badly. I suppose because I was weak from the previous illness. I was a well cared for well nourished child. My brother had both milder but mumps worse. We had no calpol only cooling flannels and calomine. I still remember how tired I felt and the desperate desire to open the curtains . I went to school with children in Calipers. Please make these diseases a memory. Also had a relative with thrombocytopenic purpura ( hope that's the right spelling) totally out of your tree if you don't get your children immunised

I too had measles in 1960s. As soon as it became a possibility I was sent to my room and kept there in the dark , in quarantine until I was better. It was the IIlest i have been in my life. Like pp I quickly went down with a second viral illness( rubella) afterwards .I remember my mother's fear in case my younger ( rather frail) sister came down with it. Fear of childhood illnesses has gone now. Antivaxxers should ask their elders about these illnesses and the welcome advent of vaccination. I was fine after a few weeks and my sister was vaccinated .
I feel utterly infuriated each time these threads come up, particularly with the smug 'I've done my own research' posts whose ability to avoid vaccinating their own children to avoid the infinitesimal ( but real) risk of vaccine damage is only possible because the rest of us are vaccinating and applying herd immunity.

I was thinking about this thread today, when I was trawling thru measles articles. Lots in the Netherlands, they have regular big outbreaks. Lots of religious objectors to jabs and then babies in other communities under 15months who don't have 2 innoculations can get measles. Plenty hospitalised every time.

Peter Aaby has a whole line of articles about the increased mortality linked to DTP, but always in a very low income setting (usually poorer parts of Africa). The same series of articles (here's one from 2016) point out many other vaccines are consistently linked to reducing mortality in infants. The big question mark is over DTP, and in a very specific setting (low income countries). The stats they use are sophisticated, they can find tiny differences.

Some interesting news reports today that many anti -vaccine reports are by "malicious actors with a range of hidden agendas" originating in Russia.

www.theguardian.com/society/2018/aug/23/russian-trolls-spread-vaccine-misinformation-on-twitter

I saw that ConferencePear.