It’s becoming a little clearer why some folks think it is safe to not vaccinate their kids, leaving them at risk to get vaccine-preventable diseases.
Their idea of a natural immunity model of getting disease simply involves hiding in the herd and any outbreaks they trigger magically stopping.
What is the Natural Immunity Model?
Bob Sears thinks he has exposed some big news, that not everyone who gets measles dies.
Fortunately, that’s very true and something folks have always known.
With a death rate of about 1 in 1000 cases, you wouldn’t expect to have had any deaths after just 50 or 60 cases. But you never know. It’s not like every 1000th case dies. It could be the second case, the 562nd, or the 3043rd.
The hospitalization rates work the same way. They are statistical averages of what typically happens when people get measles.
That’s why measles was once called a “harmless killer.” It is often harmless, if you call having a high fever and feeling miserable for a week harmless, but it is sometimes a killer.
So is what we are seeing in Washington “what an outbreak looks like with the natural immunity model,” when no one is vaccinated and protected?
Of course not!
In a natural immunity model, up to 90% of the people who are exposed to someone with measles get sick!
In a natural immunity model, everyone gets measles.
Not everyone survives having measles though.
Remember, the last measles death in the United States was during a 2015 outbreak in Washington. A immunocompromised women got caught up in an outbreak of mostly unvaccinated people, got measles, and died.
That’s the natural immunity model.
Not having a choice about getting measles.
That’s the natural immunity model.
Worry about your child with leukemia after an exposure to measles…
That’s the natural immunity model.
“Well, what does this mean? Much like the outbreak in 2014 in a large Amish community (around 400 cases), and the recent NY outbreak in an orthodox Jewish community (around 100 cases), these types of outbreaks are centralized and self-limiting—which means they don’t spread like wildfire. These cases are also almost exclusively in communities who are CHOOSING not to be vaccinated. In other words, they are not random people “victimized” by measles. #dontfeelsorryforthem”
Melissa Floyd
Do anti-vaccine folks really think that these outbreaks are self-limiting? That they just stop on their own?
Do they not understand that the only thing that keeps them from “spreading like wildfire” is the intensive work of the local and state health departments, efforts to get folks vaccinated, and quarantines?
The Disneyland measles outbreak, for example, was hardly centralized or self-limited. It spread to Arizona, Nebraska, Utah, Colorado, Washington, Oregon, Mexico, and Canada.
And like many other large outbreaks, it cost millions of dollars to contain.
“Measles outbreaks can be very costly to communities, a new report suggests. For example, the 2013 measles outbreak in New York City cost the city’s health department nearly $395,000 and more than 10,000 personnel hours, according to a report in JAMA Pediatrics. And there were other non-monetary costs, including the loss of a pregnancy, researchers reported.”
Measles outbreaks come with serious consequences
That hardly sounds like something that is harmless or self-limited.
“Now, the ACIP is preparing to add a 3rd dose for all college-age students to try to stop adults from getting and spreading measles—THAT’S how common adults cases are. Yet in Washington, there were only three??”
Melissa Floyd
Not only is there no call for a third dose of MMR to help stop the spread of measles, the CDC actually says a third dose isn’t necessary.
“In the event that a HCP who has 2 documented doses of MMR vaccine is tested serologically and determined to have negative or equivocal measles titer results, it is not recommended that the person receive an additional dose of MMR vaccine. Such persons should be considered to have presumptive evidence of measles immunity.”
Immunization of Health-Care Personnel: Recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP)
Any talk about a third dose of MMR has to do with outbreaks of mumps…
“Is this all a coincidence my friends? Is the panic generated because of motive rather than data? In other words, could the media actually be encouraged to shift public beliefs on an issue to help pass legislation with a vested interest? #HerdImmunityDoesntApplyToVaccines”
Melissa Floyd
It’s not a coincidence that we are seeing so much anti-vaccine measles panic and propaganda these days. Outbreaks always bring it out.
Why?
It becomes harder to justify your decision to leave your kids unvaccinated and unprotected when you actually start to see that intentionally unvaccinated kids are getting sick.
More on the Natural Immunity Model
- VAXOPEDIA – What to Do If Your Child Is Exposed to Measles
- VAXOPEDIA – Why Are You Still Worried About the MMR Vaccine?
- VAXOPEDIA – Everything You Need to Know About the Measles Vaccine
- VAXOPEDIA – Fact Checking an Anti-Vaccine Measles Outbreak Quiz
- VAXOPEDIA – More Measles Myths
- VAXOPEDIA – Remembering When Everyone Had Measles
- VAXOPEDIA – The Myth That Measles Isn’t Deadly
- VAXOPEDIA – Why Are We Having Measles Outbreaks If MMR Vaccination Rates Are Not Declining?
- VAXOPEDIA – Dr. Bob Puts the Nail in the Coffin of the Herd Immunity Argument
- VAXOPEDIA – Vaccinated vs Unvaccinated – Measles Outbreak Edition
- VAXOPEDIA – Is a Vaccine Strain Causing The Latest Measles Outbreak?
- VAXOPEDIA – Why Are Anti-Vaccine Folks Panicking over the Measles Outbreaks?
- VAXOPEDIA – What Are Anti-Vaccine Folks Saying About the Measles Outbreaks?
- VAXOPEDIA – Fact Checking Sharyl Attkisson on the Measles Outbreaks
- VAXOPEDIA – More Measles Hysteria From Bob Sears
- VAXOPEDIA – Anti-Vaccine Points Refuted A Thousand Times
- VAXOPEDIA – The Pacific Northwest Measles Outbreak of 2019
- Gilbert pediatrician speaks out after kids’ measles exposure
- MMWR – Immunization of Health-Care Personnel: Recommendations of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP)
- Measles Outbreak in Dollars and Cents: It Costs Taxpayers Bigtime
- Study – Public Health Consequences of a 2013 Measles Outbreak in New York City
- Measles outbreaks come with serious consequences
- Father at centre of measles outbreak didn’t vaccinate children due to autism fears
- Mom furious at ‘reckless’ anti-vax parents after baby’s possible measles exposure in hospital
Last Updated on February 19, 2019