Tag: natural herd immunity

On the Origins of Herd Immunity

When did we start talking about herd immunity?

“Though coined almost a century ago[8], the term “herd immunity” was not widely used until recent decades, its use stimulated by the increasing use of vaccines, discussions of disease eradication, and analyses of the costs and benefits of vaccination programs.”

Fine et al on “Herd Immunity”: A Rough Guide

Paul Fine’s “almost a century ago reference” was by William Whiteman Carlton Topley and Sir Graham Selby Wilson, The Spread of Bacterial Infection. The Problem of Herd-Immunity, published in 1923.

It has long been thought that Topley and Wilson first used the term herd immunity back in 1923.

An article in Lancet, Some Fundamental Factors Concerned in the Spread of Infectious Disease, published in 1924 does give Topley and Wilson credit for coming up with the term.

On the Origins of Herd Immunity

That wasn’t when the term herd immunity was first used though.

There are earlier references.

There is a reference to herd immunity in the Oregon Agricultural College Experiment Station Director’s Report 1918-1920.

An article about natural herd immunity was published in 1921.
They are talking about brucellosis, which is now a vaccine-preventable disease in cattle.

The report, published in 1921, was talking about natural herd immunity.

In an even earlier report of the New York State Veterinary College at Cornell University for the year 1916 to 1917, R.R. Birch used the term when talking about vaccinating pigs against cholera.

This report about herd immunity and vaccines was published in 1918.

His report, Garbage Feeding, and the Care of Garbage Fed Swine, was published in 1918.

“If properly carried out, a large proportion of each infected herd should be saved and become exceptionally valuable on account of the immunity which would be established.”

Melvin et al on The Control of Hog Cholera, With a Discussion of the Results of Field Experiments

A 1917 book, Contagious Abortion of Cattle, also talked about natural herd immunity.

“Thus a herd immunity seems to have developed as the result both of keeping the aborting cows and raising the calves. Therefore it seems safest for a herd owner to raise his own calves and avoid bringing in new infection.”

Adolph Eichhorn and George M. Potter on the Contagious Abortion of Cattle

Are there any earlier uses of the term herd immunity?

Just a year earlier, Adolph Eichhorn and George M. Potter used the term during a presentation at a meeting of the American Veterinary Medical Association in Detroit, Michigan.

“A definite herd immunity seems to have been established. This has an important bearing upon control measures, and is the principle underlying one of our recommendations which will be referred to later. Moreover, the work of the English commission has shown that a serviceable degree of immunity can be induced by the injection of living organisms several weeks before breeding.”

Eichhorn and Potter on The Present Status of the Abortion Question

Still, it is said that Wilson originally got the idea for herd immunity from Major Greenwood, the foremost medical statistician in the UK.

Is this the English Commission that Eichhorn and Potter were talking about?

“Wilson later recalled that he had first heard the phrase “herd immunity” in the course of a conversation with Major Greenwood…”

Paul Fine on Herd Immunity: History, Theory, Practice

When would they have had that conversation?

They were both Fellows of the Royal Society and after World War I, were working quite near each other in London. Major Greenwood was at the Lister Institute and Wilson at Charing Cross Hospital medical school.

It is also possible that Greenwood, Wilson, and Topley could have talked during WWI. Greenwood and Wilson served in the Royal Army Medical Corps and Topley in the British Sanitary Commission. Before the war, both Greenwood and Topley had started working in London around 1910, and may have talked about herd immunity then.

Whoever first coined the term, it is clear that many of the first reports about herd immunity were about vaccine induced herd immunity. And that those that discussed natural herd immunity stressed that it could only work in a closed system.

Unfortunately, we don’t live in a closed system, which is why natural immunity doesn’t really work. As new babies are born without immunity and their maternal immunity wears off and people visit from outside the community who may reintroduce disease, you will get outbreaks. At least you will unless everyone is vaccinated and protected and until you eradicate the disease.

More on Herd Immunity

Which Part of the Herd Gets Protected by Community Immunity?

You are a part of the herd.

“I don’t care that you call people a herd. And I don’t care that some people consider themselves to be part of a herd. I am not in a herd. I am not a farm animal.”

Del Bigtree

Of course, we are talking about herd immunity.

Which Part of the Herd Gets Protected by Community Immunity?

What if you aren’t vaccinated and protected?

Del Bigtree is a "free thinking human being," who whether he appreciates it or not, benefits from herd immunity protections.
Del Bigtree is a “free thinking human being,” who whether he appreciates it or not, benefits from herd immunity protections.

Then you are protected by those who are!

“A situation in which a sufficient proportion of a population is immune to an infectious disease (through vaccination and/or prior illness) to make its spread from person to person unlikely. Even individuals not vaccinated (such as newborns and those with chronic illnesses) are offered some protection because the disease has little opportunity to spread within the community.”

CDC Vaccine Glossary of Terms

That’s what herd immunity is all about.

In a community, “the herd” includes those with immunity and those trying/needing to “hide in the herd:”

  • those with natural immunity
  • folks who are vaccinated and protected
  • some people who are too young to be vaccinated or fully vaccinated
  • the people who’s vaccines didn’t work
  • anyone who can’t be vaccinated, because they have a medical contraindication

And it also includes those who are intentionally unvaccinated. The free-riders. Those who could be vaccinated, but simply choose not to, often because they have been scared by things they have heard or read about vaccines.

Baby deer need protection from the adults in the herd, but that doesn't mean that they aren't a part of the herd too.
Baby deer need protection from the adults in the herd, but that doesn’t mean that they aren’t a part of the herd too.

This all makes even more sense when you think about it as community immunity, the term that is more commonly used today.

Don’t want to think that you are in the herd?

That’s OK.

The herd still protects you. At least it does if enough folks in the herd are vaccinated and protected.

More on Community Immunity

Wakefield’s Mutating Measles and Natural Herd Immunity

Andrew Wakefield is back and warning folks about “mutant measles” and our loss of natural herd immunity.

Andrew Wakefield and Del Bigtree talk about mutating measles and natural herd immunity.

Of course, that isn’t what is causing our record breaking measles outbreaks.

Natural Herd Immunity

Why is he talking about measles this time, besides a new propaganda film he is already pushing?

“We are in a time now when obviously anti-vaxxers are getting blamed for these measles outbreaks here in this country – the biggest measles outbreak since they declared measles to be eradicated from America. But what you had to say was really interesting. First, the only deaths I’ve seen really specifically have been the stewardess in Israel. We hear about she died. She got the measles but she was vaccinated. There was a child, a young man in Europe. He died after having measles. He was vaccinated… What’s happening? Why is the news not talking about how these were vaccinated individuals? What’s happening with measles?”

Del Bigtree on WAKEFIELD’S WARNING: “MEASLES IS MUTATING”

He is looking to play the blame game. Measles cases are on the rise and while they aren’t all due to vaccine hesitancy, many are. And that has left anti-vaccine folks looking to shift the blame elsewhere.

And with cases on the rise, we are also seeing measles deaths on the rise. Which has to make you think, has Del Bigtree really only heard of two measles deaths? After all, there have been over a hundred in Europe, including eight measles deaths in Italy alone.

“I guess the question comes down to that poor air stewardess. Did she die because she was vaccinated? That’s a really big question.”

Andrew Wakefield on WAKEFIELD’S WARNING: “MEASLES IS MUTATING”

Is that really even a question?

A 43-year-old mother of three, died four months after getting measles while working as a flight attendant for El Al, getting exposed on a flight from New York and Israel.

She died because someone exposed her to measles, a life-threatening disease.

“It really is a question of who is to blame, who’s really to blame for the resurgence of measles around the world. Is it those they label anti-vaxxers or is it in fact those responsible for vaccination?”

Andrew Wakefield on WAKEFIELD’S WARNING: “MEASLES IS MUTATING”

Hmm, who’s to blame for the outbreaks. Anti-vaxxers or those vaccinating and protecting folks…

Guess who Wakefield is blaming?

“I’ve been studying measles since 1990. It’s something I know something about. As I got into it… I suddenly realized what the problem was and I also realized that they, on the other side, the vaccinologists, the industry, the smart ones, know it. And it’s their greatest fear.”

Andrew Wakefield on WAKEFIELD’S WARNING: “MEASLES IS MUTATING”

So what did Wakefield figure out?

This is the consequence of better hygiene, sanitation, and nutrition in the first part of the century and vaccines later on.
This is the consequence of better hygiene, sanitation, and nutrition in the first part of the century and vaccines later on.

He talks about natural herd immunity, shows mortality graphs, and goes on about how measles is most serious in those under one and adults, but is a “trivial disease” in children.

“Nature has constrained the age of exposure to the majority of people getting measles when they are children, because that’s when they can get it safely.”

Andrew Wakefield on WAKEFIELD’S WARNING: “MEASLES IS MUTATING”

So by vaccinating people, he argues that we have interrupted the protection you get from natural infections. Adults don’t have lifetime immunity from their childhood infections and infants don’t have the passive immunity they get from their mothers, protecting them when they are most at risk.

He goes so far as to say that measles deaths would have “declined to zero” if we had never vaccinated!

What’s the problem with his theory?

Typical mortality graphs that anti-vax folks use don't tell the whole story...
Typical mortality graphs that anti-vax folks use don’t tell the whole story…

Well, for one thing, why didn’t natural herd immunity protect folks from dying with measles in the early 1900s? Or in the 1950s, when we still had 400 deaths a year in the United States?

Why didn’t natural herd immunity get rid of smallpox or any other disease?

And if we go back to the pre-vaccine era, when everyone got measles, what happens to all those with immune system problems who will almost certainly die if they get exposed to measles? These are the people who rely on herd immunity now, but they will be at big risk in this natural herd immunity model, because it means that millions of kids get measles every year.

Give Another Dose…

What do Wakefield and Del think that our answer will be to the measles outbreaks?

“The only answer they have is to give another dose, and give another dose, and give another dose.”

Andrew Wakefield on WAKEFIELD’S WARNING: “MEASLES IS MUTATING”

Of course, there are no calls to give “one more in college” and “two more MMR in adulthood” for measles protection as Del Bigtree claims.

In fact, two doses are very effective protection against measles.

“We report a screen of plasma donors confirming that widespread use of childhood measles vaccination since 1963 resulted in a decrease in average measles virus antibody titers among plasma donors, which is reflected in intravenous immunoglobulins (IVIGs).”

Modrof et al on Measles Virus Neutralizing Antibodies in Intravenous Immunoglobulins: Is an Increase by Revaccination of Plasma Donors Possible?

And no, the paper Wakefield talked about doesn’t prove that the MMR vaccine doesn’t work.

“With the success of the measles vaccination program and the ongoing World Health Organization efforts to eliminate and ultimately eradicate measles worldwide, a replacement of the measles virus antibody titer as a functional potency requirement for IVIG seems inevitable in the long term.”

Modrof et al on Measles Virus Neutralizing Antibodies in Intravenous Immunoglobulins: Is an Increase by Revaccination of Plasma Donors Possible?

The article actually talks about how successful the MMR vaccine is and just says that folks who are vaccinated don’t get the extra high levels of antibodies needed to make IVIG, which is used to treat people who are exposed to measles.

That doesn’t mean their vaccine didn’t work though. Many studies have demonstrated an amnestic response after measles vaccination, meaning that antibodies levels rise with any exposure to wild measles virus.

Mutating Measles

Little that Andrew Wakefield or Del Bigtree say in their video on mutating measles is true.

When he finally gets to actually talking about mutating measles, it is about a paper describing a new D4 subgenotype of measles.

Most measles outbreaks are now caused by B3 and D8 measles strains.
Most measles outbreaks are now caused by B3 and D8 measles strains.

A strain for which antigenic shift might have led to resistance to vaccine induced protection, but fortunately, one that is rarely found.

And it isn’t what’s causing our measles outbreaks.

Remember, most people who get measles are unvaccinated.

“It’s that certainty that makes them so dangerous.”

Andrew Wakefield on WAKEFIELD’S WARNING: “MEASLES IS MUTATING”

Why is Wakefield so certain he is right?

“This is why, when that air hostess, got her vaccine, which she was probably promised, her mother was promised that it would give her protection for life, and it didn’t. She was susceptible again as an adult when it was more serious. So measles vaccination had made what was increasingly a trivial disease in children a much, much more dangerous disease. So who’s responsible for the resurgence of measles? Who’s responsible for the death of that girl?

Andrew Wakefield on WAKEFIELD’S WARNING: “MEASLES IS MUTATING”

Who does he blame for bringing measles back?

Wakefield blames the vaccinologists…

Who's really to blame for low immunization rates and continuing outbreaks?
Who’s really to blame for low immunization rates and continuing outbreaks?

How many people still blame Wakefield?

“So the adult population of this country is completely unprotected from measles virus unless you have had a natural infection. Boosting it with vaccination is not going to make any difference and that is an incredibly worrying situation.”

Andrew Wakefield on WAKEFIELD’S WARNING: “MEASLES IS MUTATING”

Just remember, the measles vaccine is very effective, especially when you get two doses. Most of the people who are getting measles are unvaccinated, either intentionally or because of lack of access.

And measles is hardly a trivial disease.

Neither is listening to this kind of anti-vaccine propaganda.

More on Mutating Measles and Natural Herd Immunity