Tag: natural immunity

Complications of Vaccine-Preventable Diseases

We know that vaccine-preventable diseases can be life-threatening.

In the pre-vaccine era, when these diseases were much more common, way too many people died, but still, most people did recover.

They didn’t always survive without complications though.

Tragically, we are starting to see more of these complications as more kids are now getting some of these vaccine-preventable diseases again.

Complications of Vaccine-Preventable Diseases

That we can prevent these serious complications is another benefit of getting vaccinated!

How serious?

Have you ever seen someone who has survived a meningococcal infection?

Do they always have all of their arms and legs?

How about their fingers and toes?

"Baby" Charlotte survived her battle with meningococcemia and continues to take on new challenges! — “Baby” Charlotte survived her battle with meningococcemia and continues to take on new challenges!

There is a reason that we say that you have to earn your natural immunity. You have to survive these diseases to get it. And you want to survive without any long-term complications, which can include:

chicken pox – shingles, secondary bacterial infections, pneumonia, meningitis, encephalitis, seizures, transverse myelitis, Reye syndrome, neonatal varicella, congenital varicella syndrome
congenital rubella syndrome – neonatal death, heart problems, deafness, cataracts, intellectual disability, liver and spleen damage, glaucoma, thyroid problems
diphtheria – myocarditis, heart failure, nerve damage, muscle paralysis
Haemophilus influenzae type b – meningitis, epiglottitis, pneumonia, osteomyelitis, cellulitis, hearing loss, brain damage, loss of limbs
hepatitis A – can rarely lead to liver failure
hepatitis B – chronic hepatitis B, cirrhosis, liver failure, liver cancer
HPV – genital warts, cancer
influenza – parotitis, pneumonia, myocarditis, encephalitis, myositis, rhabdomyolysis, multi-organ failure
measles –pneumonia, seizures, encephalitis, SSPE
mumps – orchitis (inflammation of the testicles), oophoritis (inflammation of the ovaries), pancreatitis, meningitis, encephalitis
pneumococcal disease – pneumonia, mastoiditis, meningitis, bacteremia, sepsis, empyema, pericarditis, hearing loss, brain damage
pertussis – pneumonia, seizures, apnea, encephalopathy, rib fractures
polio – meningitis, paralysis, post-polio syndrome
rabies – it is very rare to survive a rabies infection without treatment
rotavirus – dehydration, intussusception
rubella – arthritis, congenital rubella syndrome
shingles – postherpetic neuralgia, pneumonia, hearing problems, blindness, encephalitis
tetanus – seizures, laryngospasm, fractures, pulmonary embolism, aspiration pneumonia
typhoid fever – intestinal perforation, internal bleeding, peritonitis, hepatitis, osteomyelitis, arthritis, meningitis, myocarditis,
yellow fever – pneumonia, parotitis, sepsis

Anti-vaccine folks rarely talk about the complications of vaccine-preventable diseases. For that matter, they also often push the idea that vaccines don’t even work and that these diseases aren’t even vaccine preventable, don’t they?

Don’t believe them. Vaccines work and they are safe and necessary, especially if you want to avoid these diseases.

Do You Know What Vaccine-Preventable Diseases Look Like?

Odds are that you have never seen anyone with smallpox, but what about measles or mumps?

No?

Have you ever even seen someone with chicken pox?

Photos of Vaccine-Preventable Disease

Maybe if more folks knew what typical vaccine-preventable diseases looked like, then they wouldn’t be so quick to think about skipping or delaying their kids vaccines.

And they certainly wouldn’t think that these are mild diseases that they wanted their kids to get, thinking natural immunity would be better than the immunity that they could more easily and safely get from a vaccine.

Severe dehydration in a child with a rotavirus infection.	Kids with diphtheria develop a bull neck and a thick pseudomembrane that covers their throat. Photo by the Japanese Society of Tropical Medicine
Can an unvaccinated child really get tetanus after a toe nail injury? Photo by Petrus Rudolf de Jong (CC BY 3.0)	Newborns and infants have the highest rates of death from pertussis or whooping cough.
An infant with measles during the 2014 outbreaks in the Philippines. Photo by Jim Goodson, M.P.H.	Mumps causes kids to have fever, puffy cheeks, and a painful, swollen jaw.
A baby with a congenital cataract and blueberry muffin rash – classic signs of congenital rubella syndrome. (CC BY-NC-SA)	In addition to respiratory problems (think iron lungs), polio causes muscle atrophy. (CC BY-NC 4.0)
This 2016 hepatitis A outbreak linked to frozen strawberries led to 143 cases and 56 hospitalizations.	Chronic hepatitis B is a silent killer.
A papilloma caused by HPV on the vocal cords of a child with recurrent respiratory papillomatosis. (CC BY 4.0)	Even if they survive, kids can lose fingers, toes, or even arms and legs to meningococcal disease.
In addition to pneumonia and meningitis, the Hib bacteria can cause epiglottitis, making it very difficult to breath. Seen here are the ‘thumb sign’ on X-ray and the cherry red epiglottis.	Before wide use of the pneumococcal vaccines, infants with fever would routinely a get spinal tap to make sure that they didn’t have bacterial meningitis.
If a mother get chicken pox late in her pregnancy, then her baby will be exposed before he is born and will develop chicken pox, often severe, in his first week of life. (CC by 3.0)	Although rare, even infants can develop shingles, most commonly if their mothers had a chicken pox infection while pregnant. (CC by 3.0)
Animals acting strangely may have rabies. Photo by Radu Privantu (CC BY 2.0)	As in most years, flu deaths in children mostly occurred in kids who weren’t vaccinated.
Two kids with smallpox – one vaccinated and one unvaccinated. Can you guess which is which?	Surprisingly, treatments haven’t changed much since this photo was taken of a patient with yellow fever in 1898.
Mary Mallon (Typhoid Mary) was quarantined because she continued to work as a cook, spreading Salmonella Typhi bacteria to other people.	Japanese encephalitis is spread by mosquito bites.

I know what some of you are thinking. And no, just because these vaccine-preventable diseases aren’t as common as they used to be doesn’t mean that any of these vaccines aren’t necessary.

Why not?

We don’t see them as much as we did in the pre-vaccine era simply because these vaccines work!

“I also warn them not to share their fears with their neighbors, because if too many people avoid the MMR, we’ll likely see the diseases increase significantly.”

Dr. Bob Sears in The Vaccine Book

We all know what happens if we stop vaccinating.

And it is not just that we get a few updated photos of kids with measles, mumps, diphtheria, and other vaccine-preventable diseases…

Is Meningitis a Side Effect of Vaccines?

Most folks know that there are several meningitis vaccines.

Hib, Prevnar, MMR, and the meningococcal vaccines, for example, all protect folks against meningitis.

Is Meningitis a Side Effect of Vaccines?

So why would some people think that vaccines could actually cause meningitis?

Is meningitis listed on the package insert of any vaccines?

Meningitis is listed as a possible adverse event in the package insert of some vaccines, but only in the section that includes spontaneously reported data from post-marketing experience, where it “may not be possible to reliably estimate their frequency or establish a causal relationship to vaccine exposure.”

It is just like when folks find autism or SIDS in a vaccine’s package insert and think that it is evidence that vaccines are associated with autism or SIDS.

SIDS and autism are listed in Tripedia package insert, but are not causally linked to the vaccine.

It isn’t.

These adverse reactions are listed “because of the seriousness OR frequency of reporting.” They are not included because they are serious AND frequent, as some anti-vaccine sites like to proclaim.

How Could a Vaccine Cause Meningitis?

When you think about it, how could a vaccine actually cause someone to develop meningitis?

Why would you even think this is true?

Meningitis is typically caused by a virus, bacteria, parasite, or fungus, etc.

While a live virus vaccine might rarely be able to cause an infection, few of the meningitis vaccines are live virus vaccines. Prevnar, Hib and the meningococcal vaccines are all sub-unit vaccines. Since only a part of bacteria (antigens) is actually present in the vaccine, it is not possible for them to cause an infection.

What about the live virus vaccines, like MMR, chicken pox, and rotavirus?

Since these viral infections rarely cause meningitis, except for mumps, you wouldn’t expect the rare vaccine induced infection to cause meningitis either. A natural measles infection, for example, is more likely to cause encephalitis instead.

“…there is no evidence to link Jeryl Lynn mumps vaccine to aseptic meningitis.”

MMR Package Insert

What about the chicken pox vaccine? There is a case report of a vaccinated child who later developed shingles and meningitis, caused by vaccine strain chicken pox virus. He recovered fully and it is important to note that folks with natural chicken pox are thought to be even more likely to develop shingles, and they too can develop meningitis.

The bottom line is that if someone has meningitis, even if they were recently vaccinated, you shouldn’t be blaming the vaccines.

Like they do with VAERS reports, misusing package inserts is a common method that anti-vaccine folks use to scare parents away from vaccinating and protecting their kids.

What to Know About Meningitis and Vaccine Package Inserts

Although included in some vaccine package inserts, except for rare circumstances with some live virus vaccines, none actually claim that vaccines cause meningitis.

Are You Too Scared to Vaccinate Your Kids?

These days, if a parent suggests to their pediatrician that they might want to skip or delay their child’s vaccines, it is typically not because they are afraid of any association with autism, or because they have been influenced by Jenny McCarthy or Andrew Wakefield, or even because they have done a lot of research.

It is mostly because they are scared.

Are You Too Scared to Vaccinate Your Kids?

What are they scared of specifically?

“In today’s world, smallpox has been eradicated due to a successful vaccination program and vaccines have effectively controlled many other significant causes of morbidity and mortality. Consequently, fear has shifted from many vaccine-preventable diseases to fear of the vaccines.”

Marian Siddiqui et al on the Epidemiology of vaccine hesitancy in the United States

Surprisingly, there often isn’t anything specific that they are scared of. That’s unfortunate, as it makes it harder to offer reassurance when they don’t have specific questions or concerns.

Still, something is scaring these parents, sometimes to the point that they have panic attacks if they even think about vaccinating their kids.

“…many parents are inundated with horror stories of vaccine dangers, all designed to eat away at them emotionally while the medical and scientific communities have mounted their characteristic response by sharing the facts, the data, and all of the reliable peer-reviewed and well-cited research to show that vaccines are safe and effective.”

Federman on Understanding Vaccines: A Public Imperative

What has them so scared?

Could it be:

the vaccine scare stories from the media that they might still see and hear on TV, in magazines, or on the internet?
the anecdotal vaccine injury stories that are rarely verified as being true?
the myths and propaganda about sudden deaths, toxins, hidden ingredients, Big Pharma bonuses, a generation of sick kids, and package inserts, etc., that fool parents into thinking they are making an informed choice to skip or delay their child’s vaccines?

Whatever it is, it builds up to the point to where these parents fear the risks of vaccines more than they fear the risks and complications of vaccine-preventable diseases.

As more people are vaccinated and diseases disappear, they forget how bad those diseases are, skip or delay getting their vaccines, and trigger outbreaks. Photo by WHO

That’s not surprising.

After all, why fear polio, measles, diphtheria, or tetanus, etc., if you have never had or known anyone that has had one of these now vaccine-preventable diseases? Why fear them, if you have never known anyone who has died with one of these now vaccine-preventable diseases?

And why trust that you should vaccinate your kids when you are likely inundated with messages about vaccines being poison, a Big Pharma conspiracy, or that you can just heal your child with some garlic and essential oils if they get sick?

Reducing Anxiety from Vaccinations

Have any ideas on how to get over your anxiety about vaccinations?

To start, learn that vaccines are safe, necessary, and they work to protect your kids and that all of the messages you are hearing about vaccines that have been scaring you aren’t true. You have probably already realized that on some level, but there are cognitive biases, heuristics, and logical fallacies that work together to change our perception of risk, keep us believing things aren’t true, and in this case, can keep you from vaccinating and protecting your kids.

It can also help to learn to think critically and be more skeptical about the things you see and read about vaccines, especially if you aren’t sure about the source of the information.

“The Internet has been identified as an important source for parents to seek and share vaccine information. There are concerns that parental fears or hesitancy on childhood immunizations are increasing due to the popularity of social media and exposure to online antivaccination sentiment.”

Tustin et al on Internet Exposure Associated With Canadian Parents’ Perception of Risk on Childhood Immunization: Cross-Sectional Study

Don’t let a small, yet vocal anti-vaccine minority scare you into a poor decision about your child’s vaccines.

What to Know About Being Too Scared to Vaccinate Your Kids

Parents who are inundated with anti-vaccine messages and misinformation sometimes get too scared to vaccinate their kids, fearing vaccines more than they fear the diseases they prevent.

Why Did France Take the Rotavirus Vaccine off Their Schedule?

Have you heard that France took the rotavirus vaccine off their immunization schedule?

Why?

It was supposedly because two babies died of intussusception after being vaccinated.

Rotavirus Vaccines and Intussusception

Intussusception? Wasn’t that just a risk from RotaShield, the original rotavirus vaccine?

While the risk was higher with RotaShield, the current rotavirus vaccines do have a small risk of intussusception.

france-immunization-schedule — The French immunization schedule is published in the Bulletin épidémiologique hebdomadaire and has never included the rotavirus vaccine.

So did France take the rotavirus vaccine off of their schedule?

Technically, France hadn’t yet added the rotavirus vaccine to their schedule, but it had been available since 2006 and they did formally recommend infants get vaccinated beginning in November 2013.

That recommendation was suspended in April 2015, after they recorded 47 cases of intussusception over an 8 year period. This included 14 cases that required surgery and tragically, two deaths, including one child who died at home without getting any medical care. The other developed intussusception after the third dose of vaccine, which is not usually linked to any increased risk.

It is important to note that at least 80 other countries, including the United States, Finland, Germany, Norway, and the UK, haven’t stopped using the rotavirus vaccine.

Why not?

Because the risks of a natural rotavirus infection are much greater than the risk of intussusception. In other words, the benefits of the vaccine exceed its risks.

In France alone, for example, it is estimated that rotavirus vaccines could prevent 30,000 emergency room visits, 14,000 hospitalizations, and 8 to 17 deaths each year, all in children under the age of three years.

And even without the rotavirus vaccine, there are about 200 to 250 spontaneous intussusceptions each year in France. Fortunately, infants with intussusception can almost always be successfully treated, often without surgery.

Why Did France Take the Rotavirus Vaccine off Their Schedule?

It actually makes no sense that France stopped recommending that infants get vaccinated with one of the rotavirus vaccines.

The decision was widely condemned and there are calls to reassess the decision and put the rotavirus vaccine back on the schedule in France.

“After the surprising decision of the CTV-HCSP of April 2015 to suspend its own recommendation for widespread vaccination against Rotavirus (following a false and misleading pharmacovigilance report) against the international recommendations, we advise you to read the meta-analysis on efficacy (in comparative studies) and the effectiveness (field efficacy) of these vaccines.”

InfoVac Bulletin Novembre 11/2016

The benefits of the rotavirus vaccines far outweigh its risks.

“The estimated benefits of vaccination in our study greatly exceed the estimated risks and our results should contribute to provide further evidence for discussions around rotavirus vaccination in France.”

Larmrani et al A benefit–risk analysis of rotavirus vaccination, France, 2015

Why did France take the rotavirus vaccines off their schedule?

News of the Newark kids going to Paris to get Pasteur's rabies vaccine made the front page of the New York Times. — In 1885, four boys from New Jersey went all of the way to France to get Pasteur’s new rabies vaccine, which wasn’t yet available in the US.

That’s a good question.

Another good question? How many infants have died of rotavirus infections since they did? And when will they put the vaccine back on the schedule? Fortunately, the rotavirus vaccines are still available in France, they weren’t banned as some folks say.

Of course, this isn’t the first time that France impulsively suspended a vaccine.

In 1998, France suspended the routine vaccination of teens against hepatitis B because of the possible association of the vaccine with multiple sclerosis. This was done amid “pressure from anti-vaccine groups and reports in the French media have raised concerns about a link between HBV immunisation and new cases or relapses of MS and other demyelinating diseases,” even though “scientific data available do not support a causal association between HBV immunisation and central nervous system diseases, including MS.”

“In 1998, official concerns were first voiced over a possible association between hepatitis B virus (HBV) vaccination and multiple sclerosis (MS). Despite a number of studies that have demonstrated no such association, ten years on the French population’s confidence in the vaccine remains shaken and immunization rates of infants have stagnated beneath 30%. With a chronic carriage of the virus estimated at 0.68%, it seems unlikely that France will be able to control the circulation of the virus. ”

Marta Balinska on Hepatitis B vaccination and French Society ten years after the suspension of the vaccination campaign: how should we raise infant immunization coverage rates?

Do you know where all of this has left France now?

With high rates of vaccine-preventable disease (15,000 cases of measles in 2011, with 16 cases of encephalitis and 6 deaths) and a move towards vaccine mandates. As of January 2018, all infants and toddlers in France must receive DTaP, Hib, HepB, pneumococcal, MMR, and meningococcal C vaccines.

What to Know About France Taking the Rotavirus Vaccine off Their Schedule

In no longer recommending the rotavirus vaccines, officials in France actually put infants at greater risk for sickness and death.

More on France Taking the Rotavirus Vaccine off Their Schedule

How to Avoid a Quarantine During an Outbreak at Your School

Believe it or not, hundreds of kids get caught up in quarantines for vaccine-preventable diseases in the United States each year.

Quarantines were routine in the pre-vaccine era. — Quarantines were routine during pre-vaccine era epidemics.

Wait, what?

Caught up in quarantines for vaccine-preventable diseases?

Then why do we have vaccines?

How to Avoid a Quarantine During an Outbreak at Your School

Is it fair that unvaccinated students need to stay home when there is an outbreak of a vaccine-preventable disease?

As you have probably already guessed, these aren’t usually vaccinated kids that are getting sick or quarantined in these outbreaks of measles, meningococcemia, and chicken pox, etc.

That’s right, they are unvaccinated.

Typically intentionally unvaccinated, although they are sometimes too young to be vaccinated or may have a medical exemption.

And that brings up to a few very easy ways to avoid getting quarantined during an outbreak:

make sure you are always up-to-date on all of your vaccines
if you think that you have natural immunity (already had the disease) or were vaccinated, but don’t have your immunization records, then getting a titer test might keep you out of quarantine if you can prove that you are immune
get vaccinated, if possible, at the first sign of the outbreak, which might help you avoid quarantine in the case of measles and chicken pox

“Persons who continue to be exempted from or who refuse measles vaccination should be excluded from the school, child care, or other institutions until 21 days after rash onset in the last case of measles.”

Manual for the Surveillance of Vaccine-Preventable Diseases

That’s right, especially in the case of measles, you can often avoid being quarantined if you simply get vaccinated.

Unvaccinated children exposed to measles are quarantined for at least 21 days. — Unvaccinated children exposed to measles are typically quarantined for at least 21 days.

Why are quarantines important?

Can’t you just isolate yourself if you get sick?

The problem with that strategy is that you are often contagious before you develop symptoms. That’s especially true of measles, when you likely won’t even realize that you have measles until you get the measles rash, after having a high fever for three to five days. That’s why people with measles are often seen at clinics and emergency rooms multiple times, exposing many people, before they are finally diagnosed. It is the classic signs of a rash with continued fever that helps to make the diagnosis.

Without quarantines of unvaccinated people, especially those who are known exposures to other cases, today’s outbreaks would be even bigger and harder to control.

If you don’t want to take the risk of being quarantined and missing weeks or months of school or work, then don’t take the risk of being unvaccinated. Tragically, that’s not the only risk you take when you skip or delay your vaccines. In addition to getting sick, you also risk getting others sick, including those who didn’t have a choice about getting vaccinated yet.

What to Know About Avoiding Quarantines During an Outbreak

The easiest way to avoid getting caught up in a quarantine for a vaccine-preventable disease is to simply make sure your kids are up-to-date on all of their vaccines.

I Refuse to Listen to Bad Advice About Flu Shots, and I Won’t Apologize for It

The only thing that seems to be more rampant than the flu this season are the articles pushing people to skip a flu shot.

POPSUGAR moms will hopefully go somewhere else for advice about flu shots.

They. Are. Everywhere.

I Refuse to Listen to Bad Advice About Flu Shots

Why are we seeing so many folks attacking flu shots lately?

It’s simple. A bad flu season reminds people that they should get vaccinated and protected. We see the same thing when there are outbreaks of measles, mumps, and pertussis, etc.

And then those folks who are truly anti-vaccine have to come out and justify why they still don’t believe in vaccines.

That leaves us with arguments like this:

“Whenever I start to get worried that I’ll end up with the flu if I don’t get the shot, I remember that it isn’t always effective.”

Jen Glantz on Do You Need To Get A Flu Shot?

It is true that the flu shot is not always effective, but if you are only going to use things that are 100% effective, then why would you take “lots of vitamins and natural supplements” when you have the flu, things that have been shown to be ineffective?

“Side effects can include soreness around the injection side, a low-grade fever for a few days, and muscle aches. Now, I know that this may seem like a small price to pay to avoid getting the full-blown flu, but if I can avoid any sickness at all, why not try?”

Jen Glantz on Do You Need To Get A Flu Shot?

Uh, if you want to try and avoid any sickness, why not get a flu shot? Even when it isn’t as effective as we would like, a flu shot can help reduce your chance of hospitalization, serious flu complications, and of dying with the flu.

“Have you ever taken a step back and learned more about what the heck is actually inside the flu shot? ”

Jen Glantz on Do You Need To Get A Flu Shot?

I know exactly what’s in the flu shot.

Does anyone at POPSUGAR?

Got something you want published online? Head over to POPSUGAR... — Got something you want published online? Head over to POPSUGAR…

Even with a disclaimer from an Editor, POPSUGAR should be ashamed of themselves for publishing an article that says the flu shot is filled with toxins. In addition to an ingredients list, the CDC explains that “all ingredients either help make the vaccine, or ensure the vaccine is safe and effective.”

Flu shot ingredients are not toxins!

“Instead of injecting myself with toxins, I do things like practice good hygiene, take lots of vitamins and natural supplements, and rely on my body and it’s strength to fight off any unwanted bacteria. The human body is an incredible thing, and I trust it. I also like it to ride out things naturally.”

Jen Glantz on Do You Need To Get A Flu Shot?

The flu is a virus, not a bacteria, but I get the point that the author is attempting to make. The thing is though, that while the human body is certainly incredible, relying on it to get you over the flu is not always an easy ride. We often have to pay a high price for natural immunity.

And the people who die with the flu don’t die because of poor hygiene or because they don’t take enough vitamins and supplements. They die because they have the flu. And more often than not, especially in the case of children, because they are unvaccinated.

“For some people, getting the flu shot is at the very top of their to-do list, but for me, it’s something I refuse to do. And that’s OK too.”

Jen Glantz on Do You Need To Get A Flu Shot?

It is certainly OK that Jen Glantz doesn’t get a flu shot each year. At least it is OK as long as she doesn’t get the flu and give it to someone else.

It is not OK that POPSUGAR gives her a voice on such an important topic. Don’t listen to them.

It’s not as big a deal when she writes about the “importance” of drinking both hot and cold water each day, drinking apple cider vinegar for bloating, the best baby names of the year, or how to pee when wearing a wedding dress. That’s the kind of clickbait type content you expect from a POPSUGAR type site.

But scaring people and making them think that there are toxins in flu shots?

Save it for GOOP.

What to Know About Bad Flu Shot Advice

This year’s bad flu season wasn’t limited to folks getting sick… There was also a lot of bad flu shot advice going around.

VAXOPEDIA

Complications of Vaccine-Preventable Diseases

Complications of Vaccine-Preventable Diseases

More on Complications of Vaccine-Preventable Diseases