I make it a point to update this blog with the most current CDC analysis of vaccine uptake in the USA for kindergarten children (usually around 5 years old). Generally, the numbers have stayed stable, at around 95% vaccinated, although there is high variance from state to state, and locality to locality. The weakness in the vaccination uptake in the USA is that some areas may approach 100% vaccinated, but then other areas may be 50%, which makes those areas with low vaccine uptake susceptible to a quick spread of diseases that are not endemic to the USA (such as measles, polio, and others) through that unvaccinated population.
Given the 95% vaccine uptake rate, it begs the questions of why I push so hard for vaccination–because I want to protect the lives of children, and those 5% who aren’t vaccinated are at risk of serious disease and even death. And vaccines are the safest way to protect a child–protect them from death.
Nearly 55% of the readers of this blog are not American (a couple of years ago,this blog got a regular reader from Iran, which meant that all countries were represented amongst this blog’s readers). I have been accused of being a bit American-centric, but at the same time, I was also curious about vaccine uptake worldwide. Continue reading “Worldwide vaccine uptake-2014”
One of the important hypotheses of vaccination is to make sure that all family members or others who may encounter a newborn child be vaccinated, especially since many vaccinations are not indicated for infants for a couple of months after birth–those newborns are very susceptible to vaccine preventable diseases until they themselves are vaccinated with the DTaP vaccine (which also protects against tetanus and diphtheria).
This protective “cocoon,” especially important with whooping cough (Bordetella pertussis), theoretically blocks the transmission of the disease to a newborn by creating a protective circle of vaccinated individuals around the newborn. A teenage sibling could catch the disease and accidentally infect the infant. Pertussis is bad enough for a teenager, but it can be deadly to a baby.
Whooping cough can be easily prevented by the DTaP or Tdap vaccines (which also protect against tetanus and diphtheria), which can be given to infants as early as 6 weeks to 2 months old.
According to the CDPH, infants who are too young to be fully immunized or those who are not vaccinated are most vulnerable to severe and fatal cases of pertussis. In 2014, 66 of the pertussis hospitalizations cases were children four months of age or younger. Two infants have died of pertussis in California this year.
Of the 2,649 cases so far this year, 83% have occurred in infants and children younger than 18 years of age. Of these children, 8% were younger than 6 months old, and 70% were 7 through 16 years of age. In other words, all children are susceptible to the disease.
Sonoma County–83.28 (incidence rate per 100,000 residents)
Napa County–42.42
Marin County–38.30
Tehama County–37.83
Trinity County–22.32
Humboldt County–19.29
City of Berkeley–18.24
For those of you who do not live in California, these are some of the wealthiest, most educated counties in the country, let alone California. Marin County is one of the whitest, wealthiest (a median income over US$113,000), best educated, and most liberal (nearly 75% of the county voted for Barack Obama). Sonoma, Napa, Trinity, Humboldt and Tehama counties, along with the City of Berkeley, are very similar in socioeconomic makeup.
These constitute probably the largest pockets of vaccine denialism, which is demonstrated by the unusually high incidence of pertussis versus the statewide incidence rate of the disease of 6.93. This provides me, at least, with additional evidence that liberals can be as anti-science as right wing fools. Vaccines are safe. Vaccines prevent diseases like pertussis which can kill children. I’m not sure why the parents in these areas miss these basic points, But these pockets of hostility towards vaccines will be ground zero for any future epidemic in other diseases like measles or chickenpox.
As a reminder, the CDPH makes these recommendations about vaccinating against pertussis:
Pregnant women receive a pertussis vaccine booster during the third trimester of each pregnancy, even if they’ve received it before.
Infants be vaccinated against pertussis as soon as possible. The first dose is recommended at two months of age but can be given as early as 6 weeks of age during pertussis outbreaks. Children need five doses of pertussis vaccine by kindergarten (ages 4-6).
California 7th grade students receive the pertussis vaccine booster as required by state law.
Adults receive a one-time pertussis vaccine booster, especially if they are in contact with infants or if they are health care workers who may have contact with infants or pregnant women.
These two babies would not have died, if they had been vaccinated (along with anyone in close contact) against whooping cough. A simple, effective, extremely safe vaccine. Are parents’ ignorance of scientific facts an excuse for these dead babies? Not in my world, where protecting children from harm should be a primary goal of society.
There antivaccination crowd runs the gamut from truly scary deniers who invent all sorts of lies to try to stop vaccines to people who seem to think that the risk of vaccine adverse events somehow surpasses the risk of the disease itself, mostly because they lack the cultural memory of what it was like in the world pre-vaccines. Vaccines are a critical part of the drop in the infant mortality rate by over 90% since the 1930’s, so we have just forgotten.
A recent study found that delaying the MMR vaccine (for measles, mumps and rubella), in the second year of life, doubled the risk of a seizure occurring after the vaccination. Now seizures are not unusual with vaccination, and are a result of the high fever that some children get after vaccination. But seizures are fairly common in children who haven’t been vaccinated recently. It’s always scary to parents, but they are minor, usually cause no long-term damage, including epilepsy.
The researchers, led by Simon Hambidge, MD PhD, of the Institute for Health Research at Kaiser Permanente Colorado, analyzed data from 323,247 children, born between 2004 and 2008, whose records are in the Vaccine Safety Datalink system, a collaborative effort between CDC’s Immunization Safety Office and 9 managed care organizations (MCOs), that monitors immunization safety and address the gaps in scientific knowledge about rare and serious events following immunization
The researchers located records 5,667 children who had experienced a seizure in their first two years of life and did not have a seizure disorder. The researchers then compared the timing of these children’s seizures to the dates they had received various vaccinations and considered whether the vaccines had been received on time or not, per the CDC’s and ACIP’s recommendations
The analysis revealed that there was no correlation between receiving any vaccine and experiencing seizures for children during their first year of life. However, those children who received the MMR vaccine between 12 and 15 months old, when it’s recommended, were at about 2.6X higher risk of a seizure than an unvaccinated child. That translates to about one seizure for every 4000 children receiving the vaccine. If parents delayed the MMR vaccine until any time between 16 and 23 months, the risk of a seizure was 6.5X greater than when not being vaccinated. In other words, delaying the vaccine 4-8 months more than doubles the risk of seizures.
In general, febrile or acute seizures are not serious, they just seem scary. Most vaccines, such as DTaP (the vaccine for diphtheria, tetanus and whooping cough) actually show no difference in seizures between vaccinated and unvaccinated children. Seizures occur in about 5 out of 100 children sometime during their lives, with 95% of them not serious or symptomatic of other diseases. In other words, the background risk of seizure might actually be higher than the incidence observed in vaccinated children, just in case a reader wants to head down that path.
Thus, if you’re coming up with your own vaccine schedule, you’re increasing the risk of a minor, but kind of scary, adverse event–a febrile seizure. Why would one do that to gain no other benefit? That’s not clear to me.
Hambidge SJ, Newcomer SR, Narwaney KJ, Glanz JM, Daley MF, Xu S, Shoup JA, Rowhani-Rahbar A, Klein NP, Lee GM, Nelson JC, Lugg M, Naleway AL, Nordin JD, Weintraub E, DeStefano F. Timely Versus Delayed Early Childhood Vaccination and Seizures.Pediatrics. 2014 May 19. pii: peds.2013-3429. [Epub ahead of print] PubMed PMID: 24843064.
Here we go again. There have been some articles published in peer-reviewed journals which have caused the antivaccination cult to not only misinterpret the data (shocking), but then broadcasting another lie (more shocking) which could lead to lower vaccinations rates.
Smart baboons searching for the pertussis vaccine.
According to research, some individuals who have been vaccinated against whooping cough (Bordetella pertussis), with either the DTaP or Tdap vaccine (which also protect against tetanus and diphtheria), remain infected with the pertussis bacteria, although they are asymptomatic. This is been morphed into the internet meme that only those who have been vaccinated carry the disease. Or worse yet, that the vaccine causes the asymptomatic infection. Typical of pseudoscience, the vaccine deniers take a little bit of scientific fact, and mutate it into something that meets their own biases.
Except for the evidence that says it’s not a failure.
I know, there are just so many tropes and outright lies pushed by the vaccine deniers, it’s really hard for this writer to keep up with it all. But there’s one that has always bothered me, but I didn’t have quite enough evidence to lustfully debunk in my usual manner.
Over the past few months I have written extensively about several whooping cough (Bordetella pertussis) outbreaks which had reached epidemic levels in areas like the Washington state, and has been considered one of the worst outbreaks in the USA during the past several decades. The outbreak has lead to several deaths here in the USA and in other countries such as the UK. Of course, these outbreaks and epidemics have lead to the “blame game” from the antivaccination gang, because they have claimed that since A) most kids are vaccinated, and B) we’re having this outbreak then C) either the vaccines are useless or are actually the cause of the outbreak. Seriously. They blame the vaccines.
So I decided to search the internet to find the most popular vaccine denialist arguments regarding pertussis vaccinations, and deconstruct and debunk them. Hopefully, it will be a useful tool for you when you’re engaging a ridiculous argument with one of those antivaccinationists. Of course, I could use the information too. Continue reading “Effectiveness of pertussis vaccines–science vs. lies”
Once again, a new study is published in a peer reviewed journal that shows that exemptions to proper and recommended levels of vaccination for children before entering public school are harming the general population. I’ve talked about the issue of exemptions causing outbreaks or epidemics previously in New York, Washington, and other places.
1 or 2 in 100 (1.6%) will have convulsions (violent, uncontrolled shaking)
Two thirds (67%) will have apnea (slowed or stopped breathing)
1 in 300 (0.4%) will have encephalopathy (disease of the brain)
1 or 2 in 100 (1.6%) will die
Even in adults, there are substantial complications, such as broken ribs from coughing, that can have a significant impact on the overall health of the individual.
One of larger concerns with recent outbreaks of pertussis has been that adults with lapsed immunity or unvaccinated older children may pick up the infection, then pass it to these unvaccinated or partially vaccinated infants (usually less than 1 year old).
You must be logged in to post a comment.