I think we can agree to stop arguing about one point. We both agree that exposure to agents develops immunity. The only point of contention might be the degree of immunity conveyed by vaccines as opposed to passive exposure.

Can we also agree that medical history and lifestyle choices such as exercise, recreational drug use (including smoking and drinking), personal hygiene and environmental exposures (such as molding your own bullets or fishing sinkers) can affect immunity?

Giving one example (daughter and roommate) does not make for a good case study as there is no way to verify medical history and other confounding factors (like those mentioned above) that may influence health.

As for polio, per your suggestion, I looked up polio rates. Polio was increasing from the late 1930s into the early 1950s. The rates dropped following widespread vaccination efforts in the mid 1950s until they got to the point where there was a period of 7 years (1998-2005) where there were no reported cases of polio.

Okay, I have it out of my system. If we lived near each other, I’d invite you over for a barbecue so we could chat further on the subject.

As for individual immunity, how do you think vaccines work? They give information to the individual’s immune system so it has a better idea of how to work. Also, I will grant that there are variations in individual immunity. Without the vaccines, most people would not have immunity to plenty of different diseases.

Ebola? You know for a fact that people didn’t change hygiene habits when the virus struck? How fast does it mutate? Are all mutations as virulent? Could a less virulent form help with herd immunity? Were there other conditions, either inherited or environment that reduced susceptibility? (By the way, sickle cell trait reduces the ability of the malaria parasite to live in a host while full sickle cell produces anemia that is frequently fatal.) Any infectious agent, no matter how deadly has to be able to maintain its routes of transmission and have viable hosts. (With herd immunity you reduce the number of viable hosts to the point that the probability of transmission drops to a point where the infectious agent doesn’t have enough viable targets. You don’t have to have EVERY person immunized to achieve that.)

Vectors? Are you insinuating that the efforts to control mosquito populations had no effect on malaria in the Southeastern US? Why did malaria rates in Africa increase when DDT use ended?

I do not believe that the CDC has declared polio eradicated. I also do not know where there may be any potential reservoirs for the disease or the viability of the virus outside of a host. You seem to imply that what was called polio is now called encephalitis. While there may have been misdiagnoses in the past due to less sophisticated diagnostic tools and techniques, how do you account for the drop in paralysis and the almost absence of iron lungs? Was all of that government propaganda?

You also left out another deadly ingredient in vaccines: dihydrogen monoxide. People have died drinking that stuff.
/sarc

So – if you’ve never had your child vaccinated and she’s never been sick – you’re very very fortunate. And an n of 1 does not a great study make. Just cause she wasn’t sick doesn’t mean the others got sick CAUSE of the vaccines.

My question for you – if you were traveling to someplace where malaria was present – would you take anti-malaria meds or can you just “look after it” yourself?

And while I don’t believe we should force people to get shots – remember that one of the reasons you’re not getting the flu (without the shot) is that some of us take the personal risk of the shots and then the rest of you benefit. You’re riding free cause others are willing to take the shots and the individual risk.

There’s a nasty (regular) one going around Indiana though that left us both with ear/eye infections after it was over. Yeah, we got it before we got the shots.

I will take my chances without the introduction of anything man is doing with the bugs TYVM.

So did you get polio or small pox (provided you are in your late 40s or older) vaccines as a child? If so, are you upset with your parents getting you vaccinated?

I’ll concede the point on subunit vaccines, though. I forgot about them. However, they do go through more rigorous safety testing than other vaccines.

Again, “I got a flu shot and didn’t get the flu” is not an indication you would not have gotten the flu in the first place. There are many of us who do not get the shot and do not get the flu.

So do you wear a seatbelt when you drive? After all, wearing a seatbelt does not prevent most accidents, nor will it prevent all injuries. I think in most, if not all states, the “goobermint” directs us to wear them.

I am basically healthy, so if the flu is of the run-of-the-mill variety, I will just suffer through it.

However, if the flu is terribly virulent and deadly, I don’t think the shot is going to make much difference.

Your milage may vary.

On October 14th, 2009 at 9:14 am, SomeOtherSteve said:

Let me note what you got right: NOTHING.

Now let’s use facts:

Let’s.

In addition, biotechnology and genetic engineering techniques have been used to produce “subunit vaccines” – vaccines which use only the parts of an organism yet which stimulate a strong immune response. To create a subunit vaccine, researchers isolate the gene or genes which code for appropriate subunits from the genome of the infectious agent. This genetic material is placed into bacteria or yeast host cells which then produce large quantities of subunit molecules by transcribing and translating the inserted foreign DNA. It is important to note that these subunit molecules are encoded by genetic material from the infectious agent, not from the host cell’s genetic material. These “foreign” molecules can be isolated, purified, and used as a vaccine.

SOURCE

That is just one source.

Shall I look up “mutation” (deliberate or otherwise) for you?

Again, “I got a flu shot and didn’t get the flu” is not an indication you would not have gotten the flu in the first place. There are many of us who do not get the shot and do not get the flu.

I will take my chances without the introduction of anything man is doing with the bugs TYVM.

Therein lies the rub. Vaccines are just mutant strains. If the strain goes immune, you get an even nastier bug. Viruses are nasty bugs to begin with. To mess with them is a bad idea – period. Our bodies are designed to cope with them.

Let me note what you got right: NOTHING.

Now let’s use facts:
Vaccines are weakened or dead viruses. They ARE NOT mutant strains. They still have the protein signatures of live viruses, so when they are injected into the body, the body’s immune system learns what to look for and produce antibodies quickly enough to defend the host. A vaccine can be dangerous if it is not processed properly. Milk (and other food products) can also be dangerous if it is not processed properly.

If a virus mutates enough, the protein signatures can change, meaning that the antibodies won’t know what to look for. That is a big part of the annual flu shot. The influenza virus mutates readily, so vaccines constantly need to be updated.

While our immune systems can eventually learn to fight almost any virus, the problem is that sometimes it takes too much time, and the virus can overwhelm the host or open the host to other opportunistic infections. The use of vaccines has eliminated small pox. Polio is now almost unheard of because of vaccines. Measles, mumps and other childhood maladies have far less impact on society than they did 50 years ago.

Just because you haven’t had the flu in many years is NOT proof of your immune system being able to respond to the different strains of influenza. This could easily be explained by herd immunity. If enough people in a population receive immunizations, the virus has fewer opportunities to infect a host. The probability of infection for you drops, even though you did not get immunized. Think of it like a maze. The immunized people are the walls. Unless the virus finds the unabated path to you, you won’t get infected. As people who did get sick develop antibodies, the don’t get reinfected, so they add more walls and cut off more paths.

Also, unless you go to the doctor at the drop of a hat and get a throat swab, you may not find out that you have the flu. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.