prisoner of the flesh's dilemma

[vito_excalibur]

So jedusor posted about vaccinations and I was thinking about them.

Okay, let's take a look at just one set. Let's look at the MMR vaccine. That's measles, mumps, and rubella.

If you give your kid the MMR vaccine, they have less than a one in a million chance of getting seriously ill or dying (encephalitis). Call it one in a million.

If your kid gets

Comments

[redbird]

The other numbers that need to be taken into account are "What are your child's chances of catching this disease when s/he is too young to be vaccinated, if there are unvaccinated people around?" and possibly "How many people cannot get this vaccine for genuine, specific-to-them medical reasons?" For example, there's a kid in my loose web of family who cannot get the flu vaccine, because she's badly allergic to eggs. If there's a statistically significant number of people in that group, they might use up a lot of the "safe" unvaccinated fraction.

[hitchhiker]

tragedy, meet commons. commons, tragedy.

[hesychasm]

Um, thank you. I have never paid attention to the anti-vaccination movement before. I've now spent an eye-opening amount of my work day catching up.

[vito_excalibur]

It kind of takes you aback, doesn't it.

Also, perfect icon. >:)

[rachelmanija]

I have to say, I tend to stop reading any time someone uses the word "vax" or "jab," which are apparently code for "I plan to let my children take their chances with diphtheria."

[technocracygirl]

FYI, basic epidemiological textbooks have the simple calculations for calculating herd immunity effects. Take a look at Chapter 8 of Epidemiology Kept Simple if you're really interested. (I don't have the book with me, so I'm uncomfortable directly quoting.) denelian's 90-95% is generally considered to be a pretty good threshold.

[vito_excalibur]

Thanks! Good title. :)

[iridium]

Ooh. I might have to go hunt down that textbook. Thanks for the link!

[irontongue]

I need to read that book! My partner is a public health researcher, and between editing every paper she wrote in grad school, up to and including her dissertation, I know more than most non-pros, but wow! More on epi would be nice to know.

[kcatalyst]

I have such trouble with this whole issue. On the one hand (the most important hand, for me) I'm really really clear on the dangers of certain diseases and the tremendous boon of vaccines in preventing them at both the individual level and the "herd" level. And I love me some medical studies for making medical choices.

But the anti-anti-vax position (among parents, which is where I encounter this) seems to be largely "Doctors are always looking out for your best interest, and the smartest thing you can do in any situation is to let the nice person in the white coat inject your child with whatever happens to be in their needle at the time." Which is not so much how I choose to engage with the medical system, either.

So then I go into the garden and eat worms, grateful for my tetanus vaccination while doing so.

[vito_excalibur]

Well, that's why I wanted to do some of the reading and the math. God knows I'm in favor of questioning your doctor extensively.

[kcatalyst]

We haven't started re-researching the recommended vaccines for this go-round. The first time, we did almost all the scheduled ones, but we staggered them so we went in once a month and he got half as many each time. We don't know that a zillion at once was bad for him, but it wasn't hard to go in again. (Classic public health problem-- they hate this solution because they can't guarantee you'll actually come in. But their stress is not my problem.)

We skipped Prevnar, because at the time it had very little support for actually working effectively. We also skipped, for the time being, chicken pox, on the logic that it was a non-serious childhood disease and the vaccine (at the time) had only a few years behind it--- no way to indicate if kids getting it would lose immunity as adults at, you know, the worst time. Now that it's been 7 years, we'll see where we are on that decision.