Quote:
Originally Posted by Mason3000
Your first link says that measles cases tend to live in like minded communities (like the Amish) and that a student with the measles poses a risk to other students who aren't vaccinated. WHO AREN'T VACCINATED! So why do you care? The risk of a vaccinated student getting the measles is astronomical. Even though you're as likely to win the lottery as get the measles if you've been vaccinated, it's still not usually associated with hospitalization, much less death. I know you want the measles to be similar to a disease like Ebola or Small Pox, but it's not. Much closer to an illness like the flu or the common cold.
|
Given that you don't believe the scientific and medical experts on the matter, I can't imagine you'd give much credence to what I say. But, just in the offhanded hope that it gets through to someone, I'll make one more attempt at explaining the significance of unvaccinated clusters.
Firstly, well over ninety percent of the population has protection from measles because they have been successfully vaccinated. Since they are not at risk, we can set them aside from the discussion.
This leaves three groups to address:
1--individuals for whom the vaccination failed to provide immunity. This is about three percent of those who were vaccinated. The overwhelming majority of them are children. They are at risk.
2--individuals who cannot physically tolerate the vaccine due to allergies, compromised immune systems, or simply being too young to be vaccinated. This is about two percent of the population, virtually all of whom are children. They are at risk.
3--individuals whose guardians have chosen, for non-medical reasons, to withhold allowing vaccination. This is about two percent of the population. All of them are children. They are at risk.
You're in St Paul. For the sake of argument, let's assume that you live in The Midway area. Let's further assume that The Midway contains a large cluster of unvaccinated children. Maybe some neo-Luddite religious folks who feel as though their god has told them that science and medicine are evil, maybe some right wing libertarian types who have posters of Ayn Rand plastered throughout the house, maybe even some granola-eating hippies who insist on natural substances for prevention and healing. The reason isn't really important. Measles is just another viral organism that wants to find hosts in which it can thrive. So let's argue that, for whatever reasons, the vaccination rate in The Midway is eighty percent.
Continuing the example, you have a child who has the measles, only you don't know the child has the disease because it doesn't manifest itself for about four days. You send your child to school. The school has about five hundred students, but your kid will only come into contact with about fifty of them. Since this is a cluster area for unvaccinated children, only eighty percent of the school is vaccinated. This means that your child will come into contact with ten children who are unvaccinated (this is twenty percent of the fifty children with whom your child interacts).
The transmission rate of measles is ninety percent. This means that ninety percent of unprotected individuals who come into contact with the virus, will get it. This also means that nine of the ten unvaccinated children who interacted with your kid will get it. You now have ten kids (including your own) with the measles. None of them are symptomatic, so there's no reason to keep them in or otherwise restrict them.
The day after contact, these kids start moving around the metro area. One goes to The Science Museum in Downtown St Paul. One goes shopping at Rosedale. One goes to to Stillwater with their parents looking for antiques. One goes to The National Sports Center in Blaine. One goes to see a Twins game in Downtown Minneapolis. One goes to a Miley Cyrus concert at Target Center. One goes to a Hockey game at Xcel. One goes to Legoland at The MOA. One goes boating on Lake Minnetonka. One goes inter-tubing on The Apple River.
Had the vaccination rate in The Midway been standard, it's unlikely that your child would have infected anyone. In turn, there would be nine fewer children spreading the disease across a large densely-populated metro area. But, because of the cluster of unvaccinated children, your child has now spread the measles across the entire metro area.
Your actions have needlessly exposed tens of thousands of children to the measles. Statistically, about one in twenty will have no immunity. Statistically, nine of of ten of those kids will be infected via contact with a measles carrier. About thirty percent of those who get measles will develop serious complications. About one of every two hundred will die. You have every right to risk your own life. You do not have the right to put the lives of others at risk. The government has every right to enforce vaccination policy for the protection of the population.
As for the severity of measles, I don't want it to be anything other than gone. You apparently didn't look at The CDC web site, so here is the WHO web page for measles:
WHO | Measles
In 2014, ebola killed nearly 9,000 people worldwide--a truly tragic number.
Here's what the WHO site tells us about measles:
In 2013, there were 145,700 measles deaths globally – about 400 deaths every day or 16 deaths every hour.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
