Herd Immunity

I was reading Joanna K Jones' site on vaccination awareness and learned something new today.

I have always (could kick myself for not questioning this further) agreed with the 'herd immunity' argument - that if vaccination in a population fell below a certain percentage, you would see epidemics in the population. But today, reading the article on herd immunity, its like a light clicked on up there.

I am giving a small extract of her article. The rest of it can be found here at the Vaccine Awareness Network.

"What Is The Herd Immunity Theory?

The herd immunity theory was originally coined in 1933 by a researcher called Hedrich. He had been studying measles patterns in the US between 1900-1931 (years before any vaccine was ever invented for measles) and he observed that epidemics of the illness only occurred when less than 68% of children had developed a natural immunity to it. This was based upon the principle that children build their own immunity after suffering with or being exposed to the disease. So the herd immunity theory was, in fact, about natural disease processes and nothing to do with vaccination. If 68% of the population were allowed to build their own natural defences, there would be no raging epidemic.

Later on, vaccinologists adopted the phrase and increased the figure from 68% to 95% with no scientific justification as to why, and then stated that there had to be 95% vaccine coverage to achieve immunity. Essentially, they took Hedrich’s study and manipulated it to promote their vaccination programmes. (You can read about this in Greg Beattie’s book, ‘Vaccination’, by the Oracle Press, Australia, 1997).

Why Vaccine Induced Herd Immunity is Flawed

If vaccination really immunises, then your vaccinated child will be immunised and therefore protected against any disease an unvaccinated child gets. If he isn’t, his shots didn’t work. We should also examine whether or not the vaccines actually do provide immunity and in which populations epidemics occurred. Was it the unvaccinated children spreading disease as they would have parents believe? Or were those epidemics already in previously vaccinated people?"

In AP, ie locally, you have mothers posting about their children who get chicken pox despite being vaccinated. Same for mumps. This should come as no surprise because in the US, Canada and all over the world, there are documented cases where diseases surface in the very populations which have been highly vaccinated.

There have been outbreaks of whooping cough in babies who have been vaccinated - just ask actress Kate Winslet, whose fully vaccinated baby still had to be rushed to hospital with whooping cough.

Chicken pox outbreaks have been documented in schools in the US where the majority of students have been vaccinated. There are more cases of children getting meningitis today than there ever were in the 19th century when vaccination was non-existent.

The live polio vaccine (ie those oral drops which are still given to our children in school today!) has been discontinued in the US and replaced with the IPV (inactivated polio) because of the very risk of causing the infections that the vaccine hoped to suppress. People vaccinated with the live polio continue to shed or excrete the live virus for several weeks after vaccination. Those vaccinated with polio have to be very very careful with hygiene - but can you honestly trust any 6yo to be so? Hence my decision not to vaccinate Caitlin recently with polio. With two totally unvaccinated children at home, I don't want to risk any outbreak of polio in the home.

If you have the time, browse through the articles on the Vaccine Awareness site. Very interesting reading.