We depend on each other to keep society free from many deadly diseases. Do you know which of your friends or family aren't vaccinated?
Credit: iStockphoto/Lucy Glover
In October 1977, Variola minor - one half of the most feared viral threat in human history - was cornered in a small port city in Somalia. Its back was against the Indian Ocean and it had nowhere left to run.
Some 200 years earlier a vaccine had been developed against Variola, better known as smallpox. Now, a ring of immunity, created by global mass vaccinations, was closing in. The virus erupted into a characteristic boil on its final victim and then - unable to infect anyone else - vanished.
The immunisation effort has been called the most successful public health battle of all time - smallpox is the only disease eradicated from the natural world to date - and is a testament to the power of vaccines.
But more than three decades later, vaccines are under siege. Previously preventable diseases are popping up more often than before and escaping into the population more frequently than usual. Children are dying of diseases we thought we'd left behind in the 20th century.
So why are vaccines, the heroes of modern medicine, beginning to fail us?
Vaccines are based on the idea that exposure to a weakened or destroyed version of a disease-causing agent trains your immune systems to recognise it. Your body easily fights off the 'watered-down' version of the disease but carefully marks its newfound foe. When the real thing comes along, your immune system immediately recognises the invader and declares war.
In this way, it was hoped that vaccines would purge the world of a host of diseases. With no infectable people, they would disappear as smallpox did - and the plan has been mostly successful. In most developed countries, some of the great villains of the 20th century, such as measles and polio, are now rare, seen only in infrequent outbreaks that are soon contained.
Unfortunately, not all vaccines are created equal and not everyone can be vaccinated effectively. So more often than not, when a disease is cornered, it will find a crack in the wall of immunisation and disappear into a vulnerable person. Inside this sneezing, coughing victim, a disease can travel to new cities and come into contact with countless people - including others who are unprotected against it - and evade capture.
Take whooping cough, caused by the bacterium Bordetella pertussis. Australia is in the grip of a whooping cough epidemic: the number of reported cases nationwide almost tripled between 2007 and 2008, with 14,524 people affected. Through 2009 and into early 2010, the number of infections has continued to increase.
And it's not just Australia - the rates of whooping cough infections in California are the highest in 50 years.
Whooping cough may not sound too severe, but last year three Australian infants died of the disease. In California, five babies died in the first six months of 2010.
The bacteria causes such severe infection that its victims cough violently, unable to catch their breath, causing the trademark 'whoop'. Most children will survive this onslaught, but they can be left with brain damage from the coughing fits.
So what is causing these outbreaks?
Australian Vaccination Network
What's causing it?
She has a name.
Meryl Dorey.
Australian Vaccination Network
What an ignorant remark. Meryl Dorey begin_of_the_skype_highlighting end_of_the_skype_highlighting and the AVN is merely trying at the request of thousands of parents whose children have suffered (including her own) as a result of adverse reactions to vaccinations to provide correct and honest information about the vaccinations and their ingredients. She and her organization fought in Parliament to create VAERS in Australia to record doctor reported adverse reactions which is now public information. The dramatic increase of reported adverse reactions at VAERS is shocking and a true eye opener for anyone considering vaccinations. She and her organization do not force parents to take any action.
Anti-vaccination lunacy
Actually that comment is pretty accurate: Meryl Dorey and the AVN have spread unfounded fear of vaccination in the community by disseminating outright lies. This has been documented over and over again - the woman has not the slightest shred of credibility. For example, see:
http://www.stopantivaxnetwork.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_vaccination_network
http://meryldorey.org
As for your claimed benefits of Meryl's work:
1) Her claims about vaccine ingredients have frequently been demonstrated to be false - laughably wrong in fact. She's been corrected numerous times but chooses to ignore all facts which contradict her dogma, confirming that she's a liar rather than merely uneducated or stupid. For a running commentary on her regular failings, see http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=76305414878
2) Your claim about VAERS is totally wrong. In Australia we already had mandatory reporting of serious vaccine reactions, no thanks to Meryl. The official database of reports has been shown to be far larger, more complete and more accurate than Meryl's Mickey-Mouse attempt.
In short, Meryl has contributed nothing of value to Australian society and her efforts have directly fostered the resurgence of infectious diseases in this country. We'd all be better off if she had stayed in the US.
Meh. Ignorant? Neither is
Meh. Ignorant? Neither is Meryl - who is FULLY VACCINATED.
Ms. Dorey admitted to Howard Sattler on 6PR there's no evidence of her son being vaccine injured, but she pimps him anyway. Just as she denied on air that any threats have been sent her way - yet wrote that she needed security due to threats [http://avn.org.au/nocompulsoryvaccination/?p=625], and dines out on this rubbish weekly;
http://mycolleaguesareidiots.com/transfer/MDon6PR.mp3
'Bout 1/2 way - during listener calls. But she feverishly rants about death threats and distorted the internet meme 'die in a fire' to 'You deserve to die in a fire', after publishing the original on her own blog (see #3) - [http://bit.ly/cR8DX2]; [2 - http://bit.ly/avfnDK] [3 - http://bit.ly/bwg9s3].
This is to engender sympathy when she really must now grow up & face HCCC, OLGR, Dept. Justice, Copyright law infringement and legalities from abuse of company names without their permission. Naughty girl!
"She and her organization do not force parents to take any action."
Bwhahahahahahah! Nah. She just scares people shirtless into donating money that... vanishes. Promotes imported herbs with elemental mercury, arsenic and lead in them. Takes neonates from hospital ensuring a life with hepatitis B. Lies about Ombudsman intervention. Ditto, Carmel Tebbutt.
What a rort, copying and pasting pseudoscience from her USA Minders. If she delights in harming babies, crushing families and libeling health professionals imagine how smoothly she scams her members?
As for the vaccine/autism link, Wakefield is now disgraced and struck off. "Big Pharma" earn 2% [two percent] of annual profits from vaccines. Wakefield had patented single dose measles, mumps, rubella shots to usurp the trivalent MMR. He was also paid by legal agents working for families who sought monies over the now defunct claim vaccines cause autism. Criminals all around. Hypocrisy city.
All anti-vaccination lobbyists profit enormously from spreading fear and misinformation. Dorey herself aims to make money from alternatives.
You been had, methinks. By a Bent Spoon Winner. Hence her posited hatred for science and skepticism;
http://www.northernstar.com.au/story/2009/12/01/anti-vaccine-network-gets-dubious-award/
Did I say that? I do believe I did.
Anti-vaccination lunacy
Actually that comment is pretty accurate: Meryl Dorey and the AVN have spread unfounded fear of vaccination in the community by disseminating outright lies. This has been documented over and over again - the woman has not the slightest shred of credibility. For example, see:
http://www.stopantivaxnetwork.com
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_vaccination_network
http://meryldorey.org
As for your claimed benefits of Meryl's work:
1) Her claims about vaccine ingredients have frequently been demonstrated to be false - laughably wrong in fact. She's been corrected numerous times but chooses to ignore all facts which contradict her dogma, confirming that she's a liar rather than merely uneducated or stupid. For a running commentary on her regular failings, see http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=76305414878
2) Your claim about VAERS is totally wrong. In Australia we already had mandatory reporting of serious vaccine reactions, no thanks to Meryl. The official database of reports has been shown to be far larger, more complete and more accurate than Meryl's Mickey-Mouse attempt.
In short, Meryl has contributed nothing of value to Australian society and her efforts have directly fostered the resurgence of infectious diseases in this country. We'd all be better off if she had stayed in the US.
trojan?
if you are indeed concerned that contact with the great unwashed unvaccinated will cause the health downfall of our society, then the only answer would be to close all contact with the outside world. live in a bubble. 80% of the world's population are third world, and, indeed "unwashed". trojan? what hysterical nonsensical fear-mongering!! check the stats that aren't connected to what pharmaceutical companies pump out. do some research.
vaccine injured here
vaccines should be a choice. After having a reaction to one I think there needs to be education about each vaccine and the whole truth not just parts and I think there should be a choice because as a parent if my child died I could hold no one responsible, but if my child did die they could hold be responsible! besides that I have two older children who had each disease right after having been vaccinated, so the vaccines didnt work! if you read the inserts its says not 100 percent immunity!
the risk is not worth the perceived benefit
Perspective is everything. Although every loss of a child is tragic, 3 children dead of pertussis in Australia is not to be compared with the risk of playing with your immune system with vaccines full of adjuvants and given to everyone without consideration for individual situations. When you compare that to the millions who die of malaria that could be saved with mosquito nets and clean water, or to the 1 in 100 births incidence of autism in some countries, you realize it's not about saving lives, it's about making money for the pharmaceutical companies.
All vaccines carry risks, it's written black on white on their inserts, but when you make them mandatory to millions and millions of children death, asthma, autism, inmune dysfunctions and the plethora of other "side effects" prove to be much more important than the disease it's supposed to avoid.
Hygiene is what lowered incidence of child diseases, not vaccines. Look at the original data, not at what the pharma community is telling you. Look honestly at both sides of the issue, at the original data and draw your own conclusions.
The article starts with 2
The article starts with 2 untrue statements. Thank goodness for knowledge...
vaccination
My son was vaccinated because i believed from government and the DOH that it would protect my son it did not i know have a child with Autism and a bowel condition , not enough research has been carried out on vaccines i do not believe that vaccination should be compulsary