The flip side to Autism/Vaccine debate

[Jared Buffie]

Herd immunity at it's finest....

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/02/11/mumps.outbreak/

[Thomas Campitelli]

Originally Posted by Jared Buffie

Herd immunity at it's finest....

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/02/11/mumps.outbreak/

If I had to choose between a 100% chance of getting mumps and a 15% chance of getting mumps, I'd take the 15% every time.

[Brian Stone]

From that article:

Health officials note that lack of vaccination is not to blame in this mumps outbreak, which is the largest since 2006, when 6,584 were in an outbreak that originated on a college campus.

"This is a well-vaccinated community," said Zucker from New York City's health department.

But the vaccine isn't 100 percent effective. Vanderbilt University's Dr. William Schaffner, who also is president-elect of the National Foundation for Infectious Diseases, says studies have shown that the mumps vaccine is about 85 percent effective.

They also seemed to fail to give us the fatality rate.


Edit: To be fair, adding the following counter-quote

The CDC notes in the weekly report that this outbreak shows that mumps can occur in highly vaccinated populations. However, Schaffner added that the mumps vaccine "is not perfect but considerably effective, and if someone gets the mumps even though they've been immunized, the symptoms will be milder."

[Jared Buffie]

Originally Posted by Thomas Campitelli

If I had to choose between a 100% chance of getting mumps and a 15% chance of getting mumps, I'd take the 15% every time.

I'm certain he's referring to a relative risk reduction, not an absolute risk reduction. In other words, even a nonvaccinated person does not have a 100% chance of getting the mumps. For example (pulling numbers from my arse for illustration sake), a nonvaccinated person has a .1% chance of getting mumps, whereas a vaccinated person may have a .015% chance - so you're injecting all those toxins for an absolute risk reduction of .085%.

I'll take the otherwise minute chance of contracting a nonfatal disease while keeping those toxic ingredients out of my body. But I respect your choice, as well.

[Brandon Oto]

Originally Posted by Jared Buffie

I'm certain he's referring to a relative risk reduction, not an absolute risk reduction. In other words, even a nonvaccinated person does not have a 100% chance of getting the mumps. For example (pulling numbers from my arse for illustration sake), a nonvaccinated person has a .1% chance of getting mumps, whereas a vaccinated person may have a .015% chance - so you're injecting all those toxins for an absolute risk reduction of .085%.

I'll take the otherwise minute chance of contracting a nonfatal disease while keeping those toxic ingredients out of my body. But I respect your choice, as well.

Your arse is a poor place to get numbers from.

The odds of a nonvaccinated person getting the mumps depends on whether everyone else is vaccinating or not. Before mass vaccination began in 1967, "estimates on infection rates var[ied] by subgroup from 100 to 6,000 per 100,000." This is an annual rate; the odds of you getting the mumps in your LIFETIME were nearly 100%. Nowadays, rates are around 30 per 100,000, as vaccination has made the bug no longer endemic in this country.

The odds of a vaccinated person getting the mumps depends on the strain used. The current version seems to see around 90% success rate with proper scheduling, although there seems to be some evidence that both natural nor vaccinated immunity may not be lifelong. Your odds are therefore around 10%, times either of the above rates, depending on whether or not you're willing to take advantage of everyone else's immunity in your hypothetical world.

I'll let you look at percentages on the varying severities of symptoms on your own.

All data from http://degreesofclarity.com/writing/mmr/

[Jared Buffie]

Originally Posted by Brandon Oto

Your arse is a poor place to get numbers from.

True, but only marginally worse than comparing two cohorts 40 years apart.

[Brandon Oto]

Originally Posted by Jared Buffie

True, but only marginally worse than comparing two cohorts 40 years apart.

Nope. But that was fun!