> Why are parents of vaccinated kids so terrified of unvaccinated kids?? Does vaccination work or not?

Vaccines don't always take. These people depend on herd immunity - high rates of vaccination in the general population - for protection. Then there are people like the one in the article, kids who cannot be vaccinated. Some have allergies to vaccine ingredients, some have had their immune systems destroyed by chemo. Others are simply too young to have gotten certain vaccines that are given later in life.

> If vaccination works, why do we care that a small minority aren't vaccinated?

Because it only works when enough people get it. 90-95% for many diseases is required, and there are some populations in California where the rates have dropped to the 60s.

edit: Actually, dropped to the 30s-40s, it seems. http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2014/09/wealthy-la...

My personal opinion is that if people could pin patient zero on an un-immunized underage person, the affected person should be able to bring a civil lawsuit against the offenders --with exceptions for infirm, very young, immuno-deficient.

Else this is crazy --and educated people of all people. I can't understand it. It does however, bring their intellect esteem down to earth. What I mean is it highlights that experts can be just as wrong in their conclusion as "nutters".

Imagine someone you love has a chronic auto-immune disease like MS, arthritis or even psoriasis and they are taking a drug to depress their immune system like a TNF inhibitor or something like methotrexate or cyclosporine. Or they have cancer and on chemotherapy that depresses their immune system. Or they have had an organ fail and they need to take drugs to stop their body rejecting the replacement. Or they have AIDS or any other disease that damages their immune system. Or they are old. Or they are very young, perhaps even unborn.

They did the right thing and unless they had some medical reason not to at the time they got vaccinated. Now what good will it do them with a damaged immune system? What good will it do them if they have not been vaccinated yet due to age.

Then we have a perfectly healthy family who decided that based on advice from their chiropractor/homeopath or some actor that vaccination is a conspiracy by evil big business and government. Besides it is their right not to give a fuck about anyone else. They get a mild sickness from some disease that was effectively non-existent a decade ago and can't understand what the fuss is about as their slightly spotty kids wipe their snot on the door handle. Then your immune compromised loved one comes along.

Your assumption that vaccination is binary is wrong. And your last question, you don't seem to care or know about immunocompromised people.

So: - vaccination isn't perfect in preventing diseases - some people who get vaccinated aren't immune. - in some cases, vaccination may reduce disease strength but not prevent the disease. More unvaccinated kids means greater transmission threat, i.e. greater chance of an illness that, while not as bad, can still be unpleasant. - Afraid parents may have relatives who are immunocompromised, or may be immunocompromised themselves. Vaccinated people may act as short-term carriers, even if they are immune, and unvaccinated kids are more likely to act as a source, so the combination of these can cause immunocompromised people to get sick - Same as previous, but with children too young to be vaccinated (younger siblings)

Immune compromise can come from AIDS, sure, but also cancer, transplant therapy, and other causes.

Yes, some of the fear may be unreasonable - probably being stressed out and sick isn't enough immune compromise to let you get measles (though that's probably) - but enough of it isn't.

I don't mean this in a mean way. However, I don't think you understand the science here at even an elementary level. It is this sort of attitude that only serves to bolster the position of those essentially against science. It's not about encountering a "mild dose."

Here is a link to a simple explanation.

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2008/08/27/mixing-unvaccin...

From the linke:

"Here’s the simple answer: Vaccines are not 100% effective. Nothing in medicine is. They may be 99% effective, 95% effective, 90% effective, or even less. By medical standards, any intervention that’s over 90% effective is a pretty darned good intervention, and most vaccines are at least pretty darned good, especially given how rare serious reactions are. But they are not 100% effective, and it is almost as foolish for parents who vaccinate their children to believe that vaccines will be 100% effective in protecting their children as it is for antivaccinationists to believe that vaccines do more harm than good. At the very least, it’s naive. Also, there are children who for health reasons cannot be vaccinated and who thus rely on herd immunity. The larger the population of unvaccinated children, the weaker the herd immunity, and if the percentage of vaccinated children falls below a certain point herd immunity basically collapses."

The science here is so clear. A key point is that children that, in rare cases, cannot be vaccinated for other health reasons can not longer rely on herd immunity because such as what you are advocating for have taken up the madness pitchforks along with Jenny McCarthy to destroy herd immunity.

http://www.cdc.gov/measles/hcp/ >One dose of MMR vaccine is approximately 93% effective at preventing measles; two doses are approximately 97% effective.

Vaccination does not confer effective immunity in all those vaccinated. If an outbreak hits a school or day care, the 4 day period in which the infection is contagious before any symptoms appear means that most of the kids will be exposed, and any who are not immunized (either not vaccinated, or vaccination was not effective) are at risk.

I view those who choose not to vaccinate children who could be vaccinated as freeloaders, depending on the rest of us to provide group immunity to protect their children. For those for whom it is a personal preference or belief, rather than part of a religious practice, I wish they would choose to accept their share of the risks.

> If vaccination works, why do we care that a small minority aren't vaccinated?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herd_immunity

By choosing not to be vaccinated, you put those at risk who cannot receive a vaccination for legitimate reasons.

There are kids that cannot be vaccinated for various medical reasons.

If unvaccinated kids are rare, then they're safe because any disease outbreaks quickly stop and don't spread; but if the rate of unvaccinated kids is above a certain threshold then they are at a serious risk.

First, to answer your question: that's not how vaccination works - a vaccine is not 100% effective. So if you get your vaccination, you maybe still have a 5% (just pulling that number out of the air) chance of not being immune, at which point anybody else who has the disease or is a carrier for it is dangerous to you. It's not that you get 5% sick, it's that you have a 5% chance of getting 100% sick.

Second, to address this question in the context of the article that you're commenting on, the child in question is not vaccinated.

Vaccination is not a 100% guard against infection, but it has a substantial success rate.

However some individuals cannot be immunised, such as the child linked in the article who could not be immunised due to a weak immune system. Also, children under the minimum age to be safely vaccinated rely on herd immunity to stay safe. Having everyone in the community vaccinated makes it much less likely that these infections will spread from outside and put the weaker members of the community at risk.

Vaccination rely on the immune system to work, so in situations where the immune system breaks down, or is overloaded, vaccinations stop being reliable. Like with auto-immune disorders, or after heavy chemotherapy (as in the OP).

I also know of a case where a child got an illness it was vaccinated against due to a generally weak immune system (induced by a heart disease and several surgeries).

For me it is mainly about the babies. Measles hurt young children and babies the most, and can even be deadly for infants. You start the vaccine process when children are 12-15 months.