Re:Your close-minded disdain for anti-vaxxers isn't helping ...
by Fomite on Monday February 09, 2015 @04:58AM
(#9020422)
VAERS takes reports from anyone, and isn't allowed to remove spurious reports. Someone once reported a vaccine turned them into the Incredible Hulk, and they cannot, by law remove it.
Vaccination rates are not pretty high when you're talking about highly contagious diseases. Measles has an R0 of roughly 16-18, which translates to a critical threshold of ~94% needing to be vaccinated in order to have herd immunity, assuming 100% efficacy. There are many communities below that threshold.
Wakefield isn't one of our own. We kicked him out for being a fraud.
Ebola is subject to a major public health response. I have friends in Sierra Leone. The 101st Airborne, the CDC, Doctors without Borders and many other groups are all in West Africa. Access to intensive care is driving down the mortality for Ebola. Believe me, there are still a huge amount of resources being spent on Ebola containment. We're capable of being worried about more than one disease at the same time.
Of course, we wouldn't have to be if people were vaccinated against measles.
Vaccination rates are not pretty high when you're talking about highly contagious diseases. Measles has an R0 of roughly 16-18, which translates to a critical threshold of ~94% needing to be vaccinated in order to have herd immunity, assuming 100% efficacy. There are many communities below that threshold.
Wakefield isn't one of our own. We kicked him out for being a fraud.
Ebola is subject to a major public health response. I have friends in Sierra Leone. The 101st Airborne, the CDC, Doctors without Borders and many other groups are all in West Africa. Access to intensive care is driving down the mortality for Ebola. Believe me, there are still a huge amount of resources being spent on Ebola containment. We're capable of being worried about more than one disease at the same time.
Of course, we wouldn't have to be if people were vaccinated against measles.