I’m so glad you asked.

Source: Refutations to Anti-Vaccine Memes.

 

If you want the less friendly, sarcastic version, click here.

Flu Shots: We’ve got ours, have you got yours?

Last week Mac had an on-site freelance job, so I worked from home on Friday.  That meant I had the pleasure of taking my kids for their flu shots.

Can you tell who got the nasal spray and who got the shot?

It was entirely uneventful.  Other than some tears from both of them, it was easy, a couple of crackers and we were good to go.  Several days later, all’s well.  Nobody had any reactions.  Safe and effective.

Mac and I got our flu shots a couple of weeks ago when my company had a health fair with free flu shots for employees and their families (over 10 yo).

I’m hoping this year’s seasonal flu vaccine works better for us than last year’s.  While Mac and I were fine last year, Mabel and Nemo both came down with the flu- a strain the pediatrician said was a mismatch to the virus (see more on the efficacy of last year’s seasonal flu vaccine here).

I know that no vaccine is 100% effective.  For more on efficacy on the flu vaccines in different age groups, check out Melinda Wenner Moyer’s recent Slate piece on the topic (and note she gets herself and her son flu shots!). Given the safety of the seasonal flu vaccine, it is definitely worth the miniscule risk to give my kids even a “moderate” level of protection from the flu.  My own anecdata supports the safety and efficacy of the flu shot.  With a mom who is a public health nurse, I’ve gotten flu shots my whole life.  The only year I got the flu was the year of the vaccine shortage when I was in grad school.  I couldn’t get the shot, I came down with the flu, wound up with an abscess tonsil two days before Thanksgiving, it turned into recurring tonsillitis (every single time I got a cold), and landed me in the hospital the week my thesis was due to my readers, which meant I had my tonsils out at 27 years old the day after my thesis defense.

As I told Mabel when it was time for this year’s shot, “This medicine will help to make sure you won’t have to miss school on your birthday this year!”  Since she’s only 3 and still thinks school is nothing but fun, that line of reasoning worked for her.

From The Annals of the Obvious: HPV vaccination does not make girls more promiscuous

Yesterday it was all over the news what anyone with a brain cell might have been able to figure out on their own- vaccinating girls against Human Papilloma Virus does not make them whores.

Here’s the study:  Sexual Activity-Related Outcomes After Human Papillomavirus Vaccination of 11- to 12-Year Olds, by Bednarczyk et al.

To briefly borrow a summary for the NYTimes:

They selected a group of 1,398 girls who were 11 or 12 in 2006 — roughly a third of whom had received the HPV vaccine — and followed them through 2010. The researchers then looked at what they considered markers of sexual activity, including pregnancies, counseling on contraceptives, and testing for or diagnoses of sexually transmitted diseases.

Over all, in the time that the girls were followed, the researchers did not find any differences in these measures between the two groups.  Source:  Anahad O’Connor, NYT.

When I was a tween and got vaccinated against hepatitis, I didn’t run out and spread my legs either.  I don’t think I even realized that hepatitis could be sexually transmitted at that age- or even paid close attention to what I was being vaccinated against.

I’m not sure why people think that being vaccinated against an STD would make a child more promiscuous, but apparently that’s the most cited reason given by parents for not vaccinated against HPV!

I can’t understand the reasoning, “Hmm.  Should I vaccinate my daughter against cervical cancer?  Give her protection against oral cancers as well?  All with this simple vaccination?  Oh, wait!  It’s an STD?!  Heck no.  I’d rather a daughter who died of cervical cancer than a daughter who engaged in premarital sex- because I know my precious little angel would never do that otherwise!”

Look.  HPV is an STD that causes genital warts.  It also causes cervical cancer.  It’s also now been linked to oral cancers as well, see here.  The HPV vaccine could guard your children, female and male (it causes penile cancer as well) against infection.  That means your daughters won’t get cancer and neither will your sons (they also won’t pass it on to your future daughter in law*).  Even if your precious little angel saves him/herself for marriage, who’s to say their spouse did the same?  Newsflash:  Almost one third of 14- to 19- year olds are infected with HPV!  Those are not odds I want to take with the health of my kids.

Just as I do with every other vaccine, I’m going to follow the CDC guidelines when it comes to the HPV vaccine.  Mabel and Nemo will both be vaccinated.

That said, I’m not going to turn them loose without a healthy dose of info on sexuality and sexual health.  I hope they always make the wisest of decisions when it comes to sex.  I would be happy if they waited until they were married.  Do I know the odds of that are slim?  Yes.  Are young people inherently unable to make decisions based on the long-term consequences of their actions?  Heck yeah. That’s why this vaccine is so important-  I don’t want a single bad decision to result in a cancer diagnosis down the road- for them or for their future partners.

Also note, all of this is assuming that children only engage in consensual sexual relations.  We know that this is not the case.  Children should be protected from predators, but they should also be protected from being victimized twice- first at the hands of an abuser, and second from any STD that abuser might transmit to them.

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*Pardon the hetero-normative language, but I’m guessing a person who fears a vaccine causing their daughter to have premarital sex, and that chance trumping her healthy, is NOT considering the possibility that their son or daughter could possibly ever be homosexual.

Unedited Letter to the Editor: New Paltz, NY Measles Case

Some of you may have heard of a recent case of measles being reported at a Mountain Laurel Waldorf School in New Paltz, NY.

It’s been in the news (WSJ, Poughkeepsie Journal, The Daily Freeman– three cheers for The Daily Freeman for linking to the CDC site to give readers more info about measles, and The Times-Herald Record).

I heard about it several days before it was reported in the news because it hit frighteningly close to home.  My mother is a school nurse in New York state.  She was amongst the first wave of health professionals warned by the Health Department that this was going on in a school only an hour from her school.  She called me right away.  Why?  Because kids we love attend that school.

I’m sure many read stories out outbreaks of whooping cough (aka pertussis) or measles and think, “Oh, that’s far away.  It will never happen to me/my town/my family.”

Well, it can, and if vaccination rates continue to drop, it’s all the more likely, it will.

So how close to home is it for me?  I have family members who are students at that school.  Children who hold, hug, and kiss my unvaccinated infant (because he’s too young).  Kids who play with my daughter, who has yet to get her second MMR vaccination (because she’s too young).  Kids who have a baby brother at home who may not have been vaccinated yet, since he just turned 1.*  Students who have now been exposed to the measles are kids that I love and care about- kids who have routine contact with an unvaccinated sibling and unvaccinated or under-vaccinated cousins.

This is why vaccination is so important!  I pray that these kids are not among the small percentage of vaccinated kids who do not mount a sufficient immune response.  I pray that they didn’t bring this home to their mom and dad and baby brother.  I pray that at pick-up/drop-off their baby brother wasn’t inadvertently exposed.  I am relieved that we haven’t seen them since school started and I can be sure they didn’t exposed my kids to measles.

Their school, the Mountain Laurel Waldorf School, per Health Department protocol, had to tell more than half (!!) of the students not to come to school because they were not sufficiently vaccinated against measles.  That low rate of vaccination is staggering.  It gives me a pit in my stomach.  The CDC is aiming for more than 95% of kids to be vaccinated to prevent an outbreak of measles (source).  A 95% vaccination rate to protect our children and this school has less than 50%?!!?  Why?  Why take this risk?  This school was/is courting an outbreak of vaccine-preventable illness.

The public was notified about this case of measles last Friday, the 21st.  The Dutchess County Health Department “advises residents who have visited the school since Sept. 10 or has had contact with anyone from the school they should make sure they are up to date on their vaccinations.” (source) The incubation period (before which an infected individual will not show symptoms of infection) is up to 18 days (source).  Whether this is an isolated case (which I certainly hope it is) or whether this will be a measles outbreak remains to be seen.

The local Times-Herald Record reported on the measles case earlier this week.  Much to my disgust, it contained a significant factual error, and missed a great opportunity to educate its readership on the importance of vaccines and the risk of declining vaccination rates.  Not to mention, pointing out the lies and shortcuts parents use to get out of vaccinating their children, thereby putting all of us at risk.

What did J Horrigan of the Time-Herald Record get wrong?  Or was it Dr. Carol Smith the Commission of the Ulster Country Health Department who was wrong?  I don’t know, but it prompted me to write a letter to the editor.

The letters to the editor of the Times-Herald Record can only be 200 words long, and I had much more to say.  So, I whittled the essence down to 200 words and sent it off.  The unedited letter to the editor, I publish here.

Letter to the Editor of the Times-Herald Record:

I am writing to bring your attention to an error that appeared in the article published on Tuesday, 9/25/12 entitled “Officials monitor New Paltz school for measles.”

In the article, reporter J. Horrigan wrote, “According to [the Ulster County Health Commissioner Carol Smith], children who are vaccinated against measles cannot be infected by the disease.”

Either Dr. Smith was misquoted or she is completely misinformed.

No vaccine is 100% effective.  The measles vaccine has an efficacy rate of approximately 95% according to the CDC (source).

This less than 100% efficacy rate is why it is so crucial for everyone to be vaccinated- it protects those for whom the vaccine did not produce sufficient immunity, those who are too young to be vaccinated, and those who, for legitimate health reasons, cannot be vaccinated.  This phenomenon is called “herd immunity.”  For more detail on “herd immunity” and the consequences of vaccine efficacy, see the CDC website.

It is frightening that over 50% of the students at the Mountain Laurel Waldorf School attended by the infected child are not current on their vaccinations.  There is a clear lack of understanding of the need for vaccination in this community.  It is disturbing that when faced with keeping their children out of school for 21 days, the parents of 27 children chose to vaccinate them.

Clearly most, if not all, of these children were attending school under the religious exemption allowed by New York State law.  Presumably it was not the medical exemption available to children for whom vaccination is medically contraindicated, for that would not have changed so rapidly for 27 students.  Thus, it must have been under the religious exemption which is allowable when “parent, parents or guardian objects to their child’s immunization due to sincere and genuine religious beliefs which prohibit the immunization of their child.”(source).

How sincere and genuine were these beliefs that they would be tossed aside so parents would not have to arrange child care for 21 days?  Was there a mass religious conversion amongst the Mountain Laurel PTA or were these parents lying when they submitted a signed statement indicating that vaccination was a violation of their religious beliefs?

As a parent and as a scientist, I think it is crucial for correct information to be disseminated when it comes to such crucial public health threats as measles and vaccination.  Given the dangerously low vaccination rates at the Mountain Laurel Waldorf School, there is a clear need in your community for accurate information on life-saving vaccines.  This is not the time to spread misinformation due to a lack of diligence on the part of the reporters.  A simple search of the Centers for Disease Control website (or Google for that matter) would have turned up this accurate information.

I ask that you contact Dr. Smith to clarify her statements on this, and that you print a correction.  It would also be beneficial for your readership if you provided some legitimate and reliable information sources- such as the CDC, WHO, etc.

Sincerely,

Momma, PhD.**

 

So, there you have it.  My unedited letter to the editor.

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For more info, see the Ulster County Health Department’s Measles Outbreak Fact Sheet

*For info on the CDC recommended dosing schedule for the MMR vaccine, see here.

**I used my real name in the correspondence, but am using my Momma, PhD here on the blog.