Viral hepatitis: A silent epidemic killing more people than HIV, malaria or TB

pssst .... APOE genotype predicts how much viral DNA for Herpes is found in the brain .... post mortem .....

It's almost as if Herpes viruses transport around the body the same way ;)

(Bar plots in this paper are LOG!)

https://jvi.asm.org/content/80/11/5383/figures-only

Now I'm scared; 23andme reported that I'm at risk for Late-Onset Alzheimer's. What lifestyle changes can I make to reduce the risk of liver cancer?

That's one hypothesis. Another one is simply that in some people, LDL is high because they have an infection that specifically turns on those LDL-making genes. It's known that many viruses hijack cholesterol pathways in cells.

Not extremely unlikely given that most saliva swapping likely goes on between partners who kiss on a daily basis and hence are extremely likely to have at least one interaction where both parties have a combination of cuts, bleeding gums, cold sores or similar.

Hepatitis rates among First Nations, Metis and Inuit are apparently significantly higher than hepatitis rates among other Canadians.

I don't follow. You're saying posters and TV commercials about hepatitis cause more hepatitis? (I bet you're not, but I really don't get it)

Hep A is a waterborne disease. If you live somewhere with proper sanitation and don't have contact with sewage you are at low risk and the funds for the vaccine are better directed elsewhere.

I am not a doctor, but my understanding is there is a small bug significant number of people who cannot get certain vaccines due to e.g. immune system issues. "Herd Immunity" through a highly-immunized population generally protects these people because there are fewer reservoirs for a given disease.

Edit: The reason people are mad at anti-vaxxers: their foolishness directly impacts the welfare of some already unfortunate folks.

Society generally takes a dim view toward people who endanger others through ignorant recklessness.

Because they aren’t the canaries at all. Instead they volunteer their kids (and the kids who interact with their kids) as the canaries.

Anti-vaxxers threaten the lives of not only their own children but the lives of others. There are people that legitimately cannot be vaccinated due to deadly allergies or reactions and the selfish behavior of parents who refuse to vaccinate their children puts them at severe risk. Herd immunity is important to protect people that have no other option and when people compromise it for the sake of perpetuated lies it results in disaster.

People are angry at them because the herd-immunity they are compromising is the only thing keeping certain members of our population alive and healthy. There are some people who, for various reasons, CANNOT receive vaccinations. Not WILL not, or DO not, but CANNOT. When herd-immunity is compromised it's not just the anti-vaxxers children's lives that are at risk, it's everyone who doesn't GET the choice to vaccinate or not that are more vulnerable to disease since it can now spread through the population more easily.

My mom is currently going through chemo for cancer. Her immune system is essentially zero despite being fully vaccinated.

You bet I get angry: anti-vaxx people are trying to kill my mom and there is nothing I can do about it.

They don't just endanger their own health, they endanger us all. Some people can be carriers but not be symptomatic for a pathogen, so they can be walking around spreading a disease like measles but not even know it. With high herd immunity this is not much of a problem because almost all of the people with whom they come into contact will be vaccinated and not catch the disease before the carrier's body eventually fights it off, but with low herd immunity they become a major problem.

If humanity has not evolved a natural defense to these diseases after thousands of years it is not going to happen by some anti-vaxer volunteering to be an evolutionary petri dish. Actually, now that I think of it, humanity has already evolved a defense against these diseases -- by evolving a big brain it figured out how to develop vaccines...

  risking their own health so that the human genome can keep
  battling with and evolving natural defenses against disease?

Diseases evolve orders of magnitude faster than humans. Giving ourselves a chance to evolve also gives the disease a chance to respond and they will always find ways around our defenses faster than we find defenses. Remember, the usual result of failing to complete a course of antibiotics is a new strain of antibiotic-resistant bacteria. Leaving a reservoir of a disease that we have a vaccine for is far, far more likely to result in a new strain of that disease that can bypass the vaccine.

Additionally... what's the point? Any disease that has a voluntarily unvaccinated population also necessarily has an effective vaccine. The development of a effective vaccine equally necessarily indicates that developing vaccines is easier, faster, and better than attempting to evolve defenses. Why try to go back to evolution at all? The existing vaccine works. If it stops working, make a new one. No need for these ad-hoc primitivist schemes.

Because they are not just risking their own health.

Vaccinations are not always effective, nor are they permanent. They are a statistical firebreak against an epidemic. Think of vaccinations like transistors. They are modelled as 1 (vaccinated, won't get sick) or 0 (unvaccinated), but that's not the reality. The reality is very few people have an immunity level of 1.0 (won't get sick) on that scale even after vaccination, and some of those who do seem completely immune are that way because their immune system is particularly good at making a particular disease asymptomatic, not (necessarily) because they were vaccinated.

You can still get infected even if you were vaccinated recently. Many vaccinations lose effectiveness after a decade or two at most. Most adults (who are less affluent/wealthy or who don't travel) don't get re-vaccinated for most things because they're at lower risk. The highest risk is in places like preschool, daycare, grade school and college with lots of people in close proximity, and some poor hygiene mixed in.

And hospitals and doctors offices.

Anti-vaxx parents put everyone else at disproportional risk, because children are a prime infection distribution hub for all kinds of contagious diseases.

Young child affected by leuchemia can't go to school nowadays in Italy, because they risk being infected by anti-vaxxers'child and risk their life

How does this go, usually? They ask you to choose someone else then decline future appointments?

Have you seen anything similar for urgent-care clinics?

I agree that pediatric practices refusing service to no-vaxers is the norm in the US.

I've have a few friends who range between full on anti-vax vs being skeptical of one or two, and I’ve heard a few stories.

It seems that a parent asking for their child to not receive one or two of the 20-50 vaccines the pediatrician gives by default has about a 50% chance of being kicked out of the practice. As you said, asking for no vaccines is about a 99% chance.

However, pediatricians have a racket where they will not accept a new child (unless they moved to the area) unless they saw the child within a week of its birth. Thus, when you get kicked out, you are out. You can't see a pediatrician anymore unless you drive 80 miles to sketchy 90's new-age pediatrician in a dingy strip mall, and you can't get any more vaccines unless you go on the correct afternoon of the second week of the month to a government clinic in the part of town with litter and shootings.

This has pushed several people I know into not getting further vaccinations when they were getting 95%.

Maybe it's just our area, and the whole US isn't doesn’t have pediatric practices like this...

It's God's Will until it happens to you.