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Comment by 213424355352255 | Hacker News Reader

"The lesson of all this is that vaccination is not an individual choice to be made by a parent for his or her own offspring. It's a public health issue, because the diseases contracted by unvaccinated children are a threat to the community."

Unvaccinated children who contract a disease are only a threat to other unvaccinated children, who are generally unvaccinated by choice. Not sure why this is a public health issue.

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Sadly you are wrong. Not all vaccinated children will be protected. Herd immunity keeps even those people safe. When people do not vaccinate they destroy herd immunity, meaning that unvaccinated and vaccinated but vulnerable children are at risk.

Interesting. What is the rough percentage of vaccinated but vulnerable children?

Varies widely depending on what vaccine you're talking about, and in what age group.

Since they're finding out more and more that immunity from various vaccines wane faster than thought, why aren't adults who aren't fully up-to-date on their boosters figured into the "herd immunity" argument? I have yet to get a serious response on this anywhere I've brought it up.

They are, which is why there are, for example, very well developed campaigns to get college students caught up on their vaccines, and vaccination campaigns for certain groups at higher risk of either complications from the disease, or passing it on to others (for example, parents, and expectant mothers for certain vaccines).

Interesting. I have not seen this. Nor have I seen any vitriol whatsoever directed at these equally important members of the "herd."

My understanding is that the pertussis vaccine, by its nature, does not prevent infection at all. It inures you to the pertussis toxin, causing you to experience milder or no symptoms when you do get infected. But I must be wrong, because they push for people to handle babies to get the vaccine - wouldn't it be better for those people to feel sick, stay home, and not handle babies when they're infected? Help me understand.

My understanding of it:

Vaccines are not force fields that prevent you from contracting a disease. They just lower your chances considerably. So an unvaccinated child can infect vaccinated children.

Vaccinating "eradicates" disease in that it lowers the overall chance of transmission to the point where the disease can't effectively spread. A bunch of unvaccinated kids raises that overall chance back up and can cause outbreaks.

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

There are many unvaccinated people who are not unvaccinated by choice, such as children who are too young to be vaccinated, and people who are allergic to the vaccine.

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