The recent Disneyland measles outbreak has brought the vaccine debate front and center. State-based Action Alerts!
Sens. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA) are now urging reconsideration of vaccine exemptions. And it
The recent Disneyland measles outbreak has brought the vaccine debate front and center. State-based Action Alerts!
Sens. Diane Feinstein (D-CA) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA) are now urging reconsideration of vaccine exemptions. And it is noteworthy that in 2008, then-senator Barack Obama called the link between vaccines and a skyrocketing autism rate “inconclusive, but we have to research it” in greater depth. In 2015, President Obama is calling vaccine science “indisputable.”
Meanwhile the mainstream media, which is kept alive today with ads from Big Pharma, is wildly promoting the usual pro-vaccine myths. A big one is the theory of “herd immunity.” You’ve probably heard people ask, “Aren’t you risking ‘herd immunity’ and acting selfishly if you choose not to vaccinate your kids?”
Our colleagues at ANH-Europe explain that according the herd immunity theory, if a certain proportion of any population is inoculated against a disease through vaccination, it inhibits the spread of that disease within the population. People who cannot receive vaccines for whatever reason—say, on religious grounds, or because of a sensitivity to the vaccine’s ingredients—are thus protected from the disease by a high level of vaccination within society. The argument runs that parents who don’t vaccinate their children put the health of the whole society at risk.
While this may sound like a plausible theory, it developed out of observations of natural immunity, not vaccination effects. Statisticians observed that populations were protected when sufficient members contracted the wild form of a disease, and subsequently acquired lifelong immunity. With vaccines, however, the evidence plainly shows that unvaccinated children can catch infectious diseases from vaccinated children—which means that high rates of vaccination do not effectively protect those members of society who are unable to take vaccines, rendering the central tenet of herd immunity completely invalid!
In addition, the Weston A. Price Foundation takes great pains to point out that the choice not to vaccinate is being unfairly demonized:
- Scientific evidence demonstrates that individuals vaccinated with live-virus vaccines such as MMR (measles, mumps and rubella), rotavirus, chicken pox/shingles, and influenza can shed the virus for many weeks or months afterwards and infect the vaccinated and unvaccinated alike.
- Those vaccinated can carry the disease in the back of their throat, and can infect others while not showing any symptoms themselves.
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