Losing Herd Immunity

As a mother I am involved in the interests of my children, including the health interests. When Amelia was a baby I had to make the decision to vaccinate or not. This was not a light hearted decision for me. I did a lot of research and spoke to my pediatrician and then did more research on the matter. What I concluded was best for my family was to vaccinate my child on the AAP recommended schedule, and I am continuing that decision with James. I feel not only is this best for my child it is best for the herd immunity.

(From Wikipedia) Herd immunity (or community immunity) describes a type of immunity that occurs when the vaccination of a portion of the population (or herd) provides protection to unprotected individuals.^[1] Herd immunity theory proposes that, in diseases passed from individual to individual, it is more difficult to maintain a chain of infection when large numbers of a population are immune. The higher the proportion of individuals who are immune, the lower the likelihood that a susceptible person will come into contact with an infectious individual.^[2]

Basically, to protect the weak or sick, the majority of the population must be vaccinated. This is seen in animals as well as humans. The best example of this that I have heard is a child with Leukemia enrolled in preschool. That child has a weakened immune system and at risk to contract possibly deadly diseases. The health of the child is dependent on the rest of the children in the daycare to be immunized, if they are not, the child with Leukemia will be forced to leave the daycare.

Another example can be found in this article http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2010-01-06-childhoodvaccines06_CV_N.htm which talks about the recent outbreak of Meningitis in Minnesota.

The debate over vaccines started with a paper published in a respectable British health magazine called the Lancet. The author was later found guilty of professional misconducted and was struck from the British Medical Register. His claims that there was a connection with the MMR vaccine and Autism were unfounded and based on manipulated data. (To read more about it http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MMR_vaccine_controversy) Since the article was printed the debate to vaccinate has raged. And while it is true that the instances of Autism have increased since the 1980s, the data can't be entirely trusted because the ways of diagnosing have changed considerably.

Do the benefits outweigh the side effects? Well that is a question that each family must answer for themselves. I truly hope that if you are faced with the decision to vaccinate or not, you take the time to do the research and look at both sides of the issue.