In response to a previous posting Nicholas Landau replied (in part)
"I would be surprised if anybody asserted that inoculated kids were
at risk from diseases against which they are inoculated by the
presence of uninoculated kids. More likely it is the uninoculated
who are at risk from other uninoculated kids.
Vaccines tend to greatly increase an individual's resistance to a
given disease."
While I am far from an expert on vaccines, being vaccinated is not a
guarantee that you are no longer susceptible to infection. The
degree of protective response to a given vaccine varies depending on
a multitude of factors such as the type of vaccine (e.g.
live-attenuated strain, subunit vaccine, killed preparation, etc.),
the organism the vaccine is based on (virus, bacteria, parasite, and
the different species within each group), the manufacturing batch.
Not to mention the person being vaccinated.
Therefore inoculated kids can, indeed, be at risk from uninoculated
kids. (Unless I'm mistaken there is a concept called "herd immunity"
at work here.) The bottom line is that the success of vaccines should
speak for itself; parents who assert their "informed" rights by
refusing to have their children vaccinated are doing a grave
disservice to their children, the community and to their society.
A little bit of knowledge is a dangerous thing and very little
knowledge is very dangerous.
Steve Projan
Wyeth-Ayerst Research
