would your stance on vaccination differ in a different society?

I am under the impression from my general reading on this topic that many non-vaccinating parents choose not to vaccinate against, say, measles, because the disease has largely been eliminated in our (Western) society. The same tends to be said for diptheria, polio or whooping cough.

Arguably, if this is the reason behind non-vaccination, the non-vaxer is reliying on "herd immunity" which may eventually be reduced if great enough members of the "herd" were to also stop vaccinating.

Bear in mind that I am aware that this does not apply to all vaccinations - for example we have no herd immunity from hepatits, and I know that many people have entirely different reasons for refusing the Hep-B vaccine. Likewise, vaccines like gardisill or swine flu fall under a different category of vaccine, IMO.

So my question (which is one which was posed to me a while ago by my science-nut DH) is this : If you have chosen to non-vaccinate for these reasons, would you do the same if you lived in a country where those diseases are not eliminated or greatly reduced? Or are you in effect knowingly taking advantage of the "herd immunity" when you decide to not vaccinate?

Mods, I am not starting this thread as an attack on non-vaccinators, I am geniunely interested in hearing thoughts on this.

I would decide to vax under those circumstances, yes. For me it's about assessing risk. The risk of my DD catching polio in australia is basically zero so there's more chance of her being harmed by the vaccine than the disease. It would be the other way around if I lived somewhere where polio is common.

I think the basic answer to your question for me is, based on indivdual immunisations.

For example, if we lived in India, Charlotte would, without a shadow of a doubt, have the polio vaccination.
If we lived in South East Asia, Charlotte would have had, almost without a doubt (I say this due to other risk factors for her given family history with getting the vaccine itself which still weigh heavily), have the Hep B vaccine.

I don't not vaccinate because I rely on "herd immunity" I don't vaccinate as I rely on HER immunity - from coming in contact with the illness (in spite of vaccinations) and developing her own NATURAL immunity to illnesses where it is possible for the body to create antibodies. Whilst I understand the concept of herd immunity, I cannot say I am a full believer in it as I deny that vaccinations cause blanket immunity. Generally, the largest proportion of the population to get an illness are the ones vaccinated against it. Many illnesses are in steep decline without vaccinations in Western countries (ie Whooping Cough) so the notion of herd immunity does not really apply.

I'm rambling! lol

Short answer, yes - it would change as and when the risk assessment changes.

Herd immunity doesn't come into it for me.

I think it's a bit iffy to suggest that non-vaxers rely on herd immunity, and I know you weren't meaning to be offensive or to get people offside, but I think that you would be very, very hard pressed to find anyone who is against vaccinations/doesn't vax that has made that decision based on herd immunity, so to suggest it in the first place is kinda pointless.

For us, I honestly don't know. Like someone else said, it is about risk assessment. If I lived in another country, even one where measles was still the 'norm' I would probably still not vaccinate for that, preferring instead that they got a natural immunity from having had it. That would be so long as my current situation was still the same - access to clean drinking water, food etc and overall general health was as great as it is now and the outcome from having it would be the same or similar if they were to contract it while in this country. Just to point out though that your hypothetical vaccinated child in a different country can still contract it as well, just as they can in this country. The only one I would do would be hep B.

What Lime and Trill said. Has any of your reading material come from BB? I've never met anybody who non vaccs for herd immunity and I've never read it here.

There are about 8000 better reasons not to than that, did you come across any of them in your reading?

Pretty well my only reading about vaccination has come from BB (though I have often floowed links to papers or related sites).

Trillian I am not suggesting that herd immunity is the only reason to not vax, but if someone would not vax in Australia but would in a country where the disease is prevalent then that appears to be a decision based on reliance on herd immunity, in the way that Heaven's appears to have been. As you would still not vax in such circumstances but instead rely on natural immunity, then your decision isn't. I'm not casting nasturiums (:)) on a decision to not vax based on herd immunity, I am just curious to what extent people see it as a valid reason.

Limeslice, my understand that the concept of herd immunity (which I admit is from wikipedia only LOL!) is that it doesn't mean 100% but rather a lower % (I think for most diseases it is around 85%.

I am not attacking or questioning other reasoning on not vaccinating, but specifically the extent to which a herd immunity concept plays a part in decision making :) As I said in my OP, "if this is the reason behind non-vaccination, the non-vaxer is reliying on "herd immunity" which may eventually be reduced if great enough members of the "herd" were to also stop vaccinating" (with the emphasis on "if").

Oh yes totally understand what you mean/meant ;)

Personally, in so far as a belief in herd immunity, I think it is a very common misconception. The only true time herd immunity can exist ime is when you have a populationwho have been naturally exposed and/or infected with the natural virus and have overcome it, developed their antibodies naturally, and are therefor immune.
The notion of "reduced" risk is negligiable really - and this small percentage reduction when weighed against the ACTUAL infection risk rates, the ACTUAL serious injury/death from ACTUAL infection rates, and the risk of serious injury/death/toxicity from the vaccine itself, is totally negated.
The opportunity cost of vaccinating is so far and away greater than that of not vaccinating, even taking into consideration any reduced risk of infection.


ETA:
I should also add the caveat that I do not believe that naturally immunity is 100% 100% of the time either - I had chicken pox 4 times as a child/teen in varying degrees of severity.

That's fair enough Rory :)

herd immunity doesnt come into it at all for me...and other non vaccinators that i know.

Im simply not prepared to put a heap of crap into a tiny body that may not react well to it....its that simple.

I had my two older children vaccinated when they were older (7&10) and I will get my 3 year old done in a few more years probably around the same age...although i will be choosey in which vaccines i will give her. I wont give my girls the cervical cancer vaccine for instance and I wont give her 3 injections in one hit.

Its about safety for me. If i was in a society with a lot of disease, i would use the same alternatives that i used when my kids were little...natural homeopathic immunization.

I'm the first to admit that I haven't done much reading on this so no doubt I have missed lots of reasons, but the one reason that has stuck as a non-vaxxing reason is the fact that these diseases are not prevalent (now) which some would argue is because the majority has been vaccinated.

So, I'm subscribing because I'm interested to learn more.

And because I currently have a dilemma re the swine flu vaccine so the whole vaccination thing is particularly interesting to me at this point.

It would be based on a case by case basis as to where we would be going. Very likely I would vaccinate DS more than he is already because in some areas good health care and nutrition/safe water is also hard to get. I know if he gets sick in Borneo it is a lot harder to get good health care than here for example.

Rory, I think I understand your OP in terms of assumed risk, and I can only answer it from the opposite perspective. I would normally err on the side of non-vaxing where "new" vaccines are concerned - I like to see large long term studies regarding safety before I start putting things in my body - BUT last year having suddenly found myself in a population of increased risk (cancer patient with primary cancer of the immune system) I couldn't trample into the drs surgery fast enough for a dose of the swine flu vax.

I think it's a similar mechanism to when people decide to get extra vaccinations before travelling o/seas to areas of known disease prevalence.

I'm a partial/delayed vaxing mother and no, I wouldn't change. If a disease has a good chance of killing DS and the vaccine doesn't, he's vaccinated no matter what the chance of him catching it is. If it's nasty but no long-term damage (eg chicken pox in childhood, which has just caused us a lot of agony, or flu) and is very unlikely to kill (that is, kill him at this present time), he isn't vaccinated, instead relying on his immune system.

I do delay vaccinations until the very end of the time he can have them in. Or even longer. Just to give him a chance to develop his immune system a bit more before I introduce a nasty to it.

Vaccines aren't perfect and contain some nasty stuff. But nothing is nastier than him dying from something I could have prevented, IMO. And the chances of catching nasty things in the UK is on the rise. If there were no risk, I may well think differently. But low risk... still too much of a risk for me.

Im with Peg, our girls are partly vaxxed. DH and I have issues with the scedule of the vaxs, the variety of vaxs, and that the system in our opinion has a 'one size fits all' approach.
Our plan at the moment is to wait, we dont see a need to bombard their immune systems with drugs. We want to wait until it is needed or just more appropiate. And that been said they may never get them. We may just leave that up to them to decide.
(We say this partly because my mum got me totally immunised through my childhood, I even had the rubella in my teens, and today I have no immunity to any of the diseases I was vaxxed for. I found this out when pregnant with DD1, the general consensus from the doctors was that I had to give up teaching until after she was born because immunity was so low against chickenpox etc)
SO would we vax in another country where the disease was rampant, yes. But I think we would only vax against the diseases that we were likely to come into contact with, and we would also take extreme caution in order to minimise any risks.

Hope that makes sense!

Justine

For us, too, it would depend on the vaccination and the disease. In areas where polio is prevalent, for example, then yes, we would probably vaccinate for it. Same for areas where typhoid, etc. are prevalent. I wouldn't vaccinate for measles, mumps, or rubella regardless, same for varicella, and diptheria. Pertussis I personally would vaccinate against, although DW disagrees. Same for tetanus.

It's not really relying on herd immunity in most cases - polio I think being the exception.

I can't help but wonder if you would have access to the information that we have if you were to grow up in such a country, and as such your choices would be swayed without full information.

This exact scenario happened to us recently. We moved to a country where disease is much more prevalent. We have previously delayed vaccination, followed an alternate schedule, and chosen to omit some.

Our reasoning for our choices remains the same regardless of where we live. For each vaccination i asked myself "Do the risks associated with the vaccination outweigh the risk associated with getting the disease?" and "How likely is it that we will come into contact with the disease?"

Japanese Encephalitis is around in PNG, it is not common, but if you get it can be fatal. The vaccine is only 2 years old and has no history. So although i had the vaccine myself i decided not to vax the girls. It is mosquito born so we take suitable measure to avoid mosquitoes. This disease does concern me, but i was not willing to put a vaccine that was in its infancy into my girls.

TB- The vaccine is only 50% effective. To get TB you need to be in a confined space with an infected person for a period of time. Although TB is rife over here, our children are not in situations where they are like to get the disease, and i was not willing to give them the immunisation if it only have a 50% success rate, was not so easily transmitted and is well treated. When we return to Australia we will all have blood tests to determine our exposure and take the treatment if necessary.

Hep A and Typhoid- Hep A particularly is easily transmitted from feces on unwashed hands. As we have national staff working with us and the kids play with lots of local kids, we decided to immunise our eldest against these two. The baby, however will not be vaccinated for some time yet.

Malaria: Both forms of malaria are extremely active here, but we don't take a prophylaxis. We thought about it for a long time and i spoke to many doctors about it. The general consensus was that 'years' is too long a time to be poisoning your body with malaria prophylaxis, and i certainly don't want to take a weekly antibiotic just in case. So we were left with the option of covering up between dusk and dawn and wearing DEET. Although DEET use concerns me too, i use as little as possible and limit any night time activities so the girls don't have DEET on their skin too much. In our situation i decided DEET was the better option for my babies and i. It is almost inevitable that they will get Malaria and we need to be vigilant in detecting it and taking them straight to the medical centre to begin treatment. Deaths from Malaria are most commonly often due to delay in treatment.

We still wont immunise against varicella, and will delay the MMR.

So yes, our immunisations changed, but my thought pattern remains the same. :D