I find the thought of measles parties disturbing. Worse is the thought that “we do not need vaccines because our ancestors did just fine without them“. That’s idiotic. I laugh a little to myself in exasperation then I remember it’s not nice to laugh at the ignorant.
Of course getting immunity from a disease is “better” than getting immunity from a vaccination, but you first have to survive the disease and hope it doesn’t leave you with any deficits. The truth is that side effects of a vaccination are usually better tolerable than symptoms of a disease.
Let’s take measles for an example, you know, just randomly picked. Symptoms are more than just a rash and fever. High fevers, and the three C’s (cough, coryza, conjunctivitis) are common. Also common is muscle aches (myalgia), eyes sensitive to light (photophobia), and swelling around the eyes (periorbital edema). Some even get pneumonia. That’s mild disease.
In much of the world where measles vaccination is not commonplace, the infection itself is a common cause of blindness. Other serious complications of the infection include internal bleeding and inflammation of internal organs such as the liver (hepatitis), pancreas (pancreatitis), or heart (myocarditis). The one that was drilled in us in medical school though was subacute sclerosing panencephalitis (SSPE) a rare complication that can present several years after infection with a multitude of neurologic deficits. In a small town in Germany in 1999, anti-vaccinationist parents took their unvaccinated eleven year old child to the doctor’s office for a case of measles. He ended up infecting several children in the waiting room. Two of these babies, Natalie (YouTube) and Mischa (news article in German) developed SSPE and died as a result in 2011 and 2013 respectively. Slow and cruel spiral towards death I would say.
Bottom line: Having measles parties with the hope that your child will get measles, in an era where there is a safer alternative ie. the vaccine, makes no sense. I would say it borders on child endangerment.
A single dose of the measles vaccine given to a person older than 12 months induces protection in 95%. A second dose of measles is given to all to help induce protection in 95% of the 5% of recipients who didn’t achieve immunity in the first round. It doesn’t hurt for those who were fine the first time around to get the second vaccine. But what that means is that even if everybody was immunized twice for measles, there will still be about 2-3% of the population susceptible to the infection. A larger percentage of susceptible people, contributed to by people who have allergies to the vaccine components, or have other contraindications, or simply don’t want to get the vaccine for personal or religious reasons, means that this highly contagious virus will have enough susceptible people in the community to sustain periodic outbreaks like we have now. As it is, the United States is currently experiencing a measles outbreak that has spread to 14 states.
For those who think our ancestors did just fine without vaccinations and that breast-milk is the holy grail, one should keep in mind that most of the women having children these days were themselves vaccinated for measles. Most did not acquire their immunity by natural disease. What that means is that though their babies will get antibodies from them they won’t be as protected in the first few months of life as those babies whose mothers survived measles infection.
That said, even if a newborn got passive immunity from a mother who actually survived natural disease, they would be most protected in the first few weeks of life. Over time, the amount of maternal IgG in a baby drops off and by six months of age, there probably isn’t much protection left. There might still be IgG proteins circulating but not conferring protection though. This is why vaccination with live-attenuated vaccines such as measles is delayed to twelve months of age to be sure there is no interference. That is also why in communities experiencing a measles outbreak, when the risk of acquisition is higher, it makes sense for even a six month old baby to be vaccinated.
For the record, I am all for breast-feeding. It’s very important for a myriad of reasons. From an illness standpoint, breast-milk supports the health of a baby while its immune system is developing.
Bottom line: Relying on mother’s immunity via placenta or via breast-milk to protect a baby also doesn’t make much sense in the long run.
The truth is our ancestors could only have dreamed of a world deficient of the illnesses that took the lives of their babies and young children at reckless abandon; a luxury we enjoy because of vaccines.
Image Credit: flickr photo by Luciana Christante https://flickr.com/photos/vivacomopuder/2807017058 shared under a Creative Commons (BY-NC-ND) license
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