How long do vaccines last?
For some diseases, not as long as one might think.
For other diseases, a really long time.
And in addition, it’s not easy to ascertain how long they last, particularly for diseases that have mostly been wiped out and for which exposure is relatively rare.
I’m so old I’m of a generation that actually contracted a lot of these childhood diseases, pre-vaccine. I remember a memorable year or two early on when I had mumps, chicken pox, measles, and German measles (rubella) in succession. I emerged none the worse for wear, and more or less immune for life (although I did manage to later get a mild case of that chicken pox sequela, shingles).
But I’m also old enough to remember when measles was a potential killer. My own cousin contracted measles encephalitis and later died of complications from the disease. So no one had to tell me how important vaccinations for these diseases were when they finally became available later on.
I also had shingles, and it wasn’t mild. I pretty much felt as though I had been run over by a truck. The pain is strange though, because it is neuralgia. That is your nerves sending false signals of pain produced by nerve damage. If you have never experienced this, count yourself fortunate. It is a little like people who suffer from migraine headaches trying to explain it to those who don’t. All you can do is try to explain it with inadequate similies.
Neo,
A “me, too” to all of those diseases you mentioned above, although we didn’t lose anyone in our family to subsequent problems. Sorry for your family’s tragic loss.
You did not mention polio however. I’ll bet that, like me, you had both the Salk and the Sabin vaccines That is the problem with the anti-vaxxers; they seem to have no fear of contracting these terrible diseases, but their chances are low (for the time being) precisely because of the vaccines they deny their own children. We have already had the first recent death by whooping cough in this country in a long, long time (In California, if my memory serves me correctly). We can only hope that this is not the beginning of a trend.
The anti-vaxxers are nuts.
I remember getting chicken-pox. A friend had mumps — so I went to play with him, drink from his glass, share cake & snacks; but I didn’t get mumps. I did get the usual vaccines.
Disease reduction would be a huge benefit of Christian Capitalist civilization for the world, but too many “do-gooders” don’t actually like capitalism, since it rewards success. Which leads to more success which is why capitalism is so much more successful, in money & “capital”, than any other system.
The poor in the world need capitalism and jobs more than aid — and as they create more wealth, they will be far more interested in getting more health.
As long as there are huge numbers of poor people in poor countries, there will be pockets of diseases. So vaccines will remain necessary (tho not always sufficient).
T:
Yes, indeed, I had both polio vaccines. I was one of the first in my school if not the first to get the Salk vaccine. It was a big big deal.
Some people are “anti-vaxxer” by circumstance, some by biological imperative, and some by choice. Vaccines are not magical elixirs. They are a part of a risk management protocol. People should be informed of the risks, the costs and benefits, of a particular vaccine, and make an appropriate choice.
Socialist dictatorship y shithole Venezuela’s collapsed healthcare system has been lagging in vaccinations for years now, so as a result it currently exports diseases into neighboring Colombia and Brazil as these nations receive a flood of Venezuelan refugees. Burdens of cost, of illness in neighbor’s population? Maduro doesn’t give a damn.
I remember my mother getting a phone call from my aunt to say the doctor had confirmed three cousins had polio. Fortunately they were mild cases although one cousin was left with a leg about an inch shorter than his other one. At the time it was terrifying. You bet we got the vaccine at school as soon as it was available.
I had all those diseases too. Measles three times (different varieties I s’pose). Plus other things. (I’m still a hypochondriac.)
I remember being about 4 or 5 years old, and walking the five houses down the street (it was a different age, and Mom would be watching from the driveway) to my friend Ronnie’s. We played every day. He hadn’t been so chipper the previous few days. And knocking on the door, and asking if Ronnie could come out and play.
And being told by his tearful Mom that Ronnie wouldn’t be able to play with me anymore.
I didn’t understand what I’d done wrong, and was crying – just a bit: I wasn’t a baby after all – while I walked home and told Mom (well, Mama is more accurate).
A few days later she sat me down and explained that Ronnie was very, very sick. She explained about polio, and dying.
And a few weeks later she let me know that Ronnie was… gone.
They moved away, forever, a few months later.
I still remember my chum.
Anti-vaxxers do not have my sympathies.
Perhaps worst of all, the non-socialist vaccine against socialism has yet to be found, let alone tested for longevity. The actual socialist vaccine itself (very effective) unfortunately kills far too many of those whom it inoculates.
brdavis,
A tragic story. I remember well the old photos of polio victims in “iron lungs” and the sad thing is that they were the “lucky” ones
The anti-vaxxers do not have my sympathy either.
I too remember the ‘focus’ that childhood communicable diseases once brought and was just old enough to realize that the adults viewed the Salk vaccine as nothing short of miraculous. Now that was a big f**k*n deal.
I got my share but had the innocent attitude that they were just something you passed through on the way to adulthood.
I caught an ABC propaganda piece on the efforts in NYC to retaliate against those who refuse to allow their children to be vaccinated.
Not a word about the increase in childhood diseases being the result of waves of South and Central American illegal immigrant children inundating our schools. Typical obfuscation for the proles.
Not a word about the inherent ‘Russian roulette’ aspect of vaccines. That eventuality being so statistically low offers little comfort, if your child is a loser in that ‘lottery’. The subtext being that the possible loss of your child is a sacrifice for the ‘greater good’.
Like T above, I had both the Salk and the Sabin series of vaccines. I remember one time complaining to my dad at supper time about having to get a shot every time my mother took me to Dr. Kurtz (my pediatrician– a warm teddy bear type of guy who obviously did his best to make kids’ injections as easy as possible). My dad got very serious with me (not angry, just earnest) and said I should understand how grateful he and my mother were that there were such things as polio vaccines. I later found out from my grandmother that my dad came down with diphtheria when he was eight years old (in 1920) and almost died of it. My dad was given a tetanus shot when he went into the Army in 1942; I had to be immunized against tetanus before going to church camp; in high school; and again in college. I also had to be vaccinated against smallpox before going to college.
Like Neo, I had measles, mumps, and chickenpox (though not rubella) in one hectic year in elementary school. My primary care doc recommended the shingles vaccine when I turned 65, and I’m really glad I had it. My polio story: my first cousin married an engineer who is 20 years her senior– he contracted polio in the early 1940s and has a withered right leg. I recalled with gratitude my dad’s words about the Salk vaccine. My cousin’s husband has made the best of his partial disability, but we all wish the polio vaccines had come along 15 or 20 years earlier.
My local lab offers a variety of blood tests at a cash pay level (no insurance, no dorctor’s reports). I’ll be getting one of the immunity tests since I had measles 60 years ago and I am curious about the antibody levels. It will be safer than getting a live virus vaccine at my age. My arm still hurts from the shingles shot 6 months ago and I’m waiting for the second shot.
Geoffrey Britain:
The risks of vaccines. Your phrase “Russian roulette” involves a far far higher risk than actually exists.
I am of an age (born 1966) where I got the polio, measles, and mumps vaccines as a small child.
I also had a case of shingles last October- the typical band from the middle of the back and around to the middle of the chest on the right side. Not pleasant at all-extremely painful and uncomfortable- sleeping was not easy. Fortunately, I had no after effects that some people get- the rash cleared and I didn’t have any lingering neuralgia after three weeks. Where the rash had been itched like mad for another week or two, but that also subsided.
My advice- if you are over 50, get the new shingles vaccine- it is suppose to be very effective and long lasting. You don’t want shingles, trust me.
The only reason we don’t see iron lungs anymore is they replaced them with cuirass ventilators.
http://oxygen.milano.it/en/the-iron-lung-and-the-modern-ventilation/
Like Neo and others, I got all those childhood diseases. A first-grade classmate got polio and was very ill, with lasting effects. I remember clearly my mother’s tears of joy when the Salk vaccine came out. A young relative we know has not been immunized for anything. His mother worries about autism, and doesn’t bother to worry about what happens if the child gets tetanus.
Kate:
That is really sad considering that tetanus is ubiquitous in soil and consequences are severe. It ain’t the rusty nails you have to worry about stepping on ….
neo,
I readily acknowledge the astronomically low risk.
What is the difference between Russian roulette with one live round in a revolver and one in a million? It’s still Russian roulette, just heavily favored for the 999,999… but none of those 999,999 know if they’re that one in a million, so it is a roll of the dice. Thus, arguably a macabre form of lottery. We are playing the odds and in a large enough sampling, someone is going to roll ‘snake eyes’.
Kate directly above puts it in perspective; very low risk of autism VS a statistically much higher risk of diseases like tetanus. Put that way, playing the odds is a ‘no-brainer’.
Geoffrey Britain:
You ask, “What is the difference between Russian roulette with one live round in a revolver and one in a million? It’s still Russian roulette, just heavily favored for the 999,999… but none of those 999,999 know if they’re that one in a million, so it is a roll of the dice.”
No, it’s not Russian roulette—it’s called LIFE. I suppose if you want to call life a game of Russian roulette, in the sense that there’s always some risk in everything (although there is one certainty: it ends with death), then go right ahead and call life a game of Russian roulette. But doing that strips the expression “Russian roulette” of all its meaning. So why use it if it becomes meaningless? “Russian roulette” is a term coined to mean something inherently very risky, where the risks aren’t 1 in 2 or anything of that order, but very very high indeed:
Russian roulette:
The risks of vaccines aren’t even remotely in that ballpark.
I, too had most of the childhood maladies, both series of polio meds (born 1946). Also in the Air Force I recieve a Plague shot and smallpox vaccine, among others. I remember the smallpox vaccine as producing a nasty looking scab, no pain, just ugly and messy. The Gamaglobulin shot felt like they inserted a baseball into one of your buttocks. Survived them all.
I also had measles and chicken pox: chicken pox wasn’t so bad, but the measles were horrible. I was sick in bed, and completely covered with a red rash for weeks. I was even too sick to want to read, which for me was almost beyond belief. I didn’t get the mumps, though – when my brother contracted it. The family doctor thought that since I was just starting puberty, it would be very bad for me, and so I had some kind of special shot – gamma globulin?
I am just old enough to have been given the Salk vaccines, and remember that our grandmothers, and Mom too – were get-down-on-their-knees grateful for it. Polio had been a scourge, for all of their lives, and that children now wouldn’t catch it… a miracle.
But I do remember that there were slightly older children in my elementary school, who were in heavy leg-braces, or in wheelchairs. It was like the monster was gone, but not the damage it had done.
My libertarian impulse tells me parents who don’t want to vaccinate their children don’t have to. My communitarian impulse tells me they have to keep their children in biohazard suits and hermetically sealed bubbles. “Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins.”
Richard,
Yes. That indeed is the dilemma. I believe that both are present in our basic and common human nature (discounting the relatively small percentage of people who are born with sociopathy or psychopathy — if any — or a strong potential to develop it).
To resolve the dilemma is the primary business of the philosophy of ethics. But I’ve come to believe, sadly, that there is no theoretical bright-line which will settle the practical issues in day-to-day life. Putting it another way, there is at least theoretically always a grey area where each of us has to decide for himself what is or isn’t permissible, and to live with the consequences painful though they may be.
So, life is a balancing act™: Everything Has a Downside™.
–Well, I suppose that in a way Death itself has no downside, since (I believe) one can experience nothing, including loss, after the final catastrophe. But the Upside is that there are at least a few things in the lives of most of us where the Downside is overall negligible. Eating well-buttered, hot, boiled or steamed corn on the cob being one example. :>)))
Two further thoughts.
First, Tom:
Exceptionally well-said and pithily stated. S/b a Quote of the Day somewhere. *applause*
.
Second, and really O/T though pursuant to my comment just above:
Neo, and anyone else who has labored in the fields of psychology or neuroscience:
Do you know the story of Dr. David Wood, who today is a strong Christian (by his own account anyhow, just to note) and a professor of philosophy at Fordham? This gentleman has a lot of videos up (Channel Acts17apologetics), mostly devoted to presenting the unpleasant side of modern Islam; but one of them is his confessional story of his progression from what would have been a near-complete absence of anything remotely related to normal sympathy, let alone empathy, which involved his having made a near-fatal attack on his father not out of any animus but just — because. Later spells in mental institutions, and then in prison, where he met a fellow inmate who changed his whole way of seeing things. Today he has a marriage, presumably happy, and four (I think) children.
I would really like your educated judgment about this. Our pal J.P., of course, has said that sociopaths are such for life. Contrariwise, there is the story of Phineas Gage (he of the head injury from hitting a railroad spike with his head), and contrariwise to that, what I’ve read recently “debunking” the story.
I’d really like to have educated opinion.
Dr. Wood’s “Why I Am a Christian” video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DakEcY7Z5GU