5:00 Dose of Vaccinology: The Herd Immunity Argument

5:00 Dose of Vaccinology: The Herd Immunity Argument

Often, people justify not vaccinating their children because of "herd immunity".  The reasoning goes that this notion should keep their child safe without being vaccinated, so why risk ("risk", really) it?  Before my verdict on this is given, allow me to quickly define herd immunity.  This is the concept that disease transmission requires a certain level of susceptible population density, and if the susceptible population is tiny because most people are immune, that disease transmission will not occur.  In other words, if 198 adults and 2 children are standing in a crowd and 1 of the children has the chicken pox, very little will probably happen because the majority of the adults are immune.  Make sense?  Okay, moving on.

Point 1: Not everyone in a given population can be vaccinated for various completely valid reasons (congenital immune deficiency, cancer treatments, ingredient allergy, whatever).  Similarly, not everyone who is vaccinated responds equally well and achieves protective immunity.  These individuals are protected by herd immunity.

Point 2: So the argument goes, vaccines are "potentially dangerous" so you will allow your child to benefit form herd immunity.

Point 3: this not only reduces the robustness of herd immunity for those who must rely on it (see point 1), but implicitly implies that you will gladly reap the benefit of someone else's risk (again, "risk") without a valid need to do so, which...

Point 4: Makes you kind of an ass.

Unprofessional?  Yes.  So very true, however.