Why Herd Immunity Doesn’t Apply to Vaccines
THIS my friends,THIS is the main argument made every time someone advocates for stricter mandates and the elimination of personal belief or religious exemptions…HERD IMMUNITY.
“We have to maintain 95% vaccine coverage to prevent outbreaks!” they say. Translation: we need to blame the 2% of people who conscientiously opt-out of some or all vaccines for the fact that we have a few dozen cases of measles in the country. ✋ Now math is sort of my thing (I used to teach SAT math in fact), but I know it’s not everyone’s. If we take 2% of those filing for exemptions and subtract it from 100% of the population, we end up with 98%…a number that is already higher than the “95% threshold” they claim we need to eradicate measles.
But guess what? According to scientists, measles will never be eradicated. Not ever. As in never ever ever. Even if 100% of our population is vaccinated for measles, it will never leave completely because of 3 reasons: primary vaccine failure, secondary vaccine failure, and risk groups that cannot be vaccinated.
1) Primary vaccine failure is the percentage of vaccinated individuals that never produce sufficient antibodies to protect them from the disease, even with boosters (extra doses). According to Dr. Gregory Poland, this is thought to be a genetic circumstance. And this number varies depending on the vaccine: for measles it’s as high as 10%, for mumps more than 15%, for pertussis near 20%. For influenza, because of mismatched strains, up to 75% of vaccinated people are unprotected! This means if you are a primary non-responder, you are walking around every day with a false sense of security, clinically unvaccinated for that particular disease.
2) Secondary vaccine failure describes a concept known as waning immunity. **ALL vaccines wane over time—there is not a single vaccine that creates lifelong immunity.** This timeframe also varies depending on the vaccine: for pertussis (whooping cough) it is 2-3 years, for measles around 15, and everything else is somewhere in between. So this means many of you reading this, well probably all of you, have lost your vaccine-induced immunity for common communicable diseases.
3) Risks groups for the MMR vaccine—groups who cannot receive the live virus vaccine because of potential harm—include immunocompromised individuals, those allergic to particular components, pregnant women, and children under 1. According to Dr. Poland, “this leaves a large enough segment of the population susceptible and unprotected and such cases [of measles in the vaccinated] will continue to occur.”
So essentially, there will NEVER be a time where we will achieve 95% immunity to measles, as a population even with complete vaccine compliance. While children’s vaccination rates might be that high in school settings, adults all around them are no longer immune. It’s why we keep seeing so many vaccinated cases and adult cases during disease outbreaks. Dr. Poland says, “This leads to a paradoxical situation whereby measles in highly immunized populations occurs primary in those previous immunized.”
So why are they forcing legislation in several states across the country for stricter mandates if that 2% is NOT responsible for measles? If in reality we are closer to 40-50% vaccination coverage as a population, why do they keep coming after vaccine-choicers with pitchforks asking everyone else to join in on the social witch hunt?
But wait, what about herd immunity? Herd immunity (originally termed in the 1930’s by Dr. Arthur Hedrich) was a theory created after witnessing patterns of natural measles immunity in the early 1900’s—where he concluded that 68% coverage was sufficient to prevent large outbreaks. But this theory relies on actual immunity. And people forget vaccination, as a flawed practice, cannot create actual immunity in everyone. A 2011 article in “Vaccines”, edited by Stanley Plotkin, says, “Much of the early theoretical work on herd immunity assumed that vaccines induced solid immunity against infection…” Theoretical… Assumed…
What’s funny is after the measles vaccine was licensed in 1963, the medical community declared a goal of eradicating measles by 1967. But 1967 came and went and it still wasn’t gone, 1977, 1987, 2000….the dates kept getting pushed, and the result was always the same. Meanwhile they continued to increase the hypothesized “herd immunity threshold”, eventually winding up at the extremely high 95% you hear today.
The reality is vaccine-induced immunity cannot create the same results that NATURAL immunity, the real basis for the theory of the herd, can. (I discuss the cost of losing natural immunity in #truthpart7 post on my FB page @MelissaFloyd). And yet every media interview throws around the term herd immunity like it’s going out of style…🙄. And please, please, PLEASE stop telling me I should be thankful for herd immunity because it will protect my vaccine-injured child. We will never have vaccine-induced herd immunity, and it’s a little late for you to try to protect my kid now don’t you think?
To recap: Herd immunity doesn’t actually apply to vaccines. 100% compliance with vaccines will never eliminate outbreaks of disease like measles, mumps, influenza, or pertussis. New laws to further mandate vaccines for these diseases are futile, because of my last sentence. And to everyone going after “anti-vaxxers” because you feel they are to blame for these diseases, I suggest you redirect your anger to the manufacturers of vaccines that could not successfully recreate nature’s perfect immune system.
Vaccination is not the same thing as immunity.