IF THE LINK BETWEEN AUTISM AND VACCINATIONS WERE TRUE
1 in 110 children today are diagnosed with autism - 0.9%
The number cases and deaths by diseases that are now vaccinated - prior to vaccine development
Chicken Pox - 4,000,000 million cases per year - 100-150 deaths per year - (0.0025%)
Diphtheria - 206,000 per year - 15,520 deaths per year - (7.5%)
Pertussis - 147,000 per year - 8,000 deaths per year (5.44%)
Polio - 16,164 per year (highest peak was 42,033) - 20,000 total cases of paralysis (8.8%) and 1000 total cases of death. (0.44%) 226,306 total cases.
Hep A - 270,000 per year - 4 deaths per 1,000 (0.4%)
Hep B - 18,000 (children) per year - deaths by Hep B are rare, but they lead to other diseases. 40% death risk from cirrhosis (liver disease)
Measles - Highly contagious, 90% infection rate to un-vaccinated individuals with a 0.3% chance of death. (could not find similar statistics)
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Most of the diseases listed above have a contraction rate and death rate reduced from 75% - 99% since the vaccines were introduced.
I'm not sure what you would think, but I would take my chances with the vaccines.
sources are from all over the web. similar statistics were difficult to find so I had to do a lot of number crunching.
Rebecca,
ReplyDeleteI totally agree with your stance that the side effects of vaccinations greatly outweigh the risks of actually contracting certain diseases. I think that as a society we are at an interesting point at which vaccinations are being created for diseases that have not typically been seen as life threatening. While diseases such as the Flu and Chicken pox result in a large number of deaths each year, a large proportion of the population is able to have these diseases and recover without any notable lasting effects. With relatively new vaccinations such as the chicken pox vaccine, it will be interesting to see how society's perception of certain diseases as "rights of passage" will affect rates of vaccination.
Rebecca.
ReplyDeleteI found your post deeply interesting because of the way you presented the data about autism numbers vs the amount of people who died from the diseases. I agree completely with you about taking your chances with the vaccines, as if you add the probabilities of dying from the diseases, you will end up with a way higher number than the .09 percent of children with autism. In a couple of my posts i discussed the fallacy of correlation and causation due to our discussion in class about the vaccines. Great idea for a post by the way.
-Xavier
Thanks for posting! While we have decided in class that the MMR vaccine and autism do not seem have a causal relationship, you must also think of the families that do believe that this is very real danger. Many people are only going to be considering their selfish needs. Some would rather risk the life of a person they do not know than "increase" their child's chance of developing autism. Your risk assessment clearly shows that the benefits still largely outweigh the problems. However, just consider that some people that think MMR vaccine caused their baby to have autism. For them, that 0.9% looks like a 100%.
ReplyDelete-Lee