By Dr Russell Blaylock
Is Herd Immunity Real?
In the original description of herd immunity, the protection to the population at large occurred only if people contracted the infections naturally. The reason for this is that naturally-acquired immunity lasts for a lifetime. The vaccine proponents quickly latched onto this concept and applied it to vaccine-induced immunity. But, there was one major problem – vaccine-induced immunity lasted for only a relatively short period, from 2 to 10 years at most, and then this applies only to humoral immunity. This is why they began, silently, to suggest boosters for most vaccines, even the common childhood infections such as chickenpox, measles, mumps, and rubella.
"If you find from your own experience that something is a fact and it contradicts what some authority has written down, then you must abandon the authority and base your reasoning on your own findings"~ Leonardo da Vinci
This is a brilliant point:
"That vaccine-induced herd immunity is mostly myth can be proven quite simply. When I was in medical school, we were taught that all of the childhood vaccines lasted a lifetime. This thinking existed for over 70 years. It was not until relatively recently that it was discovered that most of these vaccines lost their effectiveness 2 to 10 years after being given. What this means is that at least half the population, that is the baby boomers, have had no vaccine-induced immunity against any of these diseases for which they had been vaccinated very early in life. In essence, at least 50% or more of the population was unprotected for decades."
Has it actually been demonstrated that childhood illnesses confer lifelong immunity? Or immunity which lasts significantly longer than a vaccine.
If I understand it the argument here isn't that herd immunity doesn't work to stop diseases circulating in the population. I think these discussions accept that as long as a high enough fraction of the population are immune to a disease the overall amount of it circulating will drop - to the significant benefit of those who are not immune - for whatever reason, since they will be much less likely to encounter the disease and get sick.
The problem seems to be with the idea that vaccinations don't create immunity which lasts as long as actually getting the disease. So that comes back to my first point. I'd like to see proof of that statement. I can see that it could make sense. Since vaccines use weakened (or even dead) versions of the disease agent I could perhaps understand that the immune system would not have such a vigouros reponse (doesn't make you sick for one thing) and so not "remember" the way to fight the disease for as long. But I have no real science to back up that idea.
Also even if this were true I'd have to think about cost/benefit in terms of vaccines give you immunity which doesn't last as long (cost), but you don't get the actual disease (benefit), before this could convince me that vaccination programmes were worthless.
Interesting idea though.
Mother of two living in UK. Daughter (2007) born in USA, son (2010) born here. I'm pro natural birth, midwife care, breastfeeding, co-sleeping, baby wearing and a keen advocate of cloth diapering. I'm a full time working research scientist (physical sciences) and I'm pro-vaccine.