Chiropractic and medicine should be working side by side to best benefit the patent.

this MD

But thanks for playing!

1. Herd immunity protects those not able to be vaccinated. Google Dana McAffery.

2. Mass vaccination is how one eradicates a disease. Google smallpox and polio (not eradicated, partly thanks to asshats who spread misinformation).

3. Some immunity, both vaccine and natural, wanes. Your point? Booster shots, better adjuvants… better than getting hepatits B, for example.

4. A child’s immune system is seeing thousands upon thousands of new epitopes daily. Even if we gave all childhood vaccines within two days, we wouldn’t be approaching the number of epitopes they got when they put that toy in their mouths, so… no, not overwhelming. Not even close.

5. If you are interested in what’s in the VIAL (vile= descriptor. very freudian), ask me, we can go through it together.

6. No, the vaccine is developed each autumn based on circulating strains in Asia and Australia. It’s not perfect, but short of a crystal ball, it’s what we’ve got as a method to predict which strains will circulate in a given season.

7. Cross-reactivity between strains is common, so even with a bad match, like last year, you usually get partial protection.

8. If you don’t get by now that thimerosal is ethyl mercury and is not bioaccumulated, not like methyl mercury, you must have been plugging your ears and saying lalalalalala I can’t hear you.

9. Bzzt. Wrong. Children’s immune systems are up and running within the first month. They have active thymus glands and bone marrow. They are experiencing thousands upon thousands of new epitopes daily.

10. I feel sorry for your kids. I hate giving needles, and I wish there was a better delivery system, but you’re doing them a disservice and it’s really sad to see someone put their kids at risk because they don’t understand the science. If you have questions, you know where to find me.

I’ve seen people with polio, and with post-polio syndrome. I’ve seen a teenage girl die of rabies and a baby die of tetanus. I’ve seen a family devastated by their youngest dying of chicken pox. You just don’t know, if you can deny the good done by vaccination.

How they choose vaccine strains, for example, is well publicised and would take zero effort if you were interested to find out. They analyse strains circulating in Asia and Australia in June and July. This usually gives an accurate picture of the epidemic strains to come in the Northern Hemisphere for the year.

Last year, not so much. It’s not a crystal ball.

I get my yearly jab, more to protect my niece (who has severe asthma) and my elderly patients in the nursing home. I am young and healthy, and if I get flu, I will likely be fine. If you really don’t get your shot, you clearly don’t care very much about who you expose.

Nice to know.