Am 12.08.2013 01:10, schrieb Jim Henderson:
> On Mon, 12 Aug 2013 00:31:44 +0200, clipka wrote:
>
>> By the way, the answer to this question is: As long as I have no bloody
>> f***ing idea how many lives it would save and how many it would cost,
>> I'd bloody f***ing advocate not imposing it on any unwilling person, and
>> rather go with what can be achieved by the voluntary variant.
>
> That's a pretty good point.
>
> http://www.fda.gov/downloads/BiologicsBloodVaccines/Vaccines/
> ApprovedProducts/UCM142576.pdf
>
> This is about the smallpox vaccine, and there's a 1 in 175 chance of a
> bad reaction to it.  That's given that the vaccine is handled well and
> not contaminated, and there's competent medical care nearby.

Speaking of numbers and facts:

- One type of polio virus (type II) has already been eliminated by 1999, 
suggesting that a voluntary vaccination is a sufficiently successful way.

- We're speaking of about 1000-2000 cases of poliomyelitis worldwide per 
year; presuming that number refers to paralytic poliomyelitis (i.e. 
infections affecting the central nervous system), and given a lethality 
of 2%-20% among those cases, the yearly death toll is in the hundreds 
worldwide. (To put this into some perspective, in Germany alone about 
for thousand people die in traffic accidents each year.)

- The oral vaccine the WHO uses in their campaign is actually a 
deliberate infection with live polio viruses, except that the strains 
used have genetic mutations that prevent them from causing paralysis; 
aside from this, it is a full-fledged polio infection. Back-mutations of 
those viruses occasionally occur, and are estimated to cause 250-500 
cases of paralytic poliomyelitis worldwide per year, i.e. 25% of all 
cases. Note that we haven't mentioned about other side effects of the 
vaccination yet (most of which are actually symptoms of a non-paralytic 
polio infection), such as diarrhea.

- As a matter of fact, by using oral vaccine the WHO is /not/ 
eliminating the polio virus at all; it is just deliberately(*) spreading 
the benign mutated strains (which still cause general symptoms such as 
headaches, vomiting and diarrhea) to push back the more potent wild 
strains. Now recall that the benign viruses can back-mutate, and you 
will notice that the more potent variant of the virus is bound to come 
back. Strains of back-mutated vaccination viruses have already been 
identified in the wild by now.

- (*)Yes, this is actually /desired/ part of the vaccination scheme, and 
one of the reasons why oral vaccination instead of injections are used: 
Vaccinating one person is expected to cause relatives and neighbors to 
get infected with the vaccine virus as well, effectively vaccinating 
those, too. You may note that this approach is pretty robust against 
individuals refusing to be vaccinated. As a matter of fact I'd consider 
it borderline in itself.

- One major factor why polio hasn't been eliminated already (probably 
more so than individuals refusing to be vaccinated) is poor hygienic 
conditions in underdeveloped regions leading to frequent cases of 
diarrhea in children, and the fact that the oral vaccine is ineffective 
in such cases, so the campaign will take time and patience anyway.

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