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http://www.vaclib.org/intro/present/polio.gif http://www.vaclib.org/intro/present/polio.gif I'm not anti-vaccine, but I am anti-sensational unsubstantiated cla

by toolz 14y ago

http://www.vaclib.org/intro/present/polio.gif http://www.vaclib.org/intro/present/polio.gif I'm not anti-vaccine, but I am anti-sensational unsubstantiated claims, such as without the polio vaccine there would be epidemics.

JumpCrisscross 14y ago
That's a graph of the death rate from polio, not the number of deaths from polio. Polio drugs existed before the polio vaccine (and still exist today). Similarly, one could graph U.S. mortality rates over the 20th century, observe its generally smooth downward slope, and conclude that nothing done after 1980 had any effect on anything. Or graph world mortality rates over the second millenium and similarly write off the 20th century. Maybe this is just a case for logarithms?
- toolz 14y ago
  Precisely my point. The vaccination had no critical effect on any graph and the decreased incidents of polio following suggest a natural progression of technology and disease knowledge and awareness. The drugs that existed before the vaccine were not in wide scale production and play no relevant part in considering the impact of polio on the public.
- tedunangst 14y ago
  Comparing with other graphs, it is number of deaths. Unless measles had a 600% death rate. http://www.vaclib.org/intro/present/index.htm#8 http://www.vaclib.org/intro/present/index.htm#8 But as I alluded to in my other comment, the range of years for each disease is different. Almost as if each graph were cherry zoomed, as it were. Also worth mentioning, the decline in typhoid and scarlet fever wouldn't have anything to do with the development of antibiotics and chlorination of the public water supply, would they? Thinking that because some bacterial diseases had non-vaccine cures, therefore all diseases can be similarly cured is... what it is.
  - JumpCrisscross 14y ago
    Rates, particularly in epidemiology, are often rescaled as deaths per thousand or hundred thousand.
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tedunangst 14y ago
What is the source of that graph? Why does it only cover a period of about 16 years?
- toolz 14y ago
  I've found multiple graphs that show many different timelines. This page has a very similar graph at the very bottom that gives a reference. https://wiki.ecdc.europa.eu/fem/w/fem/line-graphs.aspx https://wiki.ecdc.europa.eu/fem/w/fem/line-graphs.aspx
noonespecial 14y ago
I don't have the data to definitively suggest that the epidemics could have been eradicated by methods other than vaccine. Its entirely possible that they could. But while we're talking about vaccines and personal freedoms and all that yap, do lets remember that some of those other methods they were using to combat these epidemics back then were forced quarantines on pain of arrest, interstate travel restrictions, and the closing of public buildings like pools, libraries and schools.
Someone 14y ago
That's a graph of the death rate from polio, not of polio incidence. I don't know this for sure, but think it likely that incidence stayed the same while death rates went down. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_poliomyelitis#Iron_lung http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_poliomyelitis#Iron_l...: "even with an iron lung the fatality rate for patients with bulbar polio exceeded 90% [...] Positive pressure ventilators reduced mortality in bulbar patients from 90% to 20%. In the Copenhagen epidemic of 1952, large numbers of patients were ventilated by hand" That 1952 epidemic is better described at http://jap.physiology.org/content/99/2/424.full http://jap.physiology.org/content/99/2/424.full, about a 1952 epidemic in Copenhagen: "The bold solution was to manually ventilate the patients by squeezing a rubber bag attached to a tracheostomy tube inserted through an incision just below the larynx. [...] the mortality rate is said to have dropped from ∼90% to ∼25% as a result of this heroic intervention."
zekenie 14y ago
Epidemics are noisy... This graph doesn't reflect that. Consider this. A ton of people get polio. Then we have herd immunity for 25 years until the percentage of the population that hasn't been exposed rises. Then we have a huge epidemic again. Since the vaccine, we haven't seen a large epidemic except in populations without high vaccination rates.
ebrenes 14y ago
That's also a death rate chart, it doesn't take into account how many people got infected and then had to deal with the crippling after effects of a polio infection such as permanent muscle paralysis, disability and deformity. The death rate for soldiers has likewise been lowered due to the great advances in medicine, but many of these survivors are now living (thankfully) and facing a new set of problems like missing limbs and other body parts.

by toolz 14y ago

JumpCrisscross 14y ago

That's a graph of the death rate from polio, not the number of deaths from polio. Polio drugs existed before the polio vaccine (and still exist today). Similarly, one could graph U.S. mortality rates over the 20th century, observe its generally smooth downward slope, and conclude that nothing done after 1980 had any effect on anything. Or graph world mortality rates over the second millenium and similarly write off the 20th century. Maybe this is just a case for logarithms?

toolz 14y ago
Precisely my point. The vaccination had no critical effect on any graph and the decreased incidents of polio following suggest a natural progression of technology and disease knowledge and awareness. The drugs that existed before the vaccine were not in wide scale production and play no relevant part in considering the impact of polio on the public.
tedunangst 14y ago
Comparing with other graphs, it is number of deaths. Unless measles had a 600% death rate. http://www.vaclib.org/intro/present/index.htm#8 http://www.vaclib.org/intro/present/index.htm#8 But as I alluded to in my other comment, the range of years for each disease is different. Almost as if each graph were cherry zoomed, as it were. Also worth mentioning, the decline in typhoid and scarlet fever wouldn't have anything to do with the development of antibiotics and chlorination of the public water supply, would they? Thinking that because some bacterial diseases had non-vaccine cures, therefore all diseases can be similarly cured is... what it is.
- JumpCrisscross 14y ago
  Rates, particularly in epidemiology, are often rescaled as deaths per thousand or hundred thousand.

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tedunangst 14y ago

What is the source of that graph? Why does it only cover a period of about 16 years?

toolz 14y ago
I've found multiple graphs that show many different timelines. This page has a very similar graph at the very bottom that gives a reference. https://wiki.ecdc.europa.eu/fem/w/fem/line-graphs.aspx https://wiki.ecdc.europa.eu/fem/w/fem/line-graphs.aspx

noonespecial 14y ago

I don't have the data to definitively suggest that the epidemics could have been eradicated by methods other than vaccine. Its entirely possible that they could. But while we're talking about vaccines and personal freedoms and all that yap, do lets remember that some of those other methods they were using to combat these epidemics back then were forced quarantines on pain of arrest, interstate travel restrictions, and the closing of public buildings like pools, libraries and schools.

Someone 14y ago

That's a graph of the death rate from polio, not of polio incidence. I don't know this for sure, but think it likely that incidence stayed the same while death rates went down. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_poliomyelitis#Iron_lung http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_poliomyelitis#Iron_l...: "even with an iron lung the fatality rate for patients with bulbar polio exceeded 90% [...] Positive pressure ventilators reduced mortality in bulbar patients from 90% to 20%. In the Copenhagen epidemic of 1952, large numbers of patients were ventilated by hand" That 1952 epidemic is better described at http://jap.physiology.org/content/99/2/424.full http://jap.physiology.org/content/99/2/424.full, about a 1952 epidemic in Copenhagen: "The bold solution was to manually ventilate the patients by squeezing a rubber bag attached to a tracheostomy tube inserted through an incision just below the larynx. [...] the mortality rate is said to have dropped from ∼90% to ∼25% as a result of this heroic intervention."

zekenie 14y ago

Epidemics are noisy... This graph doesn't reflect that. Consider this. A ton of people get polio. Then we have herd immunity for 25 years until the percentage of the population that hasn't been exposed rises. Then we have a huge epidemic again. Since the vaccine, we haven't seen a large epidemic except in populations without high vaccination rates.

ebrenes 14y ago

That's also a death rate chart, it doesn't take into account how many people got infected and then had to deal with the crippling after effects of a polio infection such as permanent muscle paralysis, disability and deformity. The death rate for soldiers has likewise been lowered due to the great advances in medicine, but many of these survivors are now living (thankfully) and facing a new set of problems like missing limbs and other body parts.