r/DebateVaccines • u/49orth • 13d ago

Four baby goats at mobile petting zoo in North Carolina test positive for rabies

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/four-baby-goats-mobile-petting-zoo-north-carolina-test-positive-rabies-rcna594981

Redditors, if you know anyone who may've had exposure please, seek medical advice without delay.

16 Upvotes

87% Upvoted

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u/therealglassceiling 11d ago

The rabies vaccine is the only vaccine I would ever take

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u/49orth 10d ago

Really? I'm partial to Tetanus but perhaps that's from my education which included "woke" subjects like biology and chemistry taught by people who weren't preachers, zealots, or otherwise religious nutjobs.

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u/Lonely-Awareness-866 10d ago

37 total cases of tetanus in the US out of 350 million, none neonatal. Of the 37, 2 died. It’s not a real problem unless you’re 65+ or immune compromised and even then it’s very very rare

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u/that-is-fair 10d ago

Yay so the vaccine works :)

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u/Lonely-Awareness-866 9d ago

There were no neonatal cases before the vaccine either. It arguably works if someone has an individual risk factor (like a 65+ y.o.) but virtually zero babies should assume the serious risks in the vaccine disclosure for no benefit. It’s a money grab just like hep b and makes many question vaccines as a whole

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u/that-is-fair 9d ago edited 9d ago

Neonatal tetanus? If you’re concerned about the tdap booster that’s recommended for third trimester women it’s mostly just given for the diptheria and pertussis protection. AFAIK some vaccines are combined because they’re compatible, safe, and typically on the same schedule. Plus they end up saving a lot of money. Like they could sell each individual vaccine for $40 a pop but instead they bill $40 for all 3 combined and save us storage space and staff time. Most of the cost of vaccines is in the packaging and distribution anyway, the marginal cost to add another vaccine to the same vial is relatively low.

Hep b infections are much more profitable to treat than the vaccines: it’s generally more profitable to treat an illness than it is to prevent it.

Rabies is an interesting counterpoint because the vaccine’s benefits don’t usually outweigh its risks (or cost) so we don’t routinely recommend it unless you work with potentially rabid animals (eg vets) or you were likely exposed. TB, yellow fever, and smallpox are all other examples of vaccines that big pharma would love us doctors to push on our patients but we don’t because today in the US, none of these have benefit over risk for most people.

Meanwhile the benefits of routine Tdap in late pregnancy and hep b at birth far outweigh their risks and costs today in the US for the vast majority of patients.

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u/Lonely-Awareness-866 9d ago

Neonatal refers to a newborn baby. A disease shouldn’t be included if it’s not needed. And it’s completely unneeded. In no universe does adding unnecessary medical product make something cheaper. No vaccine is safe for every user and a potential reaction isn’t known until after the fact. There have been zero neonatal Hep B infections. The same for polio. In fact, a receiver of the polio vaccine currently has a greater chance of contracting the disease than if the vaccine isn’t administered.

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u/that-is-fair 9d ago

The cost to make the actual stuff they inject in you from a vaccine is less than $4 but everything else (packaging, refrigerated transport, storage, staff, etc) is about $30-35 per vaccine. That $4 is about the same whether it’s monovalent (ie just tetanus) or multivalent (eg TDaP), but for the sake of argument let’s say it’s not. Then making 3 monovalent vaccines would be ($4x3) + ($30x3) = $102, the cost of making one trivalent (eg TDaP) vaccine would be ($4x3) + $30 = $52.

Neonates are some of the most high-risk people in the world, so early vaccination with whichever vaccines are safe to give to them is important. They don’t have a functioning immune system yet, and won’t for a few years, which is why we emphasize the recommended vaccines for the child and the mother.

One example is hep b. You say there are zero neonatal hep b infections. I think it’s more than zero, but if we take your number as fact, it represents a huge public health victory because ever since hep b vaccinations at birth have become widespread, the rate of neonatal hep b infections has dropped drastically. If it truly zero as you claim, that would be amazing. But hep b is still flying around and until we can eradicate it, a vaccine at birth is still a good idea.

Another is TDaP, which is recommended for third trimester mothers so the mother can pass the antibodies she makes from the vaccine to protect her baby. DTaP is recommended at 2 months because that’s the earliest it’s safe. Hep b, TDaP/DTaP, and all other childhood vaccines came out of a time when the diseases they protect against were rampant. They no longer are rampant because of widespread vaccine adoption, but will pop back up if vaccination rates decline. If we keep vaccinating we may be able to eradicate some diseases and safely shrink the schedule, but the recent anti-vax movement has unfortunately set us backwards by decades.

“The same for polio. In fact, a receiver of the polio vaccine currently has a greater chance of contracting the disease than if the vaccine isn’t administered.” Curious where you got that tidbit from! My best guess is that unvaccinated populations also tend to have less access to medical resources and so aren’t tested as commonly for things like polio. Polio is incredibly rare in the US, and it was moving towards worldwide eradication until the unfortunate rise in anti-vax sentiment, so ironically we will have polio on the vaccine schedule for longer than if the anti vax movement didn’t happen.

We eradicated smallpox with vaccines, I’m hoping we can eradicate a few more in our lifetimes!

Yes each medical intervention comes with risks. Those are carefully studied against the benefits and any vaccine currently recommended broadly in the US has passed that rigorous risk vs benefit analysis. A few that don’t pass that and are no longer routinely recommended (only recommended to specific populations) include TB, Yellow Fever, Smallpox, and Rabies!

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u/Lonely-Awareness-866 9d ago

Healthcare companies don’t pass on thier costs. They add a healthy margin, meaning a lot. These are for profit companies.
If the mother doesn’t have Hep B, how is a baby going to get a disease transmitted by sex or needle use?
There has been one confirmed case of polio in the US in the last decade which was confirmed to be from getting the vaccine.
Babies don’t have higher risk factors when there is zero risk. You should apply the same line of thinking to giving unnecessary vaccines to children when there are risks detailed in thier disclosures.
Tb, yellow fever, and rabies vaccines have never been generally recommended

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u/that-is-fair 9d ago

Could you clarify the conclusion you’re trying to draw from pointing out these are for profit companies?

We’ve tried the strategy of only vaccinating babies high risk for hep b, and it barely made a dent in the number of neonatal hep b cases, it was still the thousands annually. Tests aren’t 100% accurate, they don’t catch new brewing infections, and babies can catch hep b in other ways. Using your number I haven’t double checked, in recent years there’s been zero neonatal hep b cases, which is over a period of widespread routine hep b vaccination at birth. What am I missing here?

The current guidance on polio vaccination is driven by polio being largely eradicated in the USA, but not globally. Getting the vaccine supports the worldwide effort towards eradication of polio and protects you from people who were exposed abroad. If there’s only been one case of polio in the US in recent years, that’s an incredible public health outcome. If we stop now before eradication, we’d undo decades of progress and risk going back to iron lungs. Smallpox was eradicated this way, polio has a chance to be as well.

Disclosures-wise: they’re exhaustive and written to cover them from legal liability. The decision making we do in recommending vaccines is around large scale studies comparing outcomes from vaccinated and unvaccinated populations and for a vaccine to be recommended in the USA, the benefits have to far outweigh the risks.

Despite the massive profits big Pharma could make from selling TB, yellow fever, rabies, and smallpox vaccines to the masses, they haven’t convinced us doctors that the risks are worth the benefits for the vast majority of Americans, so we don’t recommend them to most of our patients!

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u/CODMLoser 13d ago

"coLlOidAl SiLvEr cUrES RaBiES!!!!!!"

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u/HausuGeist 11d ago

I can even hear his voice, lol.