Talk:Vaccine

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Semi-protected edit request on 22 April 2020

SECTION: Production -> Excipients "Thimerosal is a mercury-containing antimicrobial..." > Change the spelling of Thimerosal => Thiomersal Thyon (talk) 09:48, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

 Not done: The "Thimerosal" spelling is used throughout the article. —KuyaBriBri^Talk 13:52, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Eh, no it isn't, and it should be Thiomersal, as that's the international name (and indeed, our article is at Thiomersal).  Done Black Kite (talk) 13:58, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

@Black Kite: I found 7 instances of "Thimerosal". I guess I should have taken a look for "Thiomersal" as well. Either way, as long as the same spelling is used throughout the article, I'm good. Thanks, —KuyaBriBri^Talk 14:04, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

No worries, there are quite a few references to Thimerosal in the references, which is fine as they are US documents and I haven't changed those, only the Wikitext. Black Kite (talk) 14:07, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Vaccination-introduction-and-cases-or-deaths-scaled.jpg

Has nothing to do with death rates. Also the changed description is misleading ("The spread of infectious diseases (measured by the number of deaths or the number of cases) before and after a vaccine was introduced"). The spread of inf. dieseas cannot me measured by the death cases - rather with number of cases. Among antivaxxers, referring to death rates is a common motiv, but simply wrong. I would remove at least the small pox diagramm. --Julius Senegal (talk) 13:25, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

Change the text then, but don't remove the figure. I would make it "The spread of infectious diseases (measured by the share of deaths or the number of cases) before and after a vaccine was introduced". The share of deaths is a good indication for the spread of the disease (for smallpox, but nowadays also for covid). This has nothing to do with antivaxxers, the graph just shows vaccines work. --PJ Geest (talk) 13:31, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

I agree. Paul August ☎ 13:34, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

Wrong, the share of deaths is NOT a good indication. Vaccines should prevent diseases, not death. For death rates, many more factors play a crucial role (aseptic techniques, antibiotics, generell improvment of medicine,...). For smallpox (first picture), you clearly see that the death rates were falling regardless of the vaccination. Also, for measels and polio cases were listed, why not for small pox? Why do we see percentages for small pox death rates, and not absolut numbers?

This is misleading and could feed antivaxxer's wrong claims. --Julius Senegal (talk) 18:29, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

Some vaccines do prevent death/lessen severity if not necessarily prevent the disease though. For example, if you get the chickenpox vaccine, you can still get chickenpox, but it will be far less severe, you'll get a handful of pox at most instead of being covered from head to toe. Same goes for the flu vaccine, simply having gotten the vaccine in a year makes you more likely to fight off said vaccine. So I think the chart is very illustrative. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 18:47, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

Also, differing data lines were added because we had different data sources. It seems that smallpox death numbers weren't tracked, partly because the graph goes back the 1700's before modern data collection. But the point of the charts is showing that: vaccines save lives intrinsically, by both preventing cases and lessening case severity. CaptainEek ^{Edits Ho Cap'n!}⚓ 18:50, 12 August 2020 (UTC)

Again, wrong. Vaccines are not designed to beat death, but to prevent infections. By that ofc the worst outcome (death) can be prevented, but also many other factors contribute to that. And in that particular case you clearly see that the death rates were falling BEFORE vaccination. The severity is not shown.

Using misleading figures is a no-go. --Julius Senegal (talk) 14:34, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

Before vaccination there where natural fluctuations in share of deaths in smallpox. Only after vaccination you have a significant fall in share of deaths, so to say death rates were falling before vaccination is nonsense. The vaccine was not immediately widely used, but coverage only increased gradually after invention. A decline in deaths is a very important result of vaccins (for smallpox there where millions of deaths), so it is important to show that. Why don't you want to show that vaccins diminish deaths?--PJ Geest (talk) 14:53, 13 August 2020 (UTC)

For deaths other factors can also play a rol (but the spread of the disease is the main factor). You say antibiotics have an influence on the death rate (of smallpox), but the first antibiotics was only invented in the 20th century, while the graph of smallpox is only until 1900. Plus antibiotics don't work against viruses (like the smallpox, polio and measle viruses), antibiotics only work against bacteria. Also there where no medications available for treating smallpox in the 19th century. Furthermore also the number of cases is not an exact number for the spread of the disease, but only an indication: it depends of the amount of testing or the way of registering sick persons. For example nowadays for covid there is much more testing in a lot of countries in the second wave in August then in the first wave in March-April (only severe cases where tested and registered). So comparing the spread between both waves is not reliable based on the number of cases, the number of deaths are more reliable then the number of cases to compare the first and second wave. This graph comes from a highly reliable source (Our World in Data), which is used to presenting data. So I propose to @Julius Senegal: to first come with a source which says that the deaths or death rate are unreliable as indication for the spread of the disease, before this part of the graph can be deleted. --PJ Geest (talk) 08:43, 14 August 2020 (UTC)

Edit request - DNA vaccine

The "experimental" section claims (correctly, as of today, I think) that no DNA vaccine is 'approved' for human use. This is just half of the picture. Please add the sentence:"Several DNA vaccines are available for veterinary use." -which I copied from the specific DNA_vaccination Wiki. article. I believe the fact that they are used (in animals) is important enough to note here.98.17.180.195 (talk) 13:47, 19 August 2020 (UTC)