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Your guest Jennifer is poorly informed. She stated that hepatitis B is only transmitted through sexual contact. This is untrue. It is also transmitted as a blood-borne pathogen. She also stated that hepatitis B is not a serious infection and is self-limiting. This is untrue. She is probably confusing hepatitis B with hepatitis A. Hep A is typically less serious and self-limiting. Hepatitis B is very serious, life-threatening, uncurable, and a leading cause of liver cancer and death world wide. Furthermore, she commented that we don't have diptheria anymore, so we shouldn't vaccinate. Why don't we see diptheria? Precisely because we CONTINUE to vaccinate. As a public health epidemiologist, I know this is true. These are just a couple of examples of how the anti-vaccine community is so poorly informed. And their lack of knowledge threatens us all. I have no problem with honest, open, INFORMED discussions of which vaccines are necessary and how we can lighten the load of vaccines in children. I agree that there is no need to vaccinate a child with 5 vaccines at once. But please, let's base the discussion on fact, not fear.

posted 4 years, 4 months ago
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