Whooping cough periodically rears its head in California.
I must be a complete idiot because I don’t understand how the OPV protects both the individual and the community whereas the IPV only protects the individual but cannot stop the spread of the virus in a community.
Can someone explain?
My quick layman’s reading says to me that the OPV stops polio at the infection site in the intestine while the IPV does not prevent infection in your gut but prevents the virus from spreading to your nervous system via your bloodstream. So, only one actually prevents infection.
Maybe the COVID vaccine acts similarly so mRNA vaccines don’t protect others?
That person must be pissing and shitting A LOT.
3 Likes
Here’s my oversimplified version
So polio is essentially transmitted by fecal-oral transmission. The virus gets ingested, goes into your intestines and then it hangs out there and multiplies. Now if it just stayed there, that would not be so bad, but some of it ultimately is absorbed through the intestine to the rest of the body. That’s what can ultimately cause paralysis.
So as the virus is multiplying in your intestine, it gets shed through the intestines (i.e. with fecal matter). So basically you will be shitting out infectious material that could infect someone else.
The oral vaccine causes an immune response in the gastrointestinal tract (think of the GI tract as having it’s own local immune system), so your body kills off the virus there and you won’t be shitting out anything infectious.
On the other hand, the IPVs immune response mainly kicks in when it’s trying to get from the intestine to the rest of the body. It largely leaves the virus in the intestine alone. It only attacks the virus that is trying to get from the intestine to paralyze you. Of course the OPV does this too (it causes both immune responses – in the intestine and in the rest of the body).
So if someone got IPV they could have quite a bit of virus in their intestine that they will be shedding with fecal matter and potentially infecting other people. But they won’t get paralyzed because when the virus tries to do that, the immune response that the IPV induced with knock it out.
If someone got OPV, the virus will be killed off in the intestine, so there will be less shedding and infecting others. And anything that makes it past the intestine will also get taken care of by the immune system.
Once again the above is oversimplified and I took some liberties. It’s not quite this simple, and there are some slight inaccuracies. There are all sorts of things someone could nitpick. However, this is more or less the answer to your question.
7 Likes
This is really going to put a damper on Eat-Ass-August. 
11 Likes
How do I know if I had the polio vaccine as a kid? I assume it was required for school? My mother doesn’t remember.
If she took you to a pediatrician regularly and made sure you got all recommended vaccines, then you got it. You could also get titers, but low titers doesn’t necessarily mean that you were never vaccinated.
All this talk has inspired me to put finding my vaccination records on my to do list. Really need to have that shit readily accessible.
1 Like
Well prior to her opinions on COVID I would have trusted her on this.
Ahh, if you’ve got one of those moms, then that’s a problem.
My parents found mine for me this week. Going to get an appointment and discuss the chickenpox vaccine and my doctor’s thoughts on a polio booster.
Mine are in my house somewhere. It’s about an hour to find and consolidate them all, so not terrible, but still gotta do it.
Damn, guess my mother-in-law and sister-in-law have to stop feasting on sewage.
Your parents kept your vaccination records from decades ago?
I needed them for college. They had them until then. After that I had them. I’ve needed them a handful of times since then. So I just dig them up as needed. I haven’t needed them for 10+ years, so if I don’t dig them up soon, they’ll likely get permanently lost.
That’s interesting. I have a vague recollection of needing them for college and law school now. I guess if I went to public school, college, and law school, I must have been vaccinated, right? My mom is confident I was.
I honestly thought polio shots were required by law, seems like child abuse not to get your kids vaxxed.
I heard they’re putting CRT in the new vaccines and that’s the REAL child abuse!
1 Like
Every trans person I know is vaccinated. Makes you think…
1 Like