| It's called the hygiene hypothesis, not the vaccine hypothesis. Let's take a look: >In medicine, the Hygiene Hypothesis states that a lack of early childhood exposure to infectious agents, symbiotic microorganisms (e.g., gut flora or probiotics) Okay, so if you've had the chicken pox vaccine, your immune system has been exposed to infectious agents -- just inactivated ones! The kind that don't cause shingles. Vaccines do stimulate an immune response, after all. The article you linked contains precisely one reference to vaccination. >Th2 immune disorders such as asthma and other allergic diseases are probably related to the hygiene hypothesis. A baby has many Th2 cells, which stimulate the production of antibodies. When not sufficiently stimulated with early life diseases, the immune system will have too many Th2 cells present, leading to a greater risk of Th2 immune disorder. If a child is exposed to infection diseases then the cell defense will be stimulated via Th1 cells causing a reduction of Th2 cells and subsequently a reduction of antibody stimulation by Th2 and therefore a lower risk of developing an allergic disease such as asthma. Unfortunately, vaccination only uses the Th2 mechanism. Interesting. I wonder if there's some data to back this up? http://journals.lww.com/pidj/Abstract/2002/06000/Childhood_v... >There is no association between diphtheria, tetanus and whole cell pertussis vaccine, oral polio vaccine or measles, mumps and rubella vaccine and the risk of asthma. The weak associations for Hib and hepatitis B vaccines seem to be at least partially accounted for by health care utilization or information bias. This was a study with n > 100000. That's a good study. Apparently vaccines don't cause athsma. On the other hand, there actually appears to be some hope that vaccines can fight athsma: http://www.jimmunol.org/content/166/2/959.short >Vaccination with Allergen-IL-18 Fusion DNA Protects Against, and Reverses Established, Airway Hyperreactivity in a Murine Asthma Model http://www.jimmunol.org/content/167/7/3792.short >Active vaccination against IL-5 reduces key pathological events associated with asthma, such as Th2 cytokine production, airways inflammation, and hyperresponsiveness, and thus represents a novel therapeutic approach for the treatment of asthma and other allergic conditions. "The miracle of modern medicine." |