An unusually definitive study published online Tuesday by the Journal of the American Medical Association that proves that vaccinating children against the flu provides a community what scientists call “herd immunity” – protecting adults as well as the children who received the actual vaccine.
The study was done in 49 remote Hutterite farming colonies in western Canada. The Hutterites are descendants of a 16th-century Swiss Protestant sect who live in isolated communities. Although they avoid some technology, the Hutterites drive cars and modern tractors and, most importantly in this case, live in communities of up to 160 people, own everything jointly, attend their own schools, eat in one dining hall and avoid contact with the outside world. They have no objection to modern medicine, and, while they deliberately distance themselves from the mainstream world, they emphasize acts of generosity like blood donation.
Although previous studies have demonstrated this effect before, none have been so clear cut because they were done in less isolated places with more sources of flu passing in and out of the community. In late 2008, the study provided all children ages 3 to 15 in 25 of the colonies with the flu shot. In 24 others, they gave children doses of the hepatitis A vaccine as a placebo. By last June, more than 10 percent of all adults and children in the placebo colonies had contracted the seasonal flu at some point. Less than 5 percent of those in the colonies with immunized children had gotten it and here was a 60 percent “protective effect” for the whole community, the study concluded. That implies giving flu shots to schoolchildren protects the elderly from the flu just as well as giving the elderly flu shots directly. The C.D.C does, however, still recommend that “high-risk people” including the elderly, get shots – even if children in their community are fully immunized.
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