a few thoughts on the anti-vaccine body count

The anti-vaccine body count is a website that keeps a tally of all of the vaccine preventable deaths that have occurred in the USA since mid-2007. I really appreciate the effort that's been put in setting up the site and maintaining it (it's done by a single person) but there are a few things I think I would do differently.

I'll just quickly note at this point I've written this post with only the body count in mind and I'm not sure how much applies to the cases.

Starting with something minor I think I'd probably call it the 'unvaccinated body count' rather than the 'anti-vaccine body count'. Anti-vaccine is a fairly nebulous term (e.g. should it apply to people not getting a flu shot?) and isn't something people self-identify as. By keeping to the broader 'unvaccinated' phrasing it avoids potential arguments as to what is and isn't an anti-vaxxer (e.g. should the influenza associated deaths be included in an "anti-vaccine" body count).

Secondly, an unnecessarily large number of sources are used for the tallies (which also creates a few minor inaccuracies as the figures used are preliminary). Take 2014 for example, on the anti-vaccine body count there are 31 reports listed to get the figures. It looks impressive. It's also completely unnecessary as you can get the cumulative total for the year from the final report (and for the five previous years as well). By listing only the necessary reports it would make the numbers easier to verify and thus make them stronger.

Thirdly, there's no real breakdown on the cause of death and for most of the reports listed on the source page it doesn't mention the cause (generally influenza-associated infant mortality). I think it'd be nice to have that information readily available (in a chart or a table).

Figure 1: The cause of deaths in the anti-vaccine body count

Finally, as a number of the deaths would still have occurred in the absence of unvaccinated people I think it's unfortunate that all vaccine preventable deaths were given and no attempt was made to refine the number. While I think it would be extremely difficult to do accurately I think the following formula could be used to work out the lower limit of the body count:

body count = VE×( (1-VC) / (1-VC)+VC×VE )

Where VE is 'vaccine effectiveness' and VC is 'vaccination coverage'. The formula doesn't take into account different mortality with the disease in vaccinated and unvaccinated people and it doesn't take into account the fact that a lot of vaccinated people who were exposed wouldn't have been had there been no unvaccinated population. I'm unsure if there's a way these things factors could be incorporated but until then the formula should provide a lower limit to the body count.

After writing this post I might set up a page on this blog for the 'unvaccinated body count' to be a compliment tally that can be used alongside the 'anti-vaccine body count'.

UPDATE: Put together some rough figures and made the unvaccinated body count.