How can you believe vaccines work when it has been proved over and over that antibody levels do not = immunity?

That's not true. Antibodies by themselves are usually sufficient to confer immunity to most pathogens. And consider the epidemiological data. Rates of diseases plummet whenever a vaccine is introduced. When vaccination rates drop ( i.e when Wakefields' fraudulent paper was published and uptake for the MMR dropped) measles became endemic in certain areas of the UK. This trend has been observed in other countries when vaccination rates drop. Vaccines work: http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/images/measles_incidence.gif And RedAngel lies. A lot. Anyone who claims there is no evidence that vaccines work are lying or deluded. Edit: Also note that whilenantibody titers are used to measure the immune response to a vaccine, the vaccines does stimulate other parts of the immune system.

Because they work? Every vaccine has to pass a placebo controlled trial. If they don't reduce the incidence of disease, they fail. Here's a review: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17055372 The incidence of many diseases dramatically dropped directly after the introduction of the vaccine: http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/03/Measles_incidence-cdc.gif However, antibody titers are directly correlated with immunity in most instances. Occasionally a person makes an non-neutralizing antibody, but that is the minority. Then there are a few diseases where an antibody response is insufficient, such as HIV, or a disease where IgG is insufficient, such as some intestinal diseases. Vaccines transparently work. Anyone claiming otherwise is lying.

It's true....antibody response to the vaccine does not equal immunity or protection. There is not one scientific study that proves vaccines work. Nada zip zero. "A foolish faith in authority is the enemy of truth" Albert Einstein

You should also back up your claims. I'm not sure what you mean by your statement. There are many vaccines that have established levels of immunity that are correlated with protection; hepatitis B, measles, mumps, rubella, and varicella are just a few. One example of a study that showed this was done in a secondary school in Texas where 14 of 74 students who did not respond to the measles vaccine, defined by reaching a certain level of protective antibodies, developed measles, compared to none of the 1732 students who did respond to the vaccine. Please provide references to back up your statement. And what Rhianna said too- several million cases of measles the US per year before vaccine was introduced, several dozen to several thousand a year (it varies year to year) after vaccine. Vaccines work.

I am not sure I follow your question, but I do not believe in vaccinating against diseases which, with our current hygenie and sanitation levels, are rarely lethal (measles, mumps, chicken pox, whooping cough) Here is an interesting chart showing the prevalence of dieases in the US, and what year the vaccines were introduced. You can see that every single disease was already declining rapidly before the vaccine was introduced. This is because sewer and water systems became normal in the US in the late 1800s. Then when cars came around, the horses didn't go potty all over the place either. If there's not poop laying around on the streets, it's a lot easier to stay healthy. http://www.healthsentinel.com/joomla/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2654:united-states-disease-death-rates&catid=55:united-states-deaths-from-diseases&Itemid=5

You are right. Antibodies do not equal immunity and there is documented cases that prove this. Severe tetanus in immunized patients with high anti-tetanus titers http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1565228?dopt=Abstract "Finally, adjuvanticity is more often evaluated in terms of antigen-specific antibody titers induced after parenteral immunization. It is known that, in many instances, antigen-specific antibody titers do not correlate with protection." Vaccine. 2001 Oct 15;20 Suppl 1:S38-41. Next a statement from an MMWR report (March 28, 1997 / 46(RR-7);1-25) regarding antibodies to pertussis (whooping cough): "The findings of efficacy studies have not demonstrated a direct correlation between antibody responses and protection against pertussis disease"

(How about you back up your claims too? Where is your proof? I'm not saying you're wrong, just hypocritical.) Raised antibody levels does not instantly mean you are immune to a disease, but even a slight increase in our immunity against diseases helps a lot. The spread of diseases will be surpressed, and sometimes even eradicated (or did you forget about smallpox?). That's why vaccines "work". Maybe you just have a different definition for "working".

many diseases have been virtually eradicated by vaccine - when new strains of diseases emerge and we get infected we have no specific defense ( antibodies ) against the new disease - vaccines provide defense by stimulating specific antibody production to the new disease - and for diseases that dont mutate you are protected - if the disease mutates you are not protected because it is a new strain

I'm kind of sceptical about vaccines. I've got no doubt that some of them work but I'll never go near some of them. It all depends on the disease.