Recent outbreaks of measles in the US, enabled by the false belief that the measles vaccine can lead to autism, has been an increasing source of concern among parents. And for good reason: prior to 1980 (and widespread vaccination), measles caused 2.8 million deaths per year worldwide, and it remains a leading cause of death in young children. The greater the pool of unvaccinated children, the higher probability of a general outbreak, which can impact even vaccinated adults and children (not to mention babies, who are at the greatest risk and can not be vaccinated until one year).
Washington State law requires schools to report vaccination data to the Department of Health, and the Seattle Times recently posted a tool to help sort through it.
Data on how many children have not been vaccinated (i.e., filed for an exemption), and why, for some Wallingford-area schools below. Note, though that the data is from 2011 – 2012 (i.e., it’s a full three years old), so I’d pay less attention to the absolute values than the comparison between schools. Also note that about one-third of schools in Washington did not comply with the health department requirement to report (there is no mechanism to enforce their compliance).
That said, here’s what going on:
| School Name | Exempt (%) | Total | Personal | Medical | Religious |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| University Cooperative School | 23.20% | 19 | 19 | 0 | 0 |
| Seattle Area German American School | 12.50% | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 |
| Laurelhurst Elementary School | 5.70% | 24 | 21 | 3 | 0 |
| John Stanford International Elementary | 4.80% | 22 | 19 | 2 | 1 |
| University Child Development School | 3.80% | 10 | 8 | 2 | 0 |
| Daniel Bagley Elementary School | 13.00% | 51 | 49 | 1 | 0 |
| Queen Anne Elementary | 12.90% | 29 | 26 | 1 | 2 |
| Green Lake Elementary School | 11.10% | 29 | 26 | 1 | 2 |
| B F Day Elementary School | 10.70% | 34 | 29 | 5 | 0 |
| Hamilton International Middle School | 8.70% | 80 | 72 | 5 | 3 |
| St. John School | 5.50% | 26 | 25 | 1 | 0 |
| Meridian School | 4.70% | 9 | 8 | 1 | 0 |
| Mc Donald Elementary | 4.20% | 8 | 7 | 1 | 0 |
| Bishop Blanchet High School | – | – | – | – | – |
| Kapka Cooperative School | – | – | – | – | – |
| Northwest Montessori | – | – | – | – | – |
| St. Benedict School | – | – | – | – | – |
Nice to see those low numbers from JSIS, The Meridian School, McDonald and data-driven UCDS. University Cooperative School over on the north end of the Ave, though, is a little hothouse of anti-vaxxer sentiment, it seems.
There are four active cases of measles in Washington State at this time.
(Thanks for the tip, Gary Shigenaka)
As a parent of teenagers in public schools, once in private: a lot of folks don’t vaccinate their children because they don’t feel they have to. There’s not a lot of firm conviction there, just laziness; school started today, I have the form in front of me, I can’t get an appointment until October, I’ll check “personal exemption”. If you make them be accountable for it, they will. August and September in pediatric offices are full of kids doing physical exams for athletic programs, which complicates the matter.
Take away the personal exemption. Vaccinate kids at school.
I don’t buy the laziness argument. Most parents take their infants to the pediatrician. At about 12 months, you get the MMR vaccination (and then another shot much to improve the chances of immunization). You’d have to explicitly tell a pediatrician not to give the vaccination.
This is a BIT picky about the above article because of the way the first two sentences read. I acknowledge that. But I am prompted to write, solely because a couple people in Wallingford referred to it in conversation with me. Apparently, misreading these sentences, NOT noticing the word “false” before the word “belief” in the first sentence. It is the fact that the outbreak of measles is what is of concern to parents (and all of us!) not that referring that parents believe that the vaccine increases the incidence of autism That is really unfortunate. Perception is everything. It’s a very good article. and also reinforces the reminder that it is another good reason to have another pair of eyes review an article for perception and clarity.
Re vaccinations at school. The logistics would be overwhelming, and probably views by the school as a nightmare in every way. And I agree. Not in their job description, probably the legality and liability would be an issue on several fronts. And public schools are publicly funded.
Agree with Sharad. The comment of id thoris is not clear. Will be very interesting to read subsequent comments on this subject. I am 100% FOR vaccinations. I speak as someone who had measles, mumps and whooping cough years before vaccinations existed. Except for smallpox.
Looks like there may be a typo in your 1st paragraph, right where I think you might be coming to the point. “… not that referring that parents believe that …”? Anyway, I don’t follow the thought. Are you saying non-vaccinating parents don’t believe vaccines can cause autism, or that it’s a mistake to mention that belief, or … what?
I KNEW that it would be a mistake to make my first paragraph comment, trying to explain what other individuals misread. Sorry. If the folks who misunderstood the article, they should be the people who respond. Sorry again.
If you have the mechanism to do it, delete my first paragraph!
Great article, thanks! By my estimation based on watching drop off times there, more parents at UCDS have luxury SUVs than have vaccinated children. I guess their school motto is “screw everyone else, I’m rich”.
Since we are talking about vaccines and an active measles outbreak, please take a minute to make sure that you yourself are in compliance with the recommended vaccine schedule. All recent cases of measles appear to have originated with unvaccinated adults, and adults over the age of 20 actually account for a large percent of persons who have come down with the measles in the “Disneyland outbreak.” (see http://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-news/have-you-had-your-measles-shot-maybe-you-need-another-n290786). Washington’s most recent pertussis outbreak originated with adults whose immunity had worn off and who had not bothered to get boosters.
I understand it can be fun to go on a virtual witch hunt for the “anti-vaxxers!!!!!” but it would probably be more productive to the situation at hand if you spend your energy checking your own medical records or making a trip to your physician to get your immunity levels checked. After all, you probably wouldn’t want to be the one responsible for spreading preventable diseases to newborns.
Some worst case herd immunity threshold estimates for measles are 94% (or more.) Most of these schools fail looking at it that way.
(i.e. More than 94% of people in a community have to be vaccinated to protect the people who are not vaccinated or otherwise susceptible. The unvaccinated ideally being only people who for medical reasons can’t be vaccinated.)
Eric, you do realize that in the table above, UCDS has the lowest vaccine exemption rate, meaning that more than 96.2% of UCDS parents have luxury SUVs. which is pretty impressive.
How is it that McDonald is in this data? This is from their previous site? Guess ya’d then want to wrap in the SUV/APP crowd for those years 😉
There are a number of cogent articles at the Science Based Medicine website regarding vaccines — definitely check them out (and read the depth of Wakefield’s charlatanism).
Of interest locally, is the current legislation to amend the religious exemption:
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/washington-bills-christian-science-no-longer-an-excuse-for-denying-medical-care/
Now to follow in suit with Mississippi, we should also remove the PBE. Look at your table! These are the F***heads who shouldn’t be allowed to determine their child’s vaccine regime.
Keeping in mind our pertussis incidence awhile back, as a parent at JSIS, it scares me that these stats show that for our school (and many others), there are ignorant parents impacting the lives of both their children and mine.
There is no scientific reason not to vaccinate your child (yes, there are very rare medical reasons, the table supports this). For that that matter: There is no scientific reason for both you and your child to not be vaccinated!
@Eric (comment 6), you have confused UCDS (University Child Development School) with University Cooperative School. UCDS has an exemption rate of 3.8% (the lowest); University Coop has an expedition rate of 23.2% (the highest). Try reading more carefully before you make offensive and completely incorrect assumptions!
Thanks Lauren, I stand corrected. My only excuse is I was reading on a smartphone and the table was kind of garbled, I misread it.
Hey,
Just want to follow up on Lauren’s comment.
This table indicates that well over 90% of kids without vaccination at all these schools are children of parents who are f***heads. PBE is not justifiable! The data as presented (I’ve not had the time to reconstruct the table — anyone game?) strongly points in this direction.
Consider this: Why are these uninformed (sorry, f***head) parents making decisions to not vaccinate — which impacts you, your family and our community?
Once we eliminate the religious exemption with the current legislation, then we’ve gotta go Mississippi on these parents.
(I’m assuming y’all read this:
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/05/us/mississippi-a-leader-on-vaccination-rates-stands-by-strict-rules.html?_r=0)
There is no scientific reason not to be vaccinated; if you are one of Wakefield’s pleebs (or supporting one of his offspring) just switch!
Once you do, then donate that time and money to Wallyhood! It’s the better choice!
(also, with you & your’s vaccinated we’ve a healthier community 😉
Amazed we haven’t had a vaxxer type up some vague paranoid ill informed feelings yet.
They may not work that way so much – wade into a clearly hostile audience and duke it out. My impression from a recent newspaper article is that folks who have studied this think they could yield to pressure in a situation like this — outbreaks, Kenyans making fun of us, etc. — but after the heat is off, the net outcome will be deeper anti-vaccination sentiment. I guess in there somewhere is a conspiracy-theory mentality that’s hard to crack.
I have problems with calling people F### heads. Please someone talk to or monitor galaoxide. Name calling never proves anything.. except that we need amodrator.
I also disagree with not allowing parents to make decisions regarding vaccinations. There are religious and also personal medical/health ways of thinking which do not jibe with others’.
If we make life and all life decisions all mandatorily uniform then we have all what?? protestant republican meat-eating gun carrying processed food loving population. Or vegetarian democratic who knows what else?? Big brother iscoming every time you or anyone decide sthat we all must do this or that.. no matter how many people we call f@@@@ho hum.
“I have a different way of thinking” is not really making much of a case for it. If there’s a good reason to skip vaccination, other than the rare valid medical exemption, let’s hear it, every parent needs to find out about this “way of thinking.”
I beg your pardon, it was not a Kenyan but a Nigerian making fun of us. “I hope we are screening them before they come to Africa.”
You do not need an appointment to get a shot. A nurse or PA can give your kid a vaccination shot. You can also go to one of the community medical clinics in a Bartell’s – there is a clinic in the Bartell’s in University Village. Check on-line or phone.
Hey,
mogomogo, sorry if it offends you. Will toning it down to ignorant A*holes suffice? PBE is not scientifically justifiable when it comes to herd immunity (though, I agree with donn there’s a much larger problem looming). My fear is just what you imply, and which was borne out by Christie: vaccination will be (or already has) turned political. Not looking forward to how it will play out given how politicized our impact on the environment has become.
Yes, my children, my 90yr old grandmother & my 70yr old inlaws will not be impacted because they can still be safely vaccinated. That said, within our community there are infants, children, elders and others who are unable to be safely vaccinated. For example, look at those kids in the table who have the ME. They are medically unable to be vaccinated, are you suggesting that the parents (the vast majority) who ‘believe’ they don’t want their child vaccinated (for whatever ignorant reason) should put these kids at risk? WTF?
When you live in a community, you live by both the institutional and communal rules. There is no “personal belief” justifiable which endangers others. Especially, as in this matter, there is a strong chance of mortality and all (yes, all…) the science supports vaccination.
I would not want to build a belief about the efficacy and danger of vaccinations on the lectures and writings of a doctor who finally had his license revoked, who was shown to have had financial interests in discrediting the vaccines used at the time of his publication (he was supported by a competing vaccine company). A doctor who then sued for libel the investigative journalist who uncovered his machinations? A doctor who the Lancet retracted his ‘seminal’ publication? A man, who most experts and publications suggest is solely responsible for the return of measles in the US and the UK? I for one, would never consider him in my posse on Broadway 😉
What would you call someone who decided to ignore stop signs while driving? A Republican? A Democrat? A Freemen ;-)? (If the latter, I’m all aboard!) Otherwise, I’m sticking with my first use, but willingly amend it as suggested. No matter the nomenclature, an end result will be mortality or lifelong suffering for those in the impacted population.
Just reflect, what if the girl in April visited instead any of our local venues? And prior to the show decided to visit the Food Giant (QFC)?
So, if you haven’t recently received a measles or pertussis booster; but more importantly, haven’t had a vaccination for either — go out and do it (and also for your children).
Most posting on this list, if they are are unvaccinated and become infected, will survive just like that girl last april. The point is you can feel ok and still infect those around you – potentially someone of whose life was dependent on you owning up and becoming vaccinated.
galaoxide, your words and namecalling make it clear you believe so strongly in yur position and you rright to intimidate others through f@@ and ‘dumbing it down” that I would never agree to your facts or intelligence.
Your supposed facts re illnesses and vaccinations are not absolute truth. At the moment.. for a few years at least in this country people still have the right to decide certain aspects of their life.
As you suggest we all get vaccinations to save others lives.. will you go to no one may smoke to reduce health care insurance bills due to disease? How about no guns? or no more junk food? Eliminating smoking and junk food would reduce many instances of serious costly illnesses and thus reduce incidences of many otehr illnesses and some insurance costs.
Maybe we should let kids decide whether they will be vaccinated or not. I think many could do a better job than the above reasoning.
I’ve been reluctant to join in this discussion because I really dislike trying to discuss anything when someone is already calling people “fuckheads,” but there are a few points that I would like to raise and I will hope that everyone’s best selves can be appealed to for thoughtful conversation rather than flaming.
I am in the group of parents that our local experts are referring to as “vaccine-hesitant” [Personally, I hate that term as I am not hesitant about vaccines, I believe in them. I consider myself more “selective” than hesitant]. My husband and I are educated professionals in our 40s. We research everything and make medical decisions based on informed consent – weighing our own research in addition to conversations with our physician. We have both studied science, believe in science, and support vaccine use when appropriate.
After careful consideration, we chose to immunize our children for some diseases and not for others, and to vaccinate them on a schedule that differs from the recommended schedule. We made this choice because we do not feel that all vaccines are equal and therefore each vaccine should be considered independently. Polio should be treated differently from chicken pox, for example.
Our country’s approach to vaccines is built on the public health model – which teaches health care providers to get as much medical care into people as they can whenever they have the opportunity. Parents bring their children into the doctor more frequently when those children are young, so it is a good practice from the public health perspective to vaccinate the young when they are being seen on a frequent basis. Also, because many more children have health coverage when they are very young than when then are older (especially before universal healthcare for children was instated and children were only covered under WIC or similar programs), it is smart from a public health perspective to vaccinate them while it is paid for.
However, not all vaccines are necessary at birth. For example, one of the vaccines that our family is waiting to get is the Hep B vaccine. As I do not have Hep B, I was not at risk of transmitting the disease to my newborns (one reason that you would give this vaccine to a young child). Other common ways to get Hep B are from sex and from sharing needles. As I think it unlikely that my elementary school children will be doing either of these things yet, I am delaying that vaccine until they hit middle school. My husband and I feel comfortable with this decision, our choice does not compromise the public health, and we feel that we should have the right to make this medical decision for our children.
We also chose to expose the children to chicken pox so that they would develop a lifelong immunity to the disease. We deliberately exposed them and just as deliberately kept them isolated afterwards so as not to expose others. Since my children have had the disease, they now have lifelong immunity instead of needing to get booster shots every 10 years. As chicken pox is a disease that is significantly worse to get as an adult, we felt that relying upon our kids to remember to get their booster shots when they were in college – or during other difficult stages of life – was something that we did not want to do. To us, it would be far riskier to chance that they might get the disease as adults – when it can be fatal – than to get it as children when it is certainly not fun, but rarely fatal (in healthy, well-nourished children at least). If our children’s health status had been different, or if missing one month of work would have cost us our livelihood, we would have made a different decision.
Our children are recorded at their school as not being vaccine complaint because they don’t have their Hep B or their chicken pox vaccines. There are other people that we know whose children are also recorded as “exempt” for this same reason. So, when you look at those statistics, you cannot assume that those children are completely unvaccinated or that those parents are “anti-vaxxers!!!!!” Most of us have made well-considered decisions.
Vaccines are medical treatments. There are no medical treatments that we can say or absolutely safe and risk free. In fact, the CDC and the FDA jointly maintain a registry for vaccine adverse effects. http://www.cdc.gov/vaccinesafety/Activities/vaers.html While these events may be rare when compared with the incidence of a particular disease, they still happen and are still life changing for the families they impact. Thus, families should have the option to weigh the risks and the benefits of vaccines just as they would with any other medical treatment. I believe that most families will make the choice to vaccinate, especially against serious diseases. But should we force compliance for a medical treatment whose safety we cannot 100% guarantee – I do not think so.
Kimberly, I applaud your courage in baring what will no doubt be an unpopular opinion on this blog. You must know this and you posted it anyway. However…
I could not disagree more. I cannot fathom a situation in which I would knowingly expose my child to an infectious disease. That seems far more foolhardy than letting your child have a medically and scientifically backed remedy like vaccines.
Before my first child was vaccinated I toiled over whether or not to have him vaccinated on an alternate schedule. Our pediatrician told me that there would be no significant difference to the child except for the fact that on an additional day the child would have additional shots. Which she said is kind of cruel. I took her advice and my child had zero problems. Zero. I toiled over that decision and I felt so foolish afterward. Most people have no reaction to vaccines.
I recommend spending our energy on eliminating actual dangers to our children. Like the dangers from cars or climate change.
And let us be clear, these conversations are a luxury for us in America because our children are so unlikely to actually be faced with death from an infectious disease. Dare I say, your vaccine dilemma is what I’d call a “first world problem.”
I found it somewhat illuminating, and wouldn’t want to argue with any of the decisions outlined there. Note however the phrase, after explaining one of the vaccination decisions, “… our choice does not compromise the public health, …” Could you say the same thing about skipping the measles vaccine? If not, then what about forcing compliance? You and I suppose your husband are clearly exceptionally competent at researching this stuff (and presenting it), so it must be irksome to be governed by rules that we need because of … um, knot-heads, but what’s the alternative?
Thank you Kimberley.
There may not ever be enough info or typing time to clarify for others to their satisfaction why people make informed personal decisions which are their right to do so.
I got called the f@@ head and was dumbed down to so you and others can stand up and state your thoughts.
This forum used to have rules about namecalling etc.. I hope we revert to the use of those rules.
@impliedobserver: I appreciate your comments and perspective. I know that many people feel similarly to you and I have no problem with you having the right, as a parent, to make the medical decision to vaccinate your child for chicken pox. My hope is that others will understand that medical treatments are not one-size-fits all and that the vaccine issue is not as black and white as the media has been portraying it.
@donn: I agree there are some knot-heads, but as with so many issues I don’t think you can ever really reach the knot-heads. They are who they are. However, I would venture a guess that in Wallingford at least, many of the families who are registered as “personal exemption” have vaccinated their children for at least some diseases. I would guess that there are not many people in our community who are truly opposed to vaccinations, and that if given the chance to speak with them you would find that they have made the decision that they think is best and could articulate thoughtful reasons why.
As for tackling disease outbreaks and the need for herd immunity, I have these thoughts:
1. From what I have been reading, most of the outbreaks (measles, pertussis, etc) actually begin with non- or under-vaccinated adults. I have been asking many of my adult friends if they know if they are current on their MMR or DTaP and most of them don’t know. To me, this seems like an obvious place to begin.
2. Disease does not spontaneously generate in a group of unvaccinated children. It is brought into the group, usually by an adult who has recently been in another country. So, perhaps we need to address our traveling adult population. For example, maybe you have to submit your vaccine record when you apply for a passport.
3. We could require that parents jump through more hoops in order to maintain their personal exemption status for school-aged children. Perhaps they would need to submit paperwork every year instead of just at kindergarten. Perhaps they would need a notarized signature. You could make the barrier harder to get over so that only the people who were really committed to their beliefs chose personal exemption over complete vaccine compliance.
4. We could develop a system of ranking vaccines by “importance” to personal and/or public health. I think it undermines the credibility of public health to talk about all vaccines as if they were equally important. If we could prioritize which vaccines we think (as a community, as medical professionals, etc) people need to get and admit that there are some vaccines that aren’t as critical and could be safely delayed, I think we would reach more of the “hesitant” group.
I am sure there are other approaches that could have a positive effect on reaching more adults and children and increasing rates of vaccine compliance. I truly hope our public officials and public health experts will work on this issue in a constructive way rather than just reacting to the witch hunt that has been going on in the media.
Thanks Kimberly. I think you laid out your reasoning for deferring Hep B and chicken pox vaccines very well. My kids are all vaccinated, but I hesitated about the chicken pox vaccine for the same reasons you outlined (it is worse to get chicken pox as an adult and what if the kids forget the booster shot when they are young adults or it is not clear after how many years it is exactly needed since the vaccine is relatively new?). I also agree that not all vaccines/vaccine exemptions should be treated equally. I think it is inexcusable not to vaccinate against polio, for example, whereas chicken pox does not seem as necessary. The statistics on vaccine exemptions really should be broken up by vaccine.
I am under the belief (perhaps wrongly) that anyone who gets the chickenpox as a child may get shingles as an adult. And from what I hear, shingles is extremely painful. So while it may be better to get chickenpox as a child than to get it as an adult, I would still opt to get the chickenpox vaccine for this reason.
Kimberly – don’t be fooled by @impliedobservers implication that your opinion is “no doubt unpopular.” Nor the dismissive comment about “first world problems.”
Your opinion is the most level-headed and logical thing I’ve seen in the discussion thus far. Thank you.
@impliedobserver – You are correct about the connection between chicken pox and shingles. However, you can still get shingles even if you have had the chicken pox vaccine and some children have gotten shingles form the children pox vaccine (rarely, but it has been documented). http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23358727
You can get the shingles vaccine in addition to the chicken pox vaccine. Additionally, if you have had the chicken pox disease, you can still get a shingles vaccine to protect yourself from shingles. I also hear it is painful and plan to get a shingles vaccine for myself when I am older.
@runyararo – Thanks 🙂
I had chicken pox as a baby and don’t remember it. I had shingles as a teenager and I remember that it really sucked. The only reason I recall it being painful was that it was right near my waist so really wearing pants at all would irritate it. It’s red, it’s scaly, it’s itchy, and it’s localized. I would assume that it’s worse if you’re older, maybe?
Kimberly, you have shared some misinformation that needs to be addressed.
The recommended immunization schedule is designed to minimize exposure to vaccine-preventable diseases to those who are most vulnerable if infected and those most at risk for severe complications. For children, vaccines are recommended at the earliest ages they are proven to be safe and effective in order to minimize the time of possible exposure. Delayed schedules = more opportunity to be exposed to disease and spread it to others. The schedule is not about “getting as much medical care into people whenever they have the opportunity” or about insurance coverage!
You said you exposed your children to chicken pox so they’d have the disease instead of getting booster shots every 10 years. It’s a 2-dose series, 1 at 12-15 months and another at 4-6 years. No further doses needed/recommended.
You said people can get the shingles vaccine in addition to the chicken pox vaccine. Right now, the CDC does not recommend the shingles vaccine for adults who had chicken pox vaccine (unless chicken pox was given in error to someone who should have received the shingles vaccine). More time/data are needed to understand the epidemiology of shingles in people who were vaccinated against chicken pox. The risk of shingles in vaccinated children is definitely lower than the risk of shingles in children who had chicken pox disease. GCP, if you’re reading, the risk of shingles and related complications increase as you age, which is partly why the vaccine is only recommended for people 60 and older.
Regarding ranking vaccines by importance to personal and/or public health – this is done in public health all of the time. If you haven’t already, you might want to read about GRADE on the CDC’s ACIP website. It is a choice to do one’s own personal ranking (as you described above), but no one lives in a bubble so the consequences of doing so extend beyond the personal.
Since we’re all talking about vaccines, don’t forget that there is an excellent vaccine available to prevent most types of cervical, vulvar, vaginal, penile, anal and oropharyngeal cancers, as well as genital warts. It’s called HPV and is recommended for children 11-12 years (and licensed for people through age 26). Cancer prevention through vaccination is excellent science!! Lots of great work in this area is being done locally, probably by many of our Wallingford neighbors.
Most pharmacies now carry and can administer vaccines to older children and adults. HealthMap Vaccine Finder is a great website when looking up where to go to find vaccines: http://flushot.healthmap.org/.
@SEA – I agree that I should have talked about the other factors that determine the vaccine schedule and not solely the public health model. Safety and efficacy are very important considerations and I was wrong to leave them out of the conversation.
However, I still stand by the assertion that public health mentality is a key component of determining the vaccine schedule. I worked in a public health setting for years and was told by many different health care providers that completing a child’s immunizations by age three was hugely important because at age 3 WIC coverage ended and so after that time there was a steep drop in how frequently a child was seen. While they clearly wanted the vaccines to be safe and to provide immunity, they also wanted a schedule that had them completed by age 3 because they were concerned that after that point, they would lose contact with the child. I believe that mindset influences the conversation around vaccines for all parents, even the ones who are highly likely to bring their child in for care after the age of three.
Regarding the chicken pox virus, you are correct about the current recommendation according to the CDC. However, my own physicians have seen break through cases of chicken pox, such cases have been recorded in many places, and that has led my physicians to suspect that routine boosters may one day be the recommendation. The chicken pox vaccine does not seem to “take” in a fairly sizeable amount of the population, and additionally, having been developed in 1995, it has not been around long enough to know how long its protection will last. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varicella_vaccine
Getting the chicken pox disease as an adult is so much more serious that getting it as a child that ensuring continuous protection once a person reaches adulthood is very important. I feel more peace of mind knowing that my children had the disease and that we won’t have to worry about whether or not they are protected as adults. I can understand that others feel more comfortable with a vaccine and trusting that their adult children will stay current on boosters if needed.
Your observation that the shingles vaccine is not recommended for people who have had the chicken pox vaccine was news to me. I had read otherwise, but of course not I cannot find the source. I suppose it makes since as the group of people who first had the chicken pox vaccine are still young and unlikely to develop shingles. Thank you for clarifying that.
Thank you also for including the link to the vaccine finder – that is really handy. I am truly concerned about the adults in my life who are under-vaccinated or who don’t know their status. Most of these diseases – like measles – are so much more serious in adults. I think it’s really important that we ask our friend and loved ones if they know their immunization status, and even more important if we have children at home too young to be vaccinated.
Interesting article in this morning’s paper, wherein the Washington State Nurse’s Association is suing a couple hospitals who intended to force nurses to get flu vaccinations.