My autistic kid got chicken pox as a preschooler in diapers, before the vaccine was available. It was pretty awful and not an experience I would wish on anyone and especially not on a non-verbal autistic kiddo with a ton of sensory issues. (One of my own theories is that in days when infant mortality was high, children with developmental issues were particularly susceptible and passed away before they got to the point where they might be diagnosed.)
This thread reminds me to ask if there is any way that he can now, as an adult, get a shingles vaccine ahead of schedule. I got shingles a few years ago when I was in my fifties, and it was very painful. Luckily, it was confined to my torso.
I agree that shingles awareness is relatively recent, maybe in the last 10 years. I remember people wanting their kid to get chicken pox simply because they were afraid of them getting a worse case as an adult. Also, when the vaccine first came out it had a rather low effectiveness, 75% or so, and the disease has a 100% effectiveness rate. If your kid is relatively healthy and you don’t know about shingles that seems like better odds.
Still, that was 10 - 20 years ago and the vaccine is more effective now so it’s just more of that magical thinking to still be doing these things.
I think we have to bring up the hygiene theory here. It may be that chicken pox is seen as strengthening the immune system overall (if you survive it).
The hygiene theory supposes that the rise in allergies and asthma in the US is a result of the lack of serious childhood illnesses that we suffer today. That the body is designed by evolution to fight things off and without a virus, it will start attacking itself - hence the rise in autoimmune diseases. It has never been proven but I’m a bit out of the loop and I wonder if it has definitively been proven wrong?
One thing it ignores is the existence of strange ill effects you can get with a virus, any virus. For example, I picked up some kind of stomach bug while visiting colleges with D3 and a few days later it became apparent that it had damaged my kidneys. For a year or so I had chronic glomerulonephritis (gone now!) due to a mild stomach bug. Researchers believe MS may be caused by a dormant virus in the body. H knows a man who spent several months in the hospital after having the flu because of an unusual virus effect. None of these things are good for your immune system!
Are anti-vaxxers just as rabid about foregoing vaccinations for their pets? Ouch then. Aren’t rabies shots mandated by statues in some municipalities, and one can’t license a non-vaccinated pet?
I looked up the cost of the shingles vaccine - it’s between $200 and $250.
My husband thought he might be having a heart attack, his chest pain was so bad. He came home very relieved, because it was “just” shingles. I, on the other hand, was very upset because I remember how much my grandmother suffered from it, for years and years. Fortunately, the meds today are much better and he never had another bout with it.
I spent two days in horrible pain, wondering if I had liver or pancreatic cancer. It did NOT feel like pain in the skin, but was deep. When the rash finally showed up, I realized immediately what it was and was SO relieved. I went to the ER since it was in the middle of the night and they confirmed it and got me on meds right away. The pain lasted for months.
I think some of the problem we are seeing is just ignorance/stupidity. I do cut some slack to people who are victims of the “post hoc ergo propter hoc” fallacy–that is, people who saw signs of autism appear shortly after vaccination. You can’t blame them for being suspicious–but they can’t drive the policy without science, either.
But I think there’s something else going on, and I think it’s why younger people are less clear that vaccinations should be mandatory–and it’s why Rand Paul, in particular, got into trouble. That is, it is difficult for many people to accept that anything should be mandatory. As a libertarian (-ish), it makes sense for Paul to say that vaccinations are beneficial and everybody should get them–but nobody should be required to get them. Of course, that position is a bit too nuanced (in addition to being wrong).
The problem with this is that some things don’t work unless they are done by almost everybody, and vaccination is one of those things. That means, in the real world, that they have to be mandatory. We can tolerate a low level of exemptions, but if they get above a certain level we lose herd immunity and the disease will spread, among people who can’t get vaccinated for medical reasons–and among the percentage of people for who the vaccination did not provide full protection.
So, to me, the answer is to crack down on exemptions.
Interesting. Because they are two states that usually don’t come out of top in terms of child and adult health. Maybe because of that they are particularly determined to improve health in whatever way they can actually control.
“And Mississippi and West Virginia have led the way.”
Isn’t this backwards? They are not leading the way in cracking down on exemptions they are behind the recent trend in expanding them with the whole personal belief thing with is huge in so-called progressive places like CA.
No one is REQUIRED to get vaccinated. It’s just that schools and other venues (health professions and other jobs, group activities, camps, dorms,etc) require them. I lived in an area that had a lot of homeschoolers when my children were younger, and most of all of them that I knew did not vaccinate. But their kids mingled in extracurricular activities such as music programs, sports, scouts, church, community things, library, whatever. Even going to the hospital and doctors. A lot of the kids in the pediatric/oncology clinic where we had to go regularly were unvaccinated. A lot of the groups, like the Amish, Mennonites, Hassadic Jews tend to have a high incidence of cancer. Not only was the affected child not vaccinated; the whole family would not be. And with the large number of babies and young children at those clinics, there were a lot of unvaccinated people sitting right there where the kids are the most vulnerable. Frightening.
^^^Which can be “ok” or a non-topic/issue until there is an outbreak - like now. So even then, people were rolling the dice not immunizing and being in contact with children not immunized.
Also, sometimes you have to determine “lots” - 2% not immunized? 10%??? While it does take only one to be exposed, a greater (or lesser) ratio is important to know.
Yes, but insurance likely won’t pay for it. I got it at 53 years old after talking with my internist. He didn’t push it on me… I asked him about it, and said I’d rather pay out-of-pocket and get the shot now, than wait until 60 since that was still a few years away. I had a very, very mild case when I was 50, and don’t want to risk getting a more severe case. So I got the vaccine. He only charged me what it costs him, which was $165. I never even tried to submit it to insurance.
Interesting discussion at work this morning. I actually for for a pediatric practice/residency program. Our clinic is choosing at this point to not exclude any patients not immunizing from care. The docs feel that they have an ethical right to also serve/treat the children - the ones most at risk with or without immunizations - to give them the best shot at health. There is discussion about holding special “clinics” - basically meaning special times in the office - for those not immunized. Also this is creating the opportunity for resident training - to develop protocol and talking points for residents to advise parents who choose to not immunize - on precautions they need to take, educate them on the risks for themselves and others as a result of their decisions, etc.
These things have always been on the back shelf of course, but at the current time, a hot topic of need in parent counseling at medical appointments.
@cptofthehouse - you’ve mentioned a couple of times that Amish/Mennonite/Hassidic people seem to have high incidence of cancer - what’s that about? What kind of cancer, and why?? I never knew this. Is it the inbreeding and hesitance for prenatal testing or something? Is it just large families? Perhaps including very young or very old child-bearing?
Really don’t know why. But that is the situation. Blacks do not have the numbers. I was in an inner city children’s hospital with my son with a majority of black children being treated in just about every areas. But not pediatric oncology. In my two years there, where we practically lived there, only one black child with leukemia for certain, and that child’s mother was white. The sickle cell clinic was all African American.
I do know that certain Jewish backgrounds , such as the Ashkenazi Jews do have high incidences of certain cancers. Tay Sachs is another disease that tends to afflict those from that background. I have no idea what the reason is for the Amish families but they were way overrepresented, and I was told that there is a high incidence in that group by a research doctor, and read the same in research documents. Also an unusual high incidence in those who have Down Syndrome and those who are identical twins or other multiple identical. Those are risk factors.
My family has a high incidence of cancer too, though we are not of those groups. My father’s entire family died of cancer at young ages (before 60-70 years old), as he did. We got hit early with my son getting leukemia as a young child.
The high incidence in those groups I mentioned are certainly not caused by vaccines, that I can tell you.