<p>I’m more split about the HPV vaccination, although I’ve come down on the side of vaccination for my children, both male and female. It’s still a pretty new vaccination, there have been adverse reactions, and herd immunity is less an issue with something like HPV. It’s only through certain behaviors that one can contract the disease, unlike many childhood diseases which can be transmitted though much more casual contact.</p>
<p>Niquii77, you’re not missing anything by getting the shot instead of the mist. Two years ago, both kids were offered the mist and took it. They thought it was nastier than the shot and actually gave them mild symptoms for a day. They asked for the shot the following year.</p>
<p>" Someone posted a link about one of the leading researchers of this vaccine speaking out. What is her motivation for doing that?"</p>
<p>Turned out that the whole episode was a fraud; she wasn’t a “leading researcher” in the development of the two vaccines, and she fully supports the use of both of them.</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.badscience.net/2009/10/jabs-as-bad-as-the-cancer/[/url]”>http://www.badscience.net/2009/10/jabs-as-bad-as-the-cancer/</a></p>
<p>"The article has now disappeared from the Express website, and Professor Harper has complained to the PCC. “I fully support the HPV vaccines,” she says. “I believe that in general they are safe in most women. I told the Express all of this.”</p>
<p>One of the things that really infuriates me about the ignorant anti-vaccine movement is that its proponents point to their children’s good health as a reason not to vaccinate. Well, they’re healthy because everyone else <em>is</em> vaccinated and the unvaccinated benefit from herd immunity. But as fewer people see the need to vaccinate, there’s a decline in herd immunity, so there will be more outbreaks of very preventable diseases.</p>
<p>Sue22, I was also slow to warm up to the HPV vaccine–my oldest didn’t get her first dose until she was 16–but the reason I ended up getting it for both kids is because of concerns about unintended sex, rape, etc. Even if a kid doesn’t chose to have sex, some infected jerk could still “choose” it for her.</p>
<p>Sue22, it isn’t just a behavior issue. Babies may aquire laryngeal HPV during delivery. There is also evidence linking nasal polyps to HPV. We haven’t done a good job with changing behavior for the greater good (obesity, smoking, exercise, etc.).</p>
<p>I would just like to add my view that refusing to get vaccinated for infectious diseases is unpatriotic.</p>
<p>@Massmomm Wow, you’d think they’d develop the equivalent to flavors for cough medicines. Perhaps fresh cut grass, ocean breeze, maybe even fresh linen? :p</p>
<p>@Hunt Good thing there’s no law against being unpatriotic!</p>
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<p>Okay… I have these. Nasty, horrible things. I sure wish I had been able to be vaccinated when I was younger to avoid them!! One more reason I am glad my Ds got this vaccine!</p>
<p>If HPV vaccines prevent genital warts, that is reason enough for me to do it to my kids (and I have, for all 3). Has anyone seen photos of genital HPV? Those might bring you down off the fence. Way back in my 20s, a guy I knew described his GF’s extensive case of genital warts, with horror. I never forgot that.</p>
<p>Ironic since he probably gave them to her.</p>
<p>Yes, he certainly could have. Which is why I was an early advocate for promoting the vaccine for <em>both</em> girls and boys.</p>
<p>One of my college roommate’s BF gave her genital warts. I don’t even want to go into detail about what she went through to get rid of them, but it was a painful, lengthy, and expensive process.</p>
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Ucbalumnus: </p>
<p>Quote:</p>
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<p>You are overlooking the fact - as if it is umimportant - that those who are getting live vaccines are shedding all over the place, making others ill. They are more of a danger than the person who is to become ill later.</p>
<p>Furthermore, you are quite mistaken if you believe that people/children are not getting chickenpox repeatedly. Do the research. The vaccine is almost useless. This is why they are now requiring boosters. The measles vaccine has a better record, but there are still repeat cases and the measles virus has mutated, post vaccine.</p>
<p>I had warts when I was 17.
My dr treated them by freezing just like a regular wart.it took one or maybe two treatments.
My bf didnt have any symptoms.
They never reoccured.
They are a virus, support your immune system & they will clear your body faster.</p>
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<p>You’re right, and thinking back that was part of my thinking as well. I should amend my post to “It’s PRIMARILY through certain behaviors that one contracts the disease.”</p>
<p>My thought, and that of my doctor, was that at 12 my daughter was at low risk of acquiring HPV and that we wanted to see more outcomes before jumping on the bandwagon. 3 years later it was time. We felt more comfortable with the research and she was getting closer to the age where she could, through choice or not, become sexually active. She, her little sister, and big brother have all received the HPV vaccine.</p>
<p>emeraldkity4, that’s your experience. Certainly not everyone’s. My roommate had to go through a pretty bad ordeal to take care of her problem. It can be an extensive process.</p>
<p>My former roommate is a Christian scientist. She rarely goes to the doctor and has never had a vaccine in her life. It took a lot out of her to go through everything she had to go through to resolve that issue.</p>
<p>Viruses can hit different people differently. In college I had shingles. They were barely bothersome and limited to my torso. A few years later I worked with a man who had them so bad he was out of work for weeks. He had lesions in his mouth and on his eye. Not his eyelid, the eye itself.</p>
<p>My son got chicken pox after having the vaccine (it had just come out when he got it,) but he had an extremely mild case - only one pox on his palm. I was a bad mother and kept sending him to school with a band-aid covering it, but it kept falling off and the nurse kept calling me every day to come pick him up. </p>
<p>S’s doctor recommended the HPV and he got his first dose this summer. Will have the next shot when he’s home for T’giving.</p>
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<p>Okay… yet another post jam-packed with idiotic pseudo-science.</p>
<p>Regarding the live viruses, many vaccines do not use live viruses. Of those that do, only a small number pose any risk to someone who comes into contact with the vaccinated person. At this point pretty much the Oral Polio vaccine (rarely given in the US any more), the smallpox vaccine (not routinely needed because enough people DID vaccinate before the anti-vaccine movement held sway and the disease was eliminated), and FluMist are the ones with specific instructions regarding avoiding immune-compromised people after vaccination. The virus used is weakened, so the average person isn’t going to get sick from it. And the instructions regarding who should have those vaccines with that risk are very specific and are communicated to the patient. When my kids had FluMist one year when they ran out of injections, our doctor carefully explained this part of it before my kids had. To say they are “shedding it all over the place, making others ill” and are more of a danger somehow than people who actually get the disease (most of whom are not vaccinated!) is just silly.</p>
<p>“Furthermore, you are quite mistaken if you believe that people/children are not getting chickenpox repeatedly. Do the research. The vaccine is almost useless.” These two sentences have nothing to do with each other. I quoted the NIH above saying that VERY RARELY people can get chicken pox twice. But that has nothing to do with whether the vaccine is effective! Some people DID get chickenpox when the vaccine’s effectiveness started to wane (first group getting the shots). Now they know boosters are needed, so… just get the booster. The effectiveness of the vaccine is believed to be about 20 years now. And while a few people do get it in spite of the vaccine, they usually get a milder case. If you never get chickenpox (and have to get a couple of boosters in adult life to make that happen), then you also won’t get shingles. And that is a pretty great health advantage, too.</p>
<p>Regarding measles vaccine mutation, the strain of measles the vaccines were developed for in the 1950s is the same strain we vaccinate for today. And we aren’t all running around with some mutated form of measles… the people getting measles today are those who have not vaccinated (see the link in the initial post in this thread).</p>
<p>Stop reading silly-not-science musings on the internet, and go to the CDC and NIH for your information.</p>