Google mumps and college…it’s enlightening
^ Care to elaborate?
A school in Georgia made DS get a titer test for Chicken Pox, since he actually had the disease and no vaccination record. They required physician records of all the other usuals. Texas was pretty emphatic about meningitis. So it depends on which state, which school, what year.
I had to provide a letter from the doctor who treated S17 for his chicken pox because he didn’t have the shot either. I would have had to do the titer if the doctor hadn’t given me the letter. I told the school that was overkill - S17 is my FIFTH child. They accepted my statement that the two oldest had the chicken pox, because it was before the vaccine, and the middle two had the shot. I asked them why they thought I would lie to them about S17, particularly since my insurance didn’t charge for vaccines. It was clear that my children have the appropriate immunizations.
They probably HAVE been lied to enough times that they have gotten a bit jaded.
Glad it worked out.
@Nrdsb4 -
I guess you may be right, but at that point in time, I had been in the district for almost 10 years and due to the fact that my older boys all had IEPs and the oldest had a medical issue, the nurses, etc. all knew me. I was offended at the time, but you do make a valid point about them needing to be consistent with every family.
Lovely. Hope most have been vaccinated.
^^^^this one touched very close to my family and friends. That same group of possibly infected cheerleaders are smack dab in the middle of their competition season with major comps coming up at Disneyworld. Making the spread of the disease even more likely. And if you know cheer, you know cheerleaders perform sick because there is no one on the sideline to take the spot of an ill teammate.
An interesting article on an MD being given probation over California vaccination law
http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-ln-sears-license-20180629-story.html
Good. Allowing vaccine exemptions for anything other than health reasons is a threat to public health. Doctors endorsed by the state shouldn’t be allowed to do so without consequence.
More generally, doctors writing notes without examination is unethical at best.
He didn’t even examine the boy, just took his mother’s word that a previous vaccine had caused harm. That is not a responsible way to practice medicine.
Isn’t he part of some large family of doctors? I seem to recall a guy by that name who wrote a parenting book.
Dr. Bill Sears, author of a bunch of parenting books, is Bob Sears’ father. Bill’s wife’s a nurse and 3 or 4 of his kids are doctors.
I’m puzzled by the wholesale exemption. When my daughter was an infant, she had a rather extreme response to the DTP vaccine. This was in the 1980’s, when the whole cell pertussis vaccine was still the norm, and was known to trigger adverse reactions. I think the general practice at the time was that if the infant experienced an adverse reaction for the first vaccine of the series, the Pertussis would not be re-administered.
We moved to a different city between first and second dose, so there was a change in pediatrician. I informed the doctor about my daughter’s reaction to the first shot, and of course I did have my infant’s vaccination records, but medical records didn’t show the adverse reaction, because it didn’t rise to the level of requiring further medical attention. (I probably would have phoned in with a question, but follow up care wasn’t needed. I doubt that anything would have been noted in my daughter’s medical chart, as I would have only spoken by phone with the on-call pediatrician or nurse practitioner).
So 2nd doctor, relying on my description of the reaction, advised that I instead follow up with DT only (dropping the then-problematic Pertussis vaccine) – and that’s what my daughter got through her childhood. Since that time, the acellular version of the vaccine was developed because of the frequency of adverse reaction to the original vaccine, and as an adult my daughter has pretty much been vaccinated for everything for which a vaccine exists. (She has done a lot of international travel to all sorts of exotic locales). But back when my daughter was a baby, that wasn’t yet an option.
But the point is: she had an adverse reaction to one type of vaccine. No more of that type, but no change in anything else.
I don’t think the doctor’s relying on my description of my daughter’s reaction was in any way inappropriate - though of course I was also describing a reaction that was in the realm of commonly known adverse reactions. (“In the mid-1970s reports were published about safety concerns that shed doubts on the value of wP vaccines. These vaccines were associated with side effects at the injection site and with serious systemic reactions, including whole-limb swelling, febrile seizures and persistent crying.” Source: https://bmjopen.bmj.com/content/7/1/e012945). So no reason for the doctor to doubt my report. I didn’t ask for an “exemption” – I asked my doctor’s opinion and followed advice.
I’m wondering if there is more to the story about Dr. Sears than the media is reporting – both because he wrote an exemption for all vaccines (rather than the specific vaccine which may or may not have induced an adverse reaction)-- and perhaps because the mother’s claim could not be substantiated? (Perhaps that particular child had never had any vaccines, and a vaccine-averse mom was just making up a story to get a note?)
@calmom I’m not sure what more to the story you’re looking for. This doc is an anti-vaxxer and parents sought him out to get medical exemption notes for schools.
Oops, the link above does not work because it contains a word that is banned on CC!
Try this link instead: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-45294192
And then you get this - measles outbreak in Europe, now spreading to the US and Canada.
https://www.economist.com/europe/2018/08/25/anti-vax-fears-drive-a-measles-outbreak-in-europe
https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/15/health/us-measles-cases-cdc/index.html
Well, I had mumps. I had German measles. I had chickenpox. I had scarlet fever. I’m old enough that there were no vaccines for all of these. I finally got polio vaccine at some point in elementary school, but have a couple friends who did develop polio before the vaccines became readily available. Now we will have a whole generation of kids who will understand just what all those preventable illnesses really entail. Maybe those kids will be smarter with their kids.
There is an interesting case just making its way through British courts. A teenager contracted measles several years ago and was left with partial sight. He is now suing his parents under the Children Act for intentional endangerment for refusing to have him vaccinated. The case could have wide-ranging implications.
Measles really concerns me as I know a case where a child wasn’t vaccinated and contracted measles. Years later he developed the fatal illness, SSPE. Absolutely tragic.
@doschicos There have been measles outbreaks in California and Washington State over the past few years. Same with outbreaks of Pertussis (Whopping Cough). With the number of unvaccinated children in some schools, just one case could case a major outbreak.