From the last linked article:
Countless hours of researching like minded people who “know for a fact” that vaccines are bad.
In my opinion, a large part of the problem is that parents nowadays were vaccinated and have no concept of what their diseases can do to a person.
My Depression era parents and the parents of my friends knew, first hand, and rushed to take full advantage of the immunizations. They grew up with a President paralyzed by polio. My dad actually knew kids who died of diptheria and other diseases.
As a late Baby Boomer, I was young enough to benefit from the polio vaccine, but I actually had measles, German measles, mumps,chicken pox and scarlet fever. Needless to say, I didn’t miss a single vaccine for my kids, including getting all 4 of my sons the full HPV series.
The kids nowadays have benefited from an high vaccination rate in the general populace and anti-vaxxers are taking advantage of the fact that the high immunization rate keeps most outbreaks contained. This won’t continue if the anti-vaxxer’s have their way.
A couple of years ago, my D (who had to be held by FOUR adults to get her pre-k booster shots) decided she wouldn’t vaccinate her future children. One of her brothers, on hearing the news, called her up and told her that he would go to court to get custody of her children and then he would have then vaccinated. She has since done more research and changed her mind, thankfully.
What a great brother!
It really frustrates me. People believe the logic that you just “build up your immune system” and if the kids gets pertussis anyway, they end up being somehow stronger afterwards. That just doesn’t make sense (if you have any medical experience or expertise).
The older I get the more I hear stories about viruses gone wrong. Not even diseases that there is a vaccine for, but someone gets a virus and it goes off and does something else drastic and unexpected in the body. For example, I had a simple 24 hour stomach bug (caught on a college tour, lol), but ended up with blood in my urine and regular visits to a kidney doc for 2 years. My cousin’s grandchild had a cold and it someone inflamed part of his brain so he couldn’t walk for a few days. Who knows what something really nasty like the measles could do? I’d rather not find out.
One of the guys on our state U’s football team got a viral or bacterial infection that caused his heart valve to fail and need to be replaced! This was a healthy young college student!
I agree that there are so many things that one can’t protect against, I honestly can’t understsnd folks who choose not to get recommended vaccines for their loved ones—all of said vaccines!
Well, yes, actually.
BTW, speaking of lowered immunity, I’ve had a much more significant reaction to my recent flu shot while on chemo than ever before. It’s not a big deal, but there’s a significant red area, some pain and itching, and a bigger lump. I hate to think of experiencing actual flu at this time.
I have a kid who was totally needle phobic, to the point where he has to be help down by two burly male PAs for his required shots going into HS. A couple of years later, when I was receiving chemo, he willingly submitted to a flu shot. Apparently his pediatrician explained that a dose of the flu could kill me, and that did the trick.
The same year my vaccinated second child developed whooping cough at boarding school. She couldn’t stay but her dad was abroad and the school nurse wouldn’t release her to me without a note from my oncologist okaying it. Even then everyone insisted on strict protocols-masks for both of us and the car windows open the whole hour-long drive in 20 degree weather.
When my middle kid was seven and had to be tested for a possible bleeding disorder, he went through FOURTEEN blood tests in a year. He already disliked needles. After that, he really hated them. When we went to South Africa when he was 10, he needed some extra vaccinations. He was so resistant that I was afraid he wouldn’t be able to go on the trip! He relented, fortunately.
Maine, you touch upon something I’be been thinking about. Anti-vaxxers sometimes claim that part of the problem is we have too many vaccines. My husband grew up with a dad in the military. He and his brother got a lot of extra shots to go to Asia. This was true for all military kids.
If the anti-vaxxers were right, we would be seeing a high number of military kids with autism or whatever their latest claim is. And military hospitals would have noticed it. Yet more proof that their anecdotes don’t play out in the population as a whole.
@Picapole - you would think so, but I remember hearing about “Persian Gulf Syndrome” which some people blamed on our troops being given too many vaccines, one for anthrax in particular, before they were sent over. It may have been caused by exposure to sarin or other toxins but you can’t prove things to a dedicated anti-vaxxer.
All of the anti-vax “beliefs” are no more than superstitions.
Or they fail to note that even though today’s kids get more vaccines than kids in our day, the vaccines now contain only a fraction of the antigens that vaccines contained back when we were kids. No comparison, really, so the “overwhelming babies’ immune system” line with too many vaccines at once is pure drivel.
I have a question. Back in the olden days, my siblings and I got the measles and chickenpox, and there is a rumor that I had the mumps, but none of us were vaccinated, and I don’t think we were vaccinated after either (I might have received a rubella vaccine when I was pregnant). I’m not sure about whooping cough, but none of us have ever had that. I assume a lot of 1950-60’s kids are in the same boat.
Why aren’t there more outbreaks of mumps and the rest for our age group? The big outbreaks I’ve seen are for kids or at colleges. I even knew a family where all the kids had the chickenpox vaccination, and their cousins too, and all 6-8 got the pox after vacationing together. They were really sick and not a lighter version at all-poor babies.
Why aren’t we all (the 50’s/60’s kids) sick all the time?
People born before 1957 are generally assumed to have had measles, mumps, and rubella.
Some people may have had subclinical infections that did not cause noticeable sickness, but led to subsequent immunity.
However, you still have the option to get the vaccine if you are not sure.
Your doctor could even order blood titer levels, if desired. It was covered by our insurer when ordered by allergist.
Even if you never had frank sickness, you were naturally “vaccinated” by being exposed to the viruses in the community. You probably mounted an immune reaction enough to inoculate against infection.
As I understand it, chicken pox doesn’t go away. The virus remains dormant in the body. So those of us who had the disease in childhood can and do develop shingles later in life. Hence the need for a shingles vaccine.
S17 is in a program at his college where they are trained as Emergency Medical Responders and given additional health training so that they can respond to situations in their dorm.
The instructor suggested that they might want to be tested to see if they have antibodies to Hep B and get re-vaccinated if the titer comes back negative. I’m sure they are taught to use gloves if they treat someone who is bleeding, but I guess you never know.
He asked if our insurance would cover the test. I don’t know, but I suppose a single blood lest wouldn’t run much over $100.
@twoinanddone You also mentioned whooping cough. When you get a Tdap vaccine every 10 years for tetanus, that also covers pertussis (whooping cough).
If I was going to be an EMR, i think having hepatitis A and B vaccines would be good practice.
He had the Hep A vaccine in 2006 because of some travel we did.
“He asked if our insurance would cover the test. I don’t know, but I suppose a single blood lest wouldn’t run much over $100.”
Silly question - but how much risk does the Hep B vaccination pose? If it poses little risk, wouldn’t it be less work and money to just get a Hep B booster and skip the titer?
Don’t remember which one it was but my Dr suggest a titer for something and when I realized the titer was approximately the cost of the booster, I just got the booster and didn’t bother with the titer.