For hepatitis B, getting the vaccine means scheduling and remembering to get three shots. For health care workers and the like, serological testing for immunity is recommended after vaccination.
My son volunteers at a hospital–in part for his college app… to bring this full circle. And before anyone at the hospital begins volunteering, they all have to have the titer test mentioned above. One of his vaccines, it turned out did not fully take and his pediatrician gave him a booster. The titer test was paid by the hospital. It covered all diseases. We paid zero for this.
I would think all EMS would have a titer done before starting work and it would be paid for by the employer. This is both for the EMS’s own safety and for the others he/she serves.
My brother is an EMT. I’ll ask if he had this done. I doubt it (he works for a ski corp and independently) but I’ll be interested as it is likely we’ve had the same diseases and vaccinations over the years.
More on last year’s flu deaths - there had been a drop in the % of people vaccinated.
"Thirty-four percent of US parents said their child was unlikely to get the flu vaccine this year, according to a report published Monday by C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital…
In the poll, the top three reasons parents cited for not getting their children vaccinated, according to Clark, were that they were concerned about side effects, that it doesn’t work very well and that their currently healthy child does not need to be vaccinated."
Sigh…
https://www.cnn.com/2018/11/19/health/flu-vaccine-children-study/index.html
This is what happens when you don’t vaccinate. Who could have guessed?
We all could have guessed — or rather known it would happen. We are a highly intelligent group.
^@silverlady, I think @MomofJandL was employing sarcasm. 
The chickenpox vaccine isn’t always required by states like MMR or polio.
The varicella (chickenpox) vaccine is normally required in North Carolina. Apparently the majority of the students at the Asheville Waldorf school, where this outbreak is taking place, have claimed religious or medical exemptions. Last year 110 or 152 students were unvaccinated. As of this past Friday there were 36 cases of chickenpox at the school.
For those who can’t read the Washington Post story, https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/417516-school-in-anti-vaccination-stronghold-hit-with-states-worst-chickenpox
Recently I saw a FB post by a young friend who is expecting her second child in 4 weeks, very pleasantly asking that anyone who panned to come to see the baby get a flu shot at least two weeks beforehand. Her first child contracted flu as a newborn and was dangerously ill. Thankfully she survived.
She said she never thought much about the flu vaccine until that dreadful experience.
https://www.citizen-times.com/story/news/local/2018/11/20/chickenpox-asheville-waldorf-school-quarantine-court-challenge-religious-freedom-civil-liberities/2069844002/ is a more local source relating to the chicken pox outbreak at Asheville Waldorf school.
A quarantine order resulted in a court fight.
Waldorf schools seem to attract anti-vaccination parents, according to http://time.com/3728434/california-vaccination-rates/ showing personal belief exemptions in California in 2015 (before the law was changed to eliminate personal belief exemptions, allowing only medical exemptions for those attending school other than home school).
My kids went to a Waldorf school and many of the parents feel that healthy children get stronger by having occasional illnesses. It’s a position of luxury really, since we don’t have the truly terrible and virulent diseases of the past, and if they do show up, we have better resources to treat them. I think it comes from the “hygiene theory” regarding the increase in food allergies and other immune diseases.
I also don’t think they understand the chicken pox/shingles connection.
Being anti-vax isn’t a religion and even if it was, religion should not trump public health.
“My kids went to a Waldorf school and many of the parents feel that healthy children get stronger by having occasional illnesses.”
While this might not make sense for serious and life threatening illnesses, it isn’t without merit for more routine things.
“I also don’t think they understand the chicken pox/shingles connection.”
I’ve never read anything claiming the chicken pox vaccine will protect people from shingles down the road. In fact, I’ve read that they are unsure of long term effects of the vaccine on shingles.
doschicos, maybe I’m misunderstanding your point but I think the chicken pox vaccine does protect people from shingles since it prevents them from getting chicken pox. You can’t get shingles without first having had chicken pox, so anything that prevents you from getting chicken pox also indirectly also protects you from shingles. I only know this because even though I’m older I never got chicken pox as a child so have had the chicken pox vaccination. When I asked my doc if I needed to get the shingles vax, he explained that as long as my chicken pox immunity/vax was working, I wouldn’t get chicken pox and without first having chicken pox, I couldn’t get shingles.
Not sure how much to rely on the vax, though, since the primary intended recipients are children and that’s the population that most of the testing and observation was done on, so as an adult chicken pox vax recipient it may or may not be as effective for me. Crossing my fingers it is effective since it would not be fun to get chicken pox at my age. My sister got them when she was 24 and she was very, very sick. I actually had to take care of her for several days and still didn’t get it, though, so may have some natural immunity. My mom claims she never had them, either, so maybe there’s some inherited immunity.
I’m by no way an anti-vaxxer but there are some vaccines that are less effective than others. IMO, the chicken pox vaccine is one of them. First off, it doesn’t have a 99+% of preventing chicken pox. I know kids who’ve had the vaccination and still had chicken pox, although it has been a milder version of the illness. Second, everything I’ve read states that getting the chicken pox vaccine provides no guarantee you’ll escape shingles. Things I’ve read have stated it is inconclusive and they are unsure about lifetime protections. Then, the shingles vaccine itself is only 51% effective (National Foundation for Infectious Diseases):
“There is a safe and effective vaccine to prevent shingles. It prevents shingles in 50 percent of
those vaccinated and reduces the incidence of PHN by 66 percent. Although people who are vaccinated
may still get shingles, they are likely to experience a milder case than un-vaccinated persons.”
http://www.nfid.org/publications/factsheets/varicellaadult.pdf
There has also been talk that the chicken pox vaccines will actually lead to more shingles in later adulthood in the overall population. Bottom line, the varicella vaccine hasn’t been around long enough for conclusive evidence.
Wiki isn’t the ultimate source for info but read through it as it has some interesting info on the chicken pox vaccine.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Varicella_vaccine
Some people may have had subclinical chicken pox infections before getting the vaccine, so they now have dormant virus that can return for shingles, even though they never knew that they had chicken pox.
Also, the new shingles vaccine (Shingrix) was significantly more effective in clinical trials than the older one (Zostavax).
Anything that lessens shingles severity sounds like a win imho. It’s really quite nasty from all reports.
I had a minor case of shingles in college, some funky spots that were slightly sensitive to the touch. It was no big deal. I later worked with someone who had a major case. He had painful sores in his mouth and eyes and weeping open sores on his torso. He was absolutely miserable, was out of work for weeks, and he suffered permanent damage to his eyesight. I would much rather my kids have a greater chance of a minor case than a minor chance of a major case.