<p>No healthy child would die from a not getting a chicken pox vaccine. Those aren’t the only factors and every kid I knew got chicken pox and didn’t die.</p>
<p>By the way there is countless research stating unvaccinated children are healthier and have less diseases. It comes down to having a healthy diet and being hygienic.</p>
<p>rmatrev-
My children’s pediatrician is very conservative about new vaccines and when the chicken pox vaccine first became available she counseled us to wait until there was more data on adverse reactions. When we returned the next year for my kids’ checkups she said, “Since last year I’ve changed my mind since seeing two cases of necrotizing fasciitis [flesh-eating bacteria] secondary to chicken pox in our practice. Last week I had to visit a patient having her second surgery. The little girl had to have half her stomach removed.” My kids got the shot.</p>
<p>[Chickenpox</a> vaccine: Is it really necessary?](<a href=“http://www.slate.com/articles/double_x/the_kids/2013/11/chickenpox_vaccine_is_it_really_necessary.html]Chickenpox”>Chickenpox vaccine: Is it really necessary?)</p>
<p>Rmatrev…can you please state your sources for chicken pox death data for healthy kids. I’d be curious if the sources are mainstream, or otherwise. I personally know one family who have very sickly, under-vaccinated kids, in contrast to my vaccinated, healthy kid. But of course, correlation does not equal causation. </p>
<p>My healthy 11 month old got pertussis after partially completing his Dtp series. It was later discovered that the particular vaccine his ped used had a higher than acceptable failure rate. The practice changed to a more effective ( and expensive) vaccine. I’ve always wondered if that new vaccine was better, or if my kid would have gotten it anyway due to his particular immune system.</p>
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<p>100% False. </p>
<p>[Varicella</a> Death of an Unvaccinated, Previously Healthy Adolescent ? Ohio, 2009](<a href=“http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/mm6214a1.htm]Varicella”>Varicella Death of an Unvaccinated, Previously Healthy Adolescent — Ohio, 2009)</p>
<p>This nonsense is causing healthy, innocent children to DIE.</p>
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<p>Give cites of some of the “countless” studies, from peer-reviewed sources, or we don’t believe you.</p>
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<p>This position is socially irresponsible. There was a time before the advent of vaccines where millions of children (and adults)died every single year from infectious disease, even those kids who were “healthy” and well nourished.</p>
<p>You can be as clean as you think a person could be, but if someone near you coughs or sneezes with infected droplets which you proceed to breathe, you could find yourself seriously ill, if not fatally ill. Hygiene is VERY important, but it is not the only factor involved, not by a long shot.</p>
<p>Maybe “countless” means there aren’t any to count??</p>
<p>We were in the first round of kids with the chicken pox vaccine. My d got what we believed to be chicken pox when she was baby - verified by the pediatrician. So we didn’t get the vaccine thinking it was unnecessary. She got them at age 8. I know this is minor in relation to most other things, she has some scars on her face now from the chicken pox - and it wasn’t from scratching, they just put a few pits in her face. I wish we had just given her the vaccine, I had no idea you could get them twice and the doc didn’t recommend it.</p>
<p>However, I haven’t gotten her the gardasil shot yet. I really want some true data and medical opinion without an agenda. I know her doc asks every year, but I’ve read enough conflicting information I’m still researching. But, I’m not putting the community at large at risk while I weigh the pros and cons.</p>
<p>I have actually seen a child die from chicken pox. After weeks in the PICU where we suctioned pox from her lungs. It was not a pretty death.</p>
<p>I worked with someone who got chicken pox as an adult. This was pre vaccine. She was VERY sick, and for quite a few weeks. </p>
<p>DD was at a daycare with 28 students total from age 3 months to 8 years. She was 5 when the pox went through the daycare. 27 kids got the chicken pox…my kid didn’t! The following year, she was in K…and again the pox went through the class. Every kid who hadn’t had it…got it…except mine.</p>
<p>We had a trip to Disneyworld planned for Christmas of her first grade year…she got the shot right after the K outbreak.</p>
<p>I was a pre-vaccine chicken pox baby. I got it when I was a few months old. Spent several weeks in the ICU (PICU?) Still have the scars. Still chokes my mom up a bit when she talks about it. I am already immune compromised and I don’t suspect she slept very much during those weeks. </p>
<p>Luckily, I survived, but you can bet your bottom dollar that my mother would have some choice words for me if I chose not to vaccinate my kids after what she went through with me.</p>
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<p>I have no words. There is a special place in heaven for people willing to work with seriously ill children day after day. I just couldn’t do it.</p>
<p>"
Weaning off sugar for instance, has great rewards for your physical & mental health, including your immune system."</p>
<p>Oh god, could we please not have the Oregon/Washington hippy-dippy stuff that is sweeping the country? Yes, we should all probably consume less sugar, but that has little to do with infectious disease.</p>
<p>“By the way there is countless research stating unvaccinated children are healthier and have less diseases. It comes down to having a healthy diet and being hygienic.”</p>
<p>Good god… No amount of healthy eating will save one from something as deadly as smallpox (which was effectively eradicated with vaccinations).</p>
<p>Hey, Pizza, not everyone in WA is a hippy-dippy nutcase! ;)</p>
<p>Actually being "hygienic " isn’t necessarily going to help you ward off disease.
[Dishing</a> the dirt on asthma: What we can learn from poor hygiene](<a href=“http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2721305/]Dishing”>Dishing the dirt on asthma: What we can learn from poor hygiene - PMC)</p>
<p>It’s true we all pick and choose what we decide to believe.
But just because we are addicted to sugar doesn’t mean it isn’t harmful.
<a href=“http://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddisalvo/2012/04/01/what-eating-too-much-sugar-does-to-your-brain/[/url]”>http://www.forbes.com/sites/daviddisalvo/2012/04/01/what-eating-too-much-sugar-does-to-your-brain/</a></p>
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That would be my oldest. He might like [The</a> Number Devil: A Mathematical Adventure: Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Rotraut Susanne Berner, Michael Henry Heim: 9780805062991: Amazon.com: Books](<a href=“http://www.amazon.com/The-Number-Devil-Mathematical-Adventure/dp/0805062998]The”>http://www.amazon.com/The-Number-Devil-Mathematical-Adventure/dp/0805062998)</p>
<p>OOh! thanks mathmom! Passed that one on too.</p>
<p>**** ETA, its a SHE, not a he!</p>
<p>Hand washing is a good tool for helping to reduce chances of contracting infectious disease. Keeping our environments “sterile” is not the best tactic as a general rule, but hand washing is tried and true. Do remember that many of us touch our face/mouth/eyes/nose hundreds of times per day without even necessarily realizing it. This is why hand washing is very important.</p>
<p>Not to mention that if you are my patient, I bet you would prefer I wash my hands after I come out of that patient’s room next door, or after I sniffle and brush my hand against my nose absent mindedly, right? ;)</p>
<p>Avoiding infectious disease requires a multi-factoral approach.</p>
<p>Hygiene is important but yes, you can be “too clean”. Exposure to antigens is a good thing, not a bad thing. In my practice, we also noticed that farm kids seemed to get sick less and had less chronic disease. And it wasn’t from hippie-dippy pure eating. These were Wisconsin dairy farm kids, not organic locavore farm kids. And yes, I realize this is anecdotal, too.</p>
<p>Hemorrhagic and pulmonary cpox is truly horrifying. And whoever said that their kids had whooping cough, recovered “no worse for wear”? Yikes. Tell that to the parents of the babies (many in CA) who died last year. Egad.</p>