I don't known enough of the particular sciences to have an informed opinion, but among the sincerely educated, I think this cartoon makes them smile:

http://www.newyorker.com/cartoons/daily-cartoon/daily-cartoon-monday-february-2nd-measles-disneyland?mbid=social_facebook

http://www.buzzfeed.com/daves4/please-vax-your-kids#.ki86mjBWE

Open and read the link first before you start yelling at me through the screen.

Itzpapalotl Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> http://www.buzzfeed.com/daves4/please-vax-your-kid
> s#.ki86mjBWE
>
> Open and read the link first before you start
> yelling at me through the screen.

Oh...My...Heck!!!

(I never had measles...but I did get chicken pox when I was eighteen, which I don't recommend for anyone...but I NEVER looked like those photos!!! E-e-e-c-k-s!!!!)

Nah, I'm not a shouter. Heck, TBMs say there's plenty of evidence that TSCC is 'twoo', so if they can be right, so can you!

And seriously, I literally have ZERO personal evidence that one way is better than the other when it comes to vaccinations. Unlike with mo'ism...

But all my kids and grandkids were vaccinated, so I don't have any skin in this game.

When we lived on Kingswell, in Hollywood, I would sometimes walk from Los Feliz Elementary School down to Children's Hospital, where my mom worked as an RN. I don't remember the last time I smelled it, but the smell of ether will take me right back to the pale green painted walls of the hallways of the old Children's Hosp.

I remember walking through a ward with iron lungs and looking at the faces of the kids in them, via the mirrors above their heads. I was too young to know pity, and that was probably a good thing.

It shows pictures of the ravaging effects of these diseases. I'm pro-vaccine because I'm not a dumbass, silly. ;P

BUT they were not immunized for chicken pox as the vaccine wasn't available yet.

OH MY HELL!

My parents had always assumed my younger brother was immune to chickenpox because he never got them. Oops.

He contracted chicken pox at 29 and was really quite sick for over a week, looked terrible too.

is because my kids had the chicken pox. They looked like those pictures. They were COVERED from head to toe with chicken pox. They still have scars on their faces even from the CP. It was living hell. My daughter cried herself a hernia. I have never seen anything like it. I spent 5 days each living through hell. I gave them extra Dimetapp so they would sleep. Later on, I was told by a doctor I could have given them a higher dose than I did.

I hated taking my kids for vaccinations. It was horrible every single time, but after they had CP, I would go through the shots again in a heartbeat.

"My parents are idiots."

Yep. Spot-on. :)

I had the measles as a child. Yeah, red measles. Had the German measles, too. Mumps as well. Chicken pox. All those good ol' childhood diseases. Oh, not all at the same time!

Mom and two of her sisters had polio as children. They survived. The effects have lasted their lifetimes. They are still living. As they age, those affects are worsening.

An uncle, two years older than I (I'm the eldest of my parent's children, this uncle was my mom's youngest brother, my mom is the eldest of nine), contracted tetanus at 8 years of age. Had to eat through a straw until he recovered. It took a while and the doctors were uncertain he'd make it. He did for almost two years. His demise is another story.

I vaccinated my 6 kids. No ill affects have been in evidence.

Vaccinate!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/03/2015 06:45PM by moose.

Just a little reminder now that we're on the subject.

When is the last time you had a Tetanus shot? You should have one every 10 years.

Doctors are now telling new mothers to not let ANYONE near their newborn if the person hasn't had a TDAP within the last two years. If you're about to be a new grandmother/auntie/whatever, go get your shot so you can be around the baby.

Over 60? You may want to consider getting immunized for shingles.

If you don't think it's important to have children immunized, you haven't seen what these diseases can do to children. And not just one or two here and there. I'm talking 1000's. I knew a couple of kids who died from Polio. My sil has been crippled all her life because of it. She's lucky she lived.

Had my TDAP this last November and my shingles shot last month (yep, over 60).

You are correct re: polio. As I mentioned, my mom and two sisters had it and I saw how my mom struggled with the aftereffects. They're worse now, as she ages.

T-Dap, pneumonia, and flu. Getting the latter two can kill me plus I'm nannying an 8th month old, so a current T-DAP was definitely needed. I was tired and sore for a week, but that's minor compared to having a 104 degree fever and having my lungs filled up with fluid.

There's considerable difference between smallpox and measles. My mom had me in the first line that formed for the new polio vaccine. We didn't find out until decades later that some of the vaccines were tainted with cancer cells.

Polio was scary; I didn't have it, but knew kids that did. One acquired a lifelong stammer, another had a shortened leg. Didn't know anyone who died.

I still believe people should make their own decisions about vaccinations. Freedom is never bad.

Prior to the measles vaccine, the disease killed 400-500 people a year in the United States. Thousands of children were left with irreversible side effects of the measles including deafness and mental retardation.

We BEAT this monster, and now it is rearing its ugly head once again because we do not learn from history.

Sad, sad, sad.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/03/2015 07:00PM by summer.

A few months ago, I was arguing on FB with my anti-vaxxer nephew about measles. IIRC the figure was 5000 deaths per year, in the US, pre-vaccine

I had pretty much everything...including Mumps. My kids had measles and chicken pox.

RB

My oldest brother would bring each disease home and my mom would have all the younger kids sick at the same time.

My grandmother had whooping cough. She was deaf from age 1 on.

I had chickenpox as there was no vaccine for that when I was growing up. I did get both doses of the MMR, but the mumps portion wasn't effective, so I had mumps at the age of 10, which did get reported to the CDC as a vaccine failure. The thing I will say is that it was mild as I almost went to school with swollen cheeks because I didn't feel any symptoms. As that happened to be the last week of school, it could be said that I started my summer vacation a couple of days earlier than planned.

With the tetanus shot, if it's been over 5 years and you get a cut on something rusty, doctors will give you a booster just to be sure. Other than that, it's something you should get every 10 years.

Whatever your stance on vaccinations, it's hard for me to take all this seriously while the Feds are facilitating (at great expense) the immigration and dispersal thruout the USA of millions of ill and non-vaccinated people from across our southern borders. Serious diseases of all kinds have increased greatly as immigration doors have been thrown wide open.

In Hawaii, the Dept. of Health continually falls further behind in their efforts to eradicate tuberculosis, due to a continual influx of sick (and not screened) people from Asia.

The news reported it last night as "traveling tourists " who are bringing these diseases into the US.

Pullleeese! How about illegal aliens that have never had access to health care? Really, they could at least be honest about it.

It's all of the gay Mexicans crossing the border to get married. Gay marriage is causing the measles outbreak.

I remember the measles well. My sister and I had them at the same time and we were keep in a dark room until we got well. I think she was two and I was four. I got revenge by playing the song "Mule Train" over and over and over again. My grandfather told me years later that he hated that song because of that torture.

I remember Measles.

As I recall, I was 11 years old, then my brother would be six. My friend, the girl across the street, caught measles. Her mom kept her in bed in a darkened room. My mom decided to nip this in the bud and made an appointment with the doctor and told us that Brother and I had to go across the street and drink from a glass of water after my friend drank from. Mom then drove Brother and me to get gamma-globulin shots so our cases of measles would be mild. Brother and I stayed home from school for one week, while my friend stayed home for two.

It was around 1963 or '64 when German Measles ran rampant in San Diego. I sat in junior high classes surrounded by kids itching and scratching their German measles rashes. I swear I didn't get German measles, but if I did, it was too mild to notice.

Such was life in the 1960s.

I caught measles Christmas morning 1963 so we stayed home instead of heading out to relatives who lived out of town on the prairie....my sister had received a shot of some kind and she did not catch them....I do not remember being particularily ill, and in any event was not year in school who who knows where or who I got them. Also had chicken pox in 1967 but to the best of my knowledge never had mumps or chicken pox. I did have shingles two years ago...on my head. Most uncomfortable.And it is time fr a tetanus shot as my last was when I went to Afghanistan in 2003.The military was always really good about keeping your shots up to date.

Should have said never had German Measles vice chicken pox. Funny how most childhood diseases were almost eliminated and now are making a comeback....whooping cough is another. In my Mother's time just about everyone got that, and scarlet fever. No one could afford the vaccine unless the govt provided it. And the advent of antibiotics has made a great number of illnesses a lot less deadly...my Uncle Bill caught strep throat, which then progressed to rheumatic fever when he was six ca 1941 and it damaged his heart. He died on the operating table in 1963 at 28...today antibiotics would have nipped the strep right off, if parents are smart enough to accept medical advice and can afford it.....

I am sure you already know this, but just to be clear...

Measles is a virus, and therefore is not affected by anti-biotics

anti-biotics can prevent bacterial infections taking hold in someone with a weakened immune system due to a virus, but they cannot do anything to affect the virus itself



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/04/2015 04:43AM by EssexExMo.

He was talking about strep throat which is a bacterial infection. I've also had strep which progressed to damaged heart valves which led me to 2 open heart surgeries to repair my mitral valve. It's been more than 20 years since the last surgery and my cardiologist can't figure out how I've lasted so long.

I've also had every disease we've been talking about EXCEPT polio, as the vaccine was out in sugar cube form. I had German measles while pregnant with my daughter. Doctor asks me, what're we gonna do about your baby? I shrugged my shoulders and replied, I dunno, you're the doctor. He got up and walked out, visit over. Oh, and she's totally fine.

My children have all been vaccinated, except for chicken pox as the vaccine was not out yet. Yes, they all had chicken pox.

I've have the shingles vaccine but my doctor hasn't said anything about tetanus. I've never ever had a vaccine for that - ever. I am forced to see my doctor every year at least, whether I want to or not and she's never said a word about it.

Can anyone explain to me why a parent would risk death (~1:1000 measles cases) or permanent brain damage for some unsubstantiated other risk?

My wife is old enough to have seen the several cases of encephalitis from complication of measles while doing her residency at an inner city hospital. She doesn't want to see it again.

Evil leaders

Common sense, should drive the upper voice folkes. I had the chickenpox in my youth. Crappiest moment of my early memory (hand, foot, mouth disease wins hands down) Thank god my parents immunized me against the measle, reubela strains..I immunize my own because it is necessary to care about the community health..and especially those most at risk. (the elderly and infants..have the highest number of casualty)..

A TBM Facebook friend wrote something to this effect today: When I was a kid, getting measles was like getting the chicken pox. It sucked, but no biggy. Did some die? Sure, but that was about as common as dying from than the side effects of vaccinating. Rare!

I have no words. I have a hard time thinking that the measles were no big deal. She's not that much older than I am! Wow-- I don't want to know what my neighbors think. Scary... knew I should not have accepted FB friend requests from all of them.

IIRC, there have been 153 deaths from MMR vaccinations in 10 years, in the USA

prior to the vaccine becoming available, measles was killing about 5000 per year - not counting the hospitalizations, the long term effects (blindness, deafness, mental retardation, etc)

I had them in my eyelids. I had the other kind too but the German almost did me in. I am SPECIAL. I had chicken pox three times. Bad around 7, medium around 12 and light around 22. I am getting a shingles shot FOR SURE. Missed the mumps.

Kids, never had anything even after exposure.

I had chicken pox as a teen (no chicken pox vaccination back then). It was terrible. They were bad. Not sure how I didn't get it at a younger age along with the siblings that were closer to my age. Instead, I got it from my much younger siblings. Weird. My husband never had them and got the vaccine a few years ago.

I had chicken pox. It didn't make me very sick. When I was in my 20s, I had shingles, which was pretty unpleasant but not unbearable. I think immunizing children is the right thing to do. If I had any kids, I would be getting them their vaccines.

I had chicken pox, mumps, German measles, mononucleosis and measles as a child (not all at the same time ;-).

Measles and mumps were by far the worst.

I have a strong memory of measles as I have never felt so bad in my life - high fever, spots and hypersensitivty to light (it hurt so it made me cry). At one stage, the doctor was worried that I wouldn't pull through.

My children were all vaccinated and haven't had any of them.

Vaccination always seemed like a no-brainer to me - of course I wanted my children to be spared such illnesses.

If I hadn't, they would have been excluded from school because French law makes vaccination compulsory for admittance to public education.

I would have considered myself negligent otherwise.
Tom in Paris



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 02/04/2015 05:10AM by Soft Machine.

my grandmother lost playmates in a measles outbreak when she was very small, so my mother is fully vaccinated and so am I and so are my children. I had the chickenpox at 7 (there wasn't a vaccine yet) and I spent nearly 3 weeks home from school and had pocks all over my body, inside my mouth and ears, the palms of my hands, the soles of my feet. I was so miserable.


the other day I overheard someone at the store talking about "evil vaccines" and how "polio was so overblown way back then, it wasn't that bad."

people have no clue, vaccines are a victim of their own success, these folks need to go to a few older cemeteries and see the rows of children...

greenAngel Wrote:
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> the other day I overheard someone at the store
> talking about "evil vaccines" and how "polio was
> so overblown way back then, it wasn't that bad."
>
>
> people have no clue, vaccines are a victim of
> their own success, these folks need to go to a few
> older cemeteries and see the rows of children...


Yes, these people have no clue and are negligent parents for not vaccinating their children.

I don't think these people will wake up until children start dying from these diseases again.

There was never any reason why I would not vaccinate my kids. My baby just got his last round of vaccinations before he starts school right before the measles outbreak started.

Would you like some twenty-first century horror stories about preventable disease?

In 2001, while in SLC, I got an email from a vague acquaintance in Spain (but fun guy and good friend of some good friends) saying he had got measles and was deaf as a result. It completely changed his life. He got a job at a casino with the help of the federal government of Spain, but 350 miles from home. Have not seen much of him since, but he's ok.

That same year in Portugal, a guy who would became a friend of mine later lost his brother who was working with corpses before burial, and got tetanus somehow. He was gone within days.

Vaccines work. Doctors know what they are doing. The anti-vax egotripppers have no idea what they are doing. Give your kids all the vaccines they need. No excuses.

My uncle got polio in 1945 at the age of 17. He was left paraplegic and died at the age of 42 from long term consequences of the disease.

I remember measles at the age of 3 - being in a darkened room because of the pain in my eyes from the light is one of my earliest memories.

I had chicken pox at the age of 6 and then again at 28 when I was 11 weeks pregnant. Fortunately there were no adverse affects for my son, although I spent the rest of the pregnancy worried sick.

I really do not understand those parents who think they are doing their children a favour by failing to vaccinate. It is bad for the children and bad for society.

In all these comments I only saw one mention of giving parents the freedom to choose. The problem is they aren't choosing for themselves. They're choosing risk of preventable disease for their kids and for infants not yet vaccinated and for the elderly and others with less than robust immune systems. No one lives in a bubble. Poor choices affect others.

tonal frequency loss in the other ear (nerve damage)

in 1961/1962 the year before the vaccine was introduced

its harsh.

I like how he reads my lips but thats just my selfishness.
I like his power in his new iphone controlled digital Starkey Trulink hearing aide with 18 or 20 chanels he can program - one ear one computerized device $4100 / cheaper than last time, down like three thousand dollars. It would cost less if he needed less frequency converting programable chanels, he said, "they make four, I am at the top."*

*he's top of my life, my top priority besides me

he was so close to not needing this one shot a year and a shot

I did not get the chickenpox vaccine because it did not exist when I was little. I got the chicken pox when I was 6 years old.

My son is one of the 5% who have the chickenpox vaccine but still get the disease. He also got it when he was six (from my FIL, whose idiot of a doctor told him shingles weren't contagious. Grrr....)

But the difference between his bout of chicken pox and mine when I was little is like the difference between night and day. I remember being covered in pox that itched like the dickens and trying desperately not to itch them.

My son had about 15 pox total and none of them itched. The only reason I kept him out of school for a week was that he was contagious. While I was miserable when I had the disease, he was perfectly fine. So while the vaccine may not have prevented him from getting the disease, it may have made his sickness much easier.

I also get frustrated with the anti Gardasil people too. I watched my mother die from Cervical cancer. The doctor mis-read her pap smear and it didn't get caught early enough. She lived 6 months from diagnosis to her death. I don't understand why anyone wouldn't want to protect their daughter from getting cancer, as well as HPV and genital warts. When my son gets old enough he will be getting the vaccine.

I'm so sorry about the loss of your mother. I am completely with you on the HPV vaccine.

I was too "old" when Gardasil came out to have insurance cover it. I was still virginal at the time but knew I wouldn't be forever. I paid for it out of pocket. Each shot (there were 3) cost $120 but was well worth it.