A byproduct of the anti-vaccination movement is chickenpox parties.
“My 7-year-old daughter has been to six of these parties. Unfortunately, we have not caught the pox yet, but I’m keeping my eye out for more parties,” says a concerned parent.
Some believe that natural immunity produces a higher level of antibodies, and thus, longer-lasting immunity. Which is true. However, they fail to realize the very real risks of natural immunity, such as encephalitis, hospitalization, and possibly, death.
Furthermore, there is the public health risk, since “other strains of the chickenpox epidemic can be passed around as children who are not protected against the virus mingle with one another.”
Vaccines only work if everybody is protected. Those that hold out are in danger of putting others at risk of diseases that should have been eradicated.
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{ 14 comments }
I grew up before the chickenpox vaccine when that was how it was done. I guess I was lucky to survive. That my ancestors also managed to live long enough to reproduce and overpopulate the planet with such risks is just beyond imagination. Aliens must have helped them.
I was one of the kids who had serious complications from chicken pox in the days before the vaccine became available. I’m pretty sure that if you asked my parents about the scariest moments of their lives, the moment when I lost consciousness would be #1 or #2. I realize that most parents who choose not to vaccinate think “it won’t happen to my child” — and most of them are probably right — but I wouldn’t take that risk myself.
Just listened to NPR’s “This American Life” episode 370. One of their stories involved some of these crazies and the measles outbreak in CA. Good segment, but man these people make me mad.
Before you get on the anti-anti-vaccination crusade, it seems to me that the medical establishment should be a bit more self-critical. The chicken pox vaccine is not the greatest vaccine in the world. It has relatively high rates of failure and wears off with time–leaving open the real possibility that a vaccinated girl could get it as a pregnant woman–a real problem.
Getting chicken pox can be dangerous, so can getting the vaccine–especially compounded by less resistance in the future. THe greater risk/ benefit of either approach is not immediately apparent.
The medical establishment is at fault for getting behind a vaccine with unclear benefits. It’s awfully hypocritical of doctors to “cover up” their institutional incompetence by skewering those who point it out.
i don’t know about you, but i think my doctor is a better authority on the subject than jenny mccarthy.
@Anonymous 10:07 – Quite a few vaccines lose effectiveness with time. I feel that failing to inform adults about this is one of the big errors in preventative medicine right now. It particularly bothered me that I didn’t know until I happened to read it in the waiting room at my then-new doctor’s office last year that I could easily have been spreading pertussis around my community without knowing it during some past “really bad cold”. Lovely.
That said, I have seen an upward trend in even women who had a natural chicken pox infection as a child receiving the vaccine before trying to get pregnant.
I fail to understand why ‘a concerned parent’ would want their children to contract any disease for which a vaccine is available. The anti-vaccine advocates/spokespeople all seem to be wealthy actresses with no science education and little logic.
There are vaccines that need to be administered in multiple doses (like measles), others that need to be given again during one’s life to maintain immunity (tetanus), and some that change annually (flu). I would rather have a vaccination than have flu, hepatitis, whatever!
My 4 sisters and I were born before the chicken pox and mumps vaccines became available. All 5 of us were nasty, cranky sick kids when we had chicken pox together, and we were nasty, cranky sick kids when we all had mumps together. Definitely not “treasured childhood memories”!
So, since “Vaccines only work if everybody is protected” and we all know there is absolutely no way to ensure that everyone always receives it, then all that money we’re spending giving (and telling) people to get a shot is wasted?
Dr. Ike — How about, the more people are protected, the better the vaccine works?
I’m of a certain age, old enough to remember such parties.
I suppose they are better than nothing. Antivaccine parents are at least sensitized to expect something to happen at a certain time, and be ready for it.
I wonder if there’s a value to bringing varicella-immunized children to such a party? Sort of a free booster shot?
My treasured childhood memory was my parents getting the idea that I needed an alcohol rub to bring down a fever. At least that’s what I figure they were trying to do, looking back at it.
I have no idea what my underlying illness was. And bringing down the fever with rubbing alcohol was probably received wisdom at the time.
Didn’t hurt me, I guess, save for the memory of a nasty smell and throwing up.
One major point of getting the vaccine is to avoid shingles as an adult. It isn't just about whether or not your child will be fine if exposed as a child. You can ONLY get shingles in adulthood if you had chicken pox. The virus lies dormant in your system & can then flare up as shingles later. It is a HERPES virus & is always in your system like any other herpes virus. Why would you not want to protect your children?
The vaccine can cause shingles, too.
I am a doctor that is not vaccinating against chicken pox. The research does not support this vaccination. Long tern complications from decreased immunization can lead to serious or deadly complications if an immunized child’s vaccine wears off and they are exposed. Also they have forgotten to take into account the possibility of different strains of the virus.
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