Reply #170: That's crazy talk. [View All]

[girl gone mad]

My son ended up getting chicken pox while he was on the waiting list to be vaccinated (there was a shortage at the time).

I was upset about it then, but now I am extremely grateful that he got the virus. Friends who were vaccinated have had to get boosters, though they were told immunity would last a lifetime. A classmate who was immunized in kindergarten ended up getting a very severe case of chicken pox in his teens. If I had to make the choice now to vaccinate or let my child get chicken pox, I would really be torn.

ETA: I think these parents are absolutely doing the right thing by making sure their children are exposed to the virus, since they have chosen not to vaccinate. It used to be a common illness, but the vaccine has reduced the opportunities for exposure.

From the LA Times:

Merck’s chickenpox vaccine Varivax not only loses its effectiveness after a while, but it also has changed the profile of the disease in the population, U.S. researchers reported Wednesday.

The study confirmed what doctors widely knew – that the vaccine’s protection does not last long. And with fewer natural cases of the disease going around, unvaccinated children or children in whom the first dose of the vaccine fails to work have been catching the highly contagious disease later in life, when the risk of severe complications is greater, they said.

“If you’re unvaccinated and you get it later in life, there’s a 20-times greater risk of dying compared to a child, and a 10 to 15 times greater chance of getting hospitalized,” said Jane Seward of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, who worked on the study.

The findings were reported fully for the first time in the March 15 issue of the New England Journal of Medicine.