Measles is back: A mother's story, from today's LA Times:

[CaliforniaPeggy]

I know that parents worry about whether vaccines are safe for their children. But they should also consider the dangers of not vaccinating, which is why I'm telling my family's story.

In 1970, on a Fulbright cultural exchange, my husband and I moved to the Midlands of England with our 5-year-old daughter and 10-month-old son. Our daughter had received all her vaccinations, but our son was too young for his measles shot when we left home. Our pediatrician wasn't worried. "Just get it there in a few months," he said.

But when we asked about the inoculation after our arrival, the English pediatrician said, "We don't do those."
In the back seat, our son lay on my lap. Quietly, he stopped breathing and turned blue. -

A few months into our stay, when our son was 13 months old, he and his sister were playing at a friend's house. Mothers and kids were talking and laughing when the host boy, Ian, gave an enormous sneeze, and our toddler marched right through the cloud.

The entire story at the link:
http://www.latimes.com/opinion/op-ed/la-oe-harmon-measles-encephalitis-vaccinations-20140914-story.html

[HockeyMom]

1. I am a survivor

I had measles, and chicken pox, before my 1st birthday in 1949. Mumps before my 2nd birthday.Rubella at 6 years old. My husband, also, is a survivor of both of those as an infant.

There would be very few Baby Boomers, and future generations, if we didn't survive these. All you Gen X and Millenials are alive today because WE survived these diseases as infants and young children.

THINK about that.

[CaliforniaPeggy]

2. That's great.

And I suspect that most people survived those diseases without vaccinations.

That does not, however, invalidate this mother's story in my post.

I'm not sure I get your point.

[X_Digger]

65. Why, if she can do it sans vaccine, then today's babies need to toughen up, by gumption!

Why in her day, they had to walk to work, barefoot, in the snow, uphill, both ways- just to be paid a wooden nickel each day. And that wooden nickel was coated with chicken pox, and they were happy just to have that wooden nickel!

Kids, these days! Hrmmph!

Get off my lawn with your hacking up bloody pieces of lung. Pull yourself up by your lung-straps, ya sissies!

[CaliforniaPeggy]

66. Ha!

LOVE it!

[Hassin Bin Sober]

79. Thank you. Been biting my tongue.

[longship]

88. She is an anti-vaxxer. That is her point.

That's her issue. But she is the one who does not get the point.

Vaccines are both safe and effective. They save lives with little to no downside. Those who do not realize these undeniable facts are in denial. And denial of vaccine safety and efficacy kills.

[jwirr]

3. I have had all of them including whooping cough. Born 1941 and had most of them before I started

school.

Edited to say I was given all the vaccines.

[shraby]

4. What has that got to do with getting vaccinations? I run a website

for genealogy for the county I'm in and I've put obits for literally thousands of children who died from whooping cough, t.b., measles, scarlet fever, small pox, diphtheria, and other common childhood diseases, and this is only for one county.

[HockeyMom]

6. I am a genealogist too

My great-grandma had 6 kids and only my grandma survived. The point being is that she DID. She had 4 children, and only 3 grandkids, and not because they DIED young because of no modern medicine. If you want to think about how many children might have been born IF they all survived, you are living in the PAST. I was born in 1948 and am an ONLY child, by CHOICE, not because my siblings, or my parents died.

You cannot cry for "what might have been" based on MEDICINE.

[abelenkpe]

11. Are you advocating people not get vaccinated?

[longship]

89. Yup. That's her schtick. An anti-vaxxer. nt

[Feral Child]

22. The real point

is that 5 out of six died. That doesn't happen much today, because of vaccinations. Are you advocating a return to those statistics?

No, we can't cry about "mights" but we can certainly look at the "dids" and take care not to revisit those mortality rates on future generations.

I'm a year younger than you. Out of approximately 30 kids in my elementary class 1 had survived polio. He was crippled for life and had to wear a brace and a shoe with a 3" thick sole. He was in great pain. He sat in a chair and watched as the rest of us took gym class and "square dancing" or went out to play during recess.

He wasn't in our "Drum and Bugle Corps". He didn't apply to become a "Patrol Boy" crossing guard.

Not a happy boy.

An 8 grade level school, say approximately 240 students, there were 3 other similar victims in that student body. No telling how many didn't go to school because they couldn't, or were dead.

This, btw, in a moderately-sized mid-western city.

My wife has a good friend, your age, that had polio as a child. Besides her ruined leg she has a shopping list of medical problems associated with that disease.


No, I don't cry about "what might have been", but i actually do about "what might be" because people decide to gamble with the lives of their children based on a stubborn and ignorant belief.

[HockeyMom]

45. Lived in NYC

Maybe the difference was a higher standard of living in MANHATTAN?

[Feral Child]

72. What?

FDR had polio.

Yes, I grew up in a working-class neighborhood, but viri don't discriminate even if you do.

[pansypoo53219]

58. my great-grandfather i think, had 8 kids + all survived to adulthood. i actually KNEW

2 of the babies. greta uncle bob + george. my grandfather had an uncle in his late 70's. if you look in old sections of cemeteries. lots of dead young women + children.

[hedgehog]

100. If it is your point that vaccination leads to overpopulation, then the

opposite is true: mothers who are confident that their children will survive use contraception to have fewer children.

[jwirr]

12. It worked. We need to show those not getting vaccinations that it did work. As far as autism is

concerned we did not even know there was a threat if there was.

I do remember one epidemic where I lost many friends because they were not vaccinated. We did not have the polio vaccine yet. I also remember standing in line at the school to get the first shots. When you have been through an epidemic and lost friends you see the value of the shots.

[HockeyMom]

16. I remember them living us up in school for those vax

I was around 6 years old in NYC. Yes, the polio vax. Did not ever meet a kid in NYC that had polio. Measles vax went around too back then. They asked us to raise our hands if we had had measles. Almost every kid raised their hand in by 3rd grade. They passed us by if we had had measles. Should they have? "Better safe, than sorry?" Oh, no!!! Wow, all these kids who didn't die from measles? Should they have given it to us ANYWAY????

[passiveporcupine]

41. My dad had polio as a kid

He was born in the mid 20's. If they had vaccines back then, should they not have given them, because some might survive? He survived, but was crippled in one leg.

I was born in '49. I also survived measles as a kid. But maybe I wouldn't have had to go through that if I'd been vaccinated.

My grandmother and her sister both had rheumatic fever as kids. In those days they did not have antibiotics to treat the cause of the rheumatic fever. They both ended up with congestive heart failure from it. They survived, but had lots of health problems when they got older because of it. My great aunt even had a leg amputated when she was in her 50's because of circulation problems. She died in her mid 60's. Gran died in her 70's, after years of barely living because of her heart condition. If there had been a vaccine for this (there is still no vaccine) I can assure you, I wish they'd both had gotten it. I wish my dad had the option of a vaccine to prevent the polio.

By the late 1950s, even before the introduction of measles vaccine, measles-related deaths and case fatality rates in the United States had decreased markedly, presumably as a result of improvement in health care and nutrition. From 1956 to 1960, an average of 450 measles-related deaths were reported each year (?1 death/ 1000 reported cases), compared with an average of 5300 measles-related deaths during 1912–1916 (26 deaths/ 1000 reported cases) [2]. Nevertheless, in the late 1950s, serious complications due to measles remained frequent and costly. As a result of measles virus infections, an average of 150,000 patients had respiratory complications and 4000 patients had encephalitis each year; the latter was associated with a high risk of neurological sequelae and death. These complications and others resulted in an estimated 48,000 persons with measles being hospitalized every year

http://jid.oxfordjournals.org/content/189/Supplement_1/S1.long

Are you an anti-vaxxer? Seriously?

[HockeyMom]

47. yes, I am an anti-vaxer

I am also anti Wellness, Preventive Care, etc., etc. Haven't been to a doctor in 30 years.

[elehhhhna]

78. well bless your heart

you could obviously teach these entitled babies and toddlers a thing or two

[Jeff Murdoch]

87. Because you won the lottery, everyone else should play Russian Roulette?

There's no other way to put this....fuck off.

[longship]

90. Your position has a body count.

You will be relentlessly ridiculed for your utter ignorance on this forum. Justifiably!

Your position has no basis whatsoever.

Vaccines are safe and effective. Period!

[hedgehog]

101. Point of fact, the one known link to autism is pre-natal exposure to

rubella. That's exposure to rubella, not the rubella vaccine.

http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/11/340

[DesertFlower]

9. i was born in '41 too. i was not vaccinated for chicken pox,

measles or mumps or whooping cough. i had both measles, chicken pox and whooping cough, but never got mumps. i was around my cousin when she got them and then years later in '68 when my son got mumps. i think i have an immunity to them.

my son was not vaccinated for measles or chicken pox. i don't recall the doc offering them. he was born in '61. we didn't have health insurance and went to a clinic.

the polio vaccine was not around when i was a kid and it was a big fear of getting it.

[KitSileya]

5. How many of your generation didn't survive?

Have you looked at the stats? How many died before we got these vaccines? How many were permanently disabled? When you just erase them from your rosy picture of how you were tough enough, remember all the families that weren't as lucky as yours. There were a lot more of them when you were a kid, than when I was born in the 70s. We didn't have to worry about contracting polio. That was solely due to vaccination.

How many of the girls in the anti-vaxx families will contract measles as adults, and give birth to deformed children? How many of the boys will become sterile as adults, because they contract the mumps? How many children will develop heart trouble when they contract scarlet fever, vision troubles from measles? How many will die of pertussis, diphteria, meningitis, and other diseases that we have vaccines against? How many of your generation experienced this, and never talked about it so that you can blithely say that you survived it, so no big deal?

People who deliberately and without medical reason refuse to vaccinate their children are stupid, selfish, self-absorbed twits.

[Laffy Kat]

18. I'm not sure I get your post either.

Are you anti-vax?

[Warpy]

27. Measles is no joke. Neither is rubella.

I was in a coma for a week with measles encephalitis. It took me a couple of years to recover fully. A playmate of mine died.

Rubella is dangerous to pregnant women, causing often severe damage to the fetus.

THINK ABOUT THAT!

And they're coming back because hysterical and medically ignorant parents don't want to watch their kid cry for 5 minutes after a jab.

[GoCubsGo]

42. Neither is chicken pox, for that matter.

Encephalitis is a complication for chicken pox, well. So are skin, bone and joint infections, as well sepsis and toxic shock syndrome. My sister has scars from the lesions. And, since there was no vaccine when we were kids, those of us who have had chicken pox are now susceptible to shingles. I know several people who have had it, and they say it causes the worst pain they have ever felt. There's a vaccine that's available for those who are lucky enough to have health insurance.

[ellenfl]

63. even with insurance, the shingles shot is very expensive. eom

[Mariana]

64. One of my mom's cousins died of chicken pox in 1946. nt.

[Spider Jerusalem]

108. Chicken pox is even worse for people who didn't have it as children and weren't vaccinated...

who then get it as adults. I knew someone who almost died because of it (she had lesions in her oesophagus).

[LeftishBrit]

94. And - unlike vaccines - maternal rubella really does increase the risk of autism for the offspring

as well as various other serious problems.

[LeftishBrit]

43. Great. But those who didn't survive are not here to post about it!

You are right that most children, who get these diseases, even measles, do not die. But a certain number do die; and many others are very ill, and some of these suffer long-term ill-effects.

Why should people get these diseases, now that they're avoidable, just because earlier generations did? One could say the same about any number of things, including living in houses: the prehistoric cave-people did not live in houses, and yet enough of them survived to maintain the human race!

In 1948, when you were born according to your post, life expectancy was 10 years lower than nowadays. The change is even more marked with regard to infant mortality: about 1 in 25 children in 1948 died before their first birthday; nowadays it is more like 1 in 200. There are many other reasons for this change besides vaccines, but vaccines are one reason; and in any case it is not true that children survived just as well in the past as now.

[Lost In America]

71. Thank you for your sanctimonious dependence on our appreciation.

GFY

[still_one]

77. Measles can be an extremely serious disease in an adult

[BlindTiresias]

91. Yeah I'll THINK about that

And I THINK you are a lunatic.

[longship]

93. Good for you. You survived!

So many did not.

Vaccines are one of the best health advances in human history (along with the germ theory of disease and flush toilets -- you know, that potable water thing.)

Anti-vaxxers are ignorant idiots. They leech off those who are responsible citizens who get inoculated against the scourge of epidemics. Anti-vaxxers have a body count, untold thousands who died because of their utter blinking ignorance.

Of course, one could listen to Jenny McCarthy, or maybe one should just laugh at her eating her boogers on MTV. I do not recommend either, let alone your apparent position. The booger thing probably does not endanger people's lives. Jenny's -- and apparently your -- position on vaccines does endanger people's lives.

Shame on you.

[hedgehog]

99. So did I and the rest of my sibs - shall we discuss the terrible eczema and asthma my brother

developed and the autoimmune diseases my sister and I have?

[AleksS]

104. But don't forget the ones who AREN'T here today, because

But don't forget the ones who AREN'T here today, because they died from those diseases.

Like those 50-100 million wimps who died from a silly ol' flu! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1918_flu_pandemic



That's what I don't get about folks who live in the "I did XXX, so why doesn't everyone just do XXX?"

Some people survived these diseases. Many people didn't. It probably wasn't their choice to die. (Just a guess.)

It's the same thing you hear from RW "bootstrappers." (Most famously in the Romney's line: "When we were in college, we just sold some of our stock to pay our way through. Why doesn't everyone just do that?" Or "If kids want to go to college, they should just do what we did, and get loans from their parents!&quot

The inability to recognize that one's personal situation is not shared universally--is baffling to me.

[karynnj]

109. I was a baby boomer too and had all the same things - non eventfully

Notice the statistic she gave of the incidence of the complication her son had. It is small enough that most of us and most people we knew didn't have a problem. However, there were some number who did - some who were seriously hurt by the disease and some who died. In her case, she knew a friend of the family thus affected.

It is because some healthy children were greatly impacted by these childhood diseases, that scientists worked to get vaccines. It was not to insure better attendance in school or make lives easier for parents.

The risks from the vaccines are there, but the likelihood of trouble if the child received the vaccine had to be proven to be much lower than the risk of side effects. (Additionally, parents - as you know - are advised to monitor the kids and call the doctor if there is a bad reaction - even if it was relatively mild. ) The first group of kids with parents who made the choice NOT to vaccinate were actually protected by the large percent of kids who were vaccinated. Epidemics that spread like wild fire in a non vaccinated population often die out quickly when very large percents of kids are vaccinated.

[abelenkpe]

7. These vaccinations are available without thimerisol

For those who worry. They can also be spaced out and not given all at once. Besides there is no connection between vaccinations and autism. So please vaccinate your children.

[NYC_SKP]

8. How frightening.

And to think that as many as 20%, and more, in some counties will not have their children immunized.

Those in those 8%-20% present a danger to the entire community.

[KitSileya]

14. What are those two counties with greater than 20% exemptions?

Any big cities there, or are they just evenly populated? Would really have a say if they become the entry point of an epidemic of some sort - they should pray they don't have a big city with a big airport, and lots of travelers.

[NYC_SKP]

17. Trinity to the west, Yuba and Sierra counties together toward the East.

All three have been trending toward Red over the past six years or longer.

Other factors may include depressed local economies and distrust of government.

[HockeyMom]

19. I worked 1:1 with a Kinder kid not vax in South Florida

1:1. Religious exemption but ONLY the Principal, Teacher, and me under HIPPA had a right to know. Nobody else. Teacher went into a PANIC and went out and got every booster under the sun. Me? Terrified? Nope, because I HAD these diseases as a child, and was told by school health care I was PERMANENTLY immune. The boy never got sick, and neither did I.

[passiveporcupine]

48. The vax is not for people who are already immune

But then you knew that, didn't you?

[HockeyMom]

50. Yes, Natural Immunity

gives you LIFE LONG Immunity, unlike vax.

[passiveporcupine]

70. So, how about all the kids who died

because they didn't survive the disease to get that wonderful "natural" immunity? They don't matter?

[LeftishBrit]

95. Not always. People have occasionally had the diseases more than once.

My dad had measles twice.

Vaccines usually give lifelong immunity; though there are some for which boosters are desirable. And if you do get a disease despite being vaccinated against it, it's usually much milder than having the disease without vaccination.

[xchrom]

10. du rec.

[DesertFlower]

13. i've come across some recent threads about vaccines.

http://www.standardnewswire.com/news/965249574.html

http://truthstreammedia.com/fraud-cdc-scientist-admits-they-omitted-data-linking-mmr-vaccines-to-autism/

http://ireport.cnn.com/docs/DOC-1164794

[GoCubsGo]

39. PBS "Frontline" had a great episode on vaccines last week.

I highly recommend that everyone watch it. You can view it online here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/vaccines/

They do a great job of explaining how the autism thing came about, and why it's BS.

[etherealtruth]

15. How Vaccine Fears Fueled The Resurgence Of Preventable Diseases

How Vaccine Fears Fueled The Resurgence Of Preventable Diseases

For most of us, measles and whooping cough are diseases of the past. You get a few shots as a kid and then hardly think about them again.

But that's not the case in all parts of the world — not even parts of the U.S.

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2014/01/25/265750719/how-vaccine-fears-fueled-the-resurgence-of-preventable-diseases

[HockeyMom]

20. I had a DPT vax in 1949

and have never gotten a booster. Every 10 years they now say you need. lol

[PADemD]

31. Please do get the pertussis booster.

I had whooping cough at age 11. It was horrible. My primary doctor told me that you can get whooping cough more than once, so when I heard their was an outbreak, I got the booster shot.

[HockeyMom]

44. I had that under 5

I don't remember it, nor measles, mumps, or chicken pox under 2. Remember Rubella at 6 years. Suffered? No, just WEIRD dreams. Another thread for that.

[longship]

92. She isn't going to do it. She is an anti-vaxxer.

The only thing left to do is to ridicule her ignorant, uninformed position.

Vaccines are safe, effective, and save lives.

[likesmountains 52]

76. Ok, you seriously seem to be very healthy..

I'm guessing you are lucky. I work in health care and have seen babies very sick and intubated with pertussis. I have seen adults who did not get the booster pretty laid up with pertussis. I guess I could report that I walk or bike every day on busy roads, but have not been hit by a car...so therefor I don't need to obey crossing signs..just because I've been lucky. How do you explain other people getting sick from these diseases?

[hedgehog]

102. Don't cut yourself gardening.

[HockeyMom]

106. Cannot count the number of times I have cut myself

inside, and outside, over 50 years. Luck?

[DesertFlower]

21. i've only had 1 flu vaccine and i was sick the next day.

was it because of the vaccine or my CFS/ME acting up? i've never had another one and will never have one. i have had 2 pneumonia shots after having pneumonia 3 times in 4 years. i have scarring on my lungs and docs have agreed that it's from the pneumonia.

&feature=player_embedded

[SidDithers]

26. Barbara Loe Fisher...

Edit: on the Mercola YouTube channel. Holy fuck. You're not seriously using Mercola in a discussion about science, are you?



Sid

[DesertFlower]

28. don't know much about dr. Mercola except that he

practices alternative medicine. so does dr. ronald hoffman in NYC who was my doc when i lived there. he's quite famous.

http://www.wor710.com/pages/onair/ronald-hoffman.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ronald_Hoffman

[SidDithers]

33. First, Barbara Loe Fisher is the head of NVIC, the biggest anti-vaccination organization in the US..

Anything, anything, that she says should be taken with a boulder sized chunk of road salt.

If you link to anything remotely connected to mercola, you're going to get ridiculed, and you'll deserve it. Bank on it.

http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Joseph_Mercola

Sid

[DesertFlower]

36. i don't know that much about him so i'm

not going to have a discussion. i found the link interesting and that's why i posted it.

i don't believe in flu shots and i think too many vaccines are given to our children.

we're all entitled to our opinions.

did you read my other links about coverups by the CDC about vaccines and autism?

in the last 3 months i met 2 women who had children with autism. something is causing it.

i'm 73 years old and years ago autism was rare.

[SidDithers]

49. You're entitled to your opinion, as misinformed as it might be, you're entitled to it...

You're not entitled to your own facts.

And Joseph Mercola and his nuttery are not interesting, other than in an 'OMFG he can't be serious' kind of way. Mercola and his deluded ramblings are dangerous and offensive.

Sid

[DesertFlower]

56. your so hung up on Mercola that you

probably haven't read my other links about fraud at the CDC.

that's all i've got to say on this thread. i've got more important things to do.

[Warpy]

30. It was because the vaccine was working

Instead of the full blown two to three week horror show of influenza, you got a day or two of low grade fever and body aches. That was your immune system responding to the antigen. It went away when your system had manufactured enough antibodies against the vaccine and those antibodies are what keep you from getting sick with the flu.

A day or two of low grade fever and body aches is a good thing. It's not the flu.

[cureautismnow]

40. Should an infant be vaccinated if they are born with infections already?

For example, would you give 21+ total jabs to a child (one-year-old or less) who acquired borrelia, bartonella, mycoplasma, and babesia in the womb?

In particular, the mmr live vaccine is counting on the baby to have a healthy, functioning immune system. What happens when the child is already fighting multiple, latent immuno-suppressive infections at birth? Would you still keep sticking them to "protect" them?

[Warpy]

46. I'd go with a pediatrician's advice.

People howl at those multiple antigen jabs but they don't seem to realize the kid is subjected to more pathogens every time it picks something off the ground and sticks it into his mouth. Our immune systems work this way, we have to be exposed to antigens.

As for your list of diseases, none is covered by usual childhood vaccinations and there is no reason they should "clash."

The MMR is inert, meaning it will not cause disease. It only presents enough of the antigen for the immune system to recognize it and produce antibodies to the real thing.

Any child fighting parasites and mycoplasma should not be subjected to "usual childhood diseases" that can kill normal, healthy children. Penicillin will cure the borella.

[cureautismnow]

55. These kind of infections suppress the immune system.

Here's what the Merck insert says regarding immunocompromised humans:

CONTRAINDICATIONS:

..."Primary and acquired immunodeficiency states, including patients who are immunosuppressed in association with AIDS or other clinical manifestations of infection with human immunodeficiency viruses;{41-43} cellular immune deficiencies; and hypogammaglobulinemic and dysgammaglobulinemic states. Measles inclusion body encephalitis{44} (MIBE), pneumonitis{45} and death as a direct consequence of disseminated measles vaccine virus infection have been reported in immunocompromised individuals inadvertently vaccinated with measles-containing vaccine."

Shouldn't pediatricians be checking for the existence of a healthy immune system and the non-existence of immuno-suppressive infections before injecting them with even more infections for the immune system to fight off?

As for borrelia (with 2 r's), penicillin CAN cure it if caught early, but that's not always the case. "Antibiotics have varying effects on the different morphological forms of B. burgdorferi. Persistence of viable organisms in round body forms and biofilm-like colonies may explain treatment failure and persistent symptoms following antibiotic therapy of Lyme disease." http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3132871

Of course, a pediatrician will not Rx penicillin for borreliosis if they never check the infant for it and just shoot them up with more viruses and bacteria willy-nilly.

BTW, wild type measles encephalitis is 1 in 1,000.

[LeftishBrit]

96. This would need the specialist knowledge of the doctor.

There are certainly a number of children who can't/shouldn't be vaccinated because of their existing medical conditions. They are the ones who particularly depend on herd immunity to protect them.

MMR is not effective until one year, because it depends on the immune system developing to a certain point. Therefore it should not be given at birth - I don't think it would be dangerous, but it wouldn't work.

[DesertFlower]

57. i'll take my chances with the flu.

again -- my choice. i have no problem with people who choose to get the shot.

[NuclearDem]

69. Sure, if you want to live in the middle of nowhere

And never interact with another human being.

[DesertFlower]

74. just because a person doesn't get flu shots

doesn't mean they're going to get the flu. my late husband didn't get them either and never got the flu and he worked and interacted with a lot of people. he also traveled a lot for work.

he died from a brain tumor.

[NuclearDem]

75. Well, your anecdotal argument sure has persuaded me.

No, wait, the other thing.

[DesertFlower]

81. why are you concerned

with whether or not i get a flu shot?

doctor is not concerned. my friends are not concerned. so why would a complete stranger care?

[DebJ]

84. Because if you get sick and the flu multiplies in your body, you will infect more of the public with

it. Unless you live in total isolation.

My husband was the same way about flu shots; at age 60 he couldn't remember ever having the flu and he refused to get them.

Then, in the fall of 2009, he contracted swine flu and was severely ill. He couldn't get out of bed for 10 days, and was weak and
barely able to function for a full month thereafter. Worst month of his life health wise.

He gets shots now.

[DesertFlower]

86. sorry about your husband but i'm not getting a

flu shot. i have to go with my "gut" feelings and my gut tells me not to.

[HeiressofBickworth]

111. I rolled that dice once too often.

I never had a flu shot before and I never had the flu... UNTIL I was in the hospital last December for surgery on kidney stones. I contracted H1N1 while in the hospital (as near as I can figure -- didn't have it going in, 5 days later, I had it). H1N1 flu is dangerous for one with other health problems. It caused me to have congestive heart failure. Fortunately for me, the doctors and nurses were right on top of it and got me out of trouble before I expired from it. I've been tested after that episode and I do NOT have on-going congestive heart failure. And YES, I had a flu shot before I was discharged from the hospital in January and YES I will have another flu shot this fall. I don't want to risk getting the flu again.

[hedgehog]

103. Amen to that! My grandma got the flu vaccine every year, and got sick every year.

Her experience watching so many die in the 1918-1919 epidemics had something to do with her resolve to stick with the vaccines!

[DebJ]

83. Since it takes several days for your body to react to the presence of the flu, it wasn't the shot

that made you sick the next day. Many people are exposed to the flu virus days to a week before they finally get the flu vaccine,
and by then, they have already contracted the flu, but don't know it. But they then attribute their illness to the flu shot... just
as we have a tendency to blame the LAST thing we ate for what made us sick, when that response also usually takes more than
24 hours to kick in.

[Feral Child]

23. Thanks for posting, Peggy.

This is an extremely important issue and I cannot understand people that endanger their children due to an obstinate, unenlightened whim.

[SidDithers]

24. DU rec...

in spite of the "I had all those diseases and I survived!!" anecdotes, IMO, it's negligent to choose to not vaccinate a child, unless there's an underlying medical reason not to.

Sid

[valerief]

25. My mother would arrange it if one of us kids had, say, measles, she made sure we all got it

together. Same with chicken pox. We never got mumps, but any other illness, even colds, were the same. She wanted to limit the days she had to endure our illnesses. She figured if we all were sick at once, she didn't have to go through it multiple times.

And we were all vaccinated with whatever the shots were back then in our baby boomer childhoods.

Wonder how many other parents "scheduled" childhood illnesses back then.

[Warpy]

51. That's what mothers did before vaccinations

They all wanted their kids over the worst of the diseases before they went to school.

My mother would arrange play dates with sick kids. One kid had a bad cough for a few weeks so my mother dutifully brought me over to get infected with whatever the kid had. Two months later, the kid died. It was TB. I never caught it.

I never got the mumps, either.

Measles damned near killed me. It did kill one of my friends.

I don't ever want to go back to those days. The diseases were awful even if they didn't try to kill you.

[LisaL]

67. TB? Your mother could have killed you with her efforts.

Wow.
You never caught the active TB but you could very well have a reaction to a TB test meaning you were exposed but it never developed into an active disease.

[Warpy]

73. Nope, never a reaction

and I've been given a full battery of immune testing to make sure I could react to it since I'm immunosuppressed.

Any kid who was slightly sick got company in the hope it was one of those diseases our mothers wanted to get over with before we started school. The girl with the TB had a rapid, fulminating case of it and that's why she went from infection to symptomatic to dead so very quickly. I think she was a year old when she died. I was two.

[LisaL]

85. I guess you were lucky.

This all sounds very crazy to me. Exposing a child to a disease (in your case unknown disease) in hopes that child gets it. Nothing like this was thankfully practiced when I was growing up.

[LisaL]

68. As the OP articles illustrates, measles could be deadly.

So your mother arranging the playdates with someone who has measles, could have ended very badly for you. It just seems like such a bizarre practice to me, and very dangerous.

[valerief]

80. I agree, but we had certain expectations in life. We'd all get

measles and maybe chicken pox and maybe rheumatic fever. We'd all have false teeth by 40. And we'd never be comfortable.

[colorado_ufo]

29. Born before most vaccinations, had most of the illnesses.

Did not get mumps (I think, anyway - diagnoses were a little "iffy" then) nor whooping cough. Had a terrible case of measles: I can remember my parents making the room as dark as possible, as blindness was a real danger. High fever. They were very worried! I was vaccinated for smallpox, over my lifetime, as least six times - but it never left the expected scar. My uncle had the same experience (though he died as a teenager from drowning). The doctors considered that this might be some sort of a natural immunity. (My skin does scar normally.)

Dear friends: Just get the vaccines without mercury - they are available and are what pediatricians usually use. Not vaccinating is playing Russian Roulette with your child's life, and also with the lives of others. Vaccines are the greatest gift of modern medicine - even more than antibiotics. Do not refuse this great gift of life!

[Shrike47]

32. I had all the childhood diseases of yesteryear, including whooping cough. I wouldn't put a child

through that. My kids were vaccinated and I get flu shots, etc.

Remember small pox inoculations? You got the most fascinating sore on your arm.

[dflprincess]

82. I had them all too

Except whooping cough. The sickest I've ever been in my life was with measles. I'm with you no wsy would I risk a child having those diseases

I not only get flu shots I goyt the shingles vaccine as soon as I could.

BTW I had a pediatrician who gave baby girls their smallpox shots in the thigh so we wouldn't have an ugly scar on our arms.

[shanti]

105. the thigh?

never heard that one, but mother was a RN, and she had all of us kids take the smallpox vax UNDER the upper arm so as not to be seen. it's practically invisible. i remember all the kids with huge visible scars on the upper arm tho.

i had all the diseases except whooping cough as well.

[dflprincess]

110. According to my mom

the doctor thought little girls would eventually become self conscious of a big scar on their upper arms when they wore sleeveless blouses or evening gowns. The scar was always less obvious on my thigh especially as it got bigger (the thigh, not the scar) than other kids' were on their arms.

I like your mom's idea too.

[Omaha Steve]

34. K&R!

[mountain grammy]

35. Thank you, going directly to facebook!

[blackspade]

37. Thanks a lot anti-vaxers.....

[NuclearDem]

38. Measles was on its way out in this country too.

Thanks, anti-vaxxers.

[MrsMatt]

52. Both of my children have received every

recommended vax for their age group (older has received the HPV jab, younger will when appropriate; regardless of gender).

I found out when pregnant with my eldest that I had no immunity to chicken pox - despite my precautions, I ended up with a case about 6 weeks before my due date. I consider myself extremely lucky; as I'd hit a "sweet spot" regarding potential birth defects/complications with neo natal or post natal varicella. Just late enough in the pregnancy to not cause defects, just early enough for the potential horrible complications to not be a factor. It was truly terrifying.

If the smallpox vaccination was available, they'd have that too.

[onecaliberal]

53. It's one thing to have been born

In a time when these vaccines were not yet available. It's a whole other thing to put children at risk for deadly diseases and lifelong medical consequences because or stupidity.
If you were negligent with a child and caused harm you would be subject to child abuse legal ramifications. Why are we allowing these people to put entire communities at risk. I live in California where these idiots are everywhere. I worry for my future grandchildren.

[Liberal_in_LA]

54. kick and rec

[deafskeptic]

59. I was born in 1966 b4 the Rubella vaccine

Back in 1966, my big brother had a case of rubella. My mother who was pregnant with me showed no signs of contracting Rubella from my brother. It was not until after I was born, that my parents found out that I had contracted it.

Congential Rubella Syndrome can have the following syntoms: Sensorineural deafness, Congenital heart disease, and eye problems, intellectual disability. Other less common problems like autism are known symptoms of CRS as well.

The only symptom of CRS that I have is profound deafness. It is not heredity. Vaccines for Rubella wasn't around then so I always thought it was one of those unfortunate things that happens.

It never occurred to me that anyone would blame themselves for my rubella until my dad (an M.D.) asked me if I had blamed him for my deafness. I was shocked at this question because it had never occurred to me that anyone were to blame. If a vaccine had been available then, I'm certain my Dad would have made sure all of us were immune to it. It's just unreasonable to blame anyone considering the fact there wasn't much people - including medical folks - could do. Parents today won't have that option if they should refuse to vaccine their children.

The Rubella endemic happened between 1964 -65. Most deaf around my age or just older because deaf as a result of Rubella. It's disconcerting to see so many younger deaf children who weren't affected by Rubella - unless they are of Mexican descent or South American descent.

[cureautismnow]

61. It's rare, but possible to go deaf from the vaccine itself

"The findings
The study found 44 cases of hearing loss following measles- and/or mumps-containing vaccine in the VAERS database. This number included cases from other countries and some from before 1990. Hearing loss was bilateral (in both ears) in 21 cases, unilateral (in one ear) in 18 cases, and unknown in 5 cases. The age range was from 11 months to 52 years. The onset of hearing loss ranged from 2 to 89 days following vaccination, peaking on day 10. Of the 32 cases where the information was available, 20 cases were reported after the first dose and 12 after the second dose of vaccine.

Between 1990 and 2003, there were 28 cases in the United States; dividing that number by the doses of vaccine estimated to have been used—168-224 million doses—results in a possible rate of one case per 6-8 million doses.

From the published reports they found an additional 15 cases from 1972 to 1998.

The relevance/bottom line
Hearing loss could be a rare complication of measles and/or mumps immunization."

http://www.immunizationinfo.org/science/measles-mumps-vaccination-and-hearing-loss

[deafskeptic]

62. I've had classmates who went deaf as a result of measles/mumps if not the vaccine itself. n/t

I

[Mariana]

107. My neighbor is deaf because he had mumps.

He's a few years older than you are.

[LeftishBrit]

97. It's much rarer than for the actual diseases, though

[DesertFlower]

60. there are MD's and DO's who practice

regular and alternative medicine.

dr. ronald hoffman, MD saved my friend's life back in '88. he was HIV positive. when he went to dr. hoffman his t-cells were 160. after a few months of weekly ozone therapy his t-cells were up in the 550 range.

ozone therapy was not FDA approved yet dr. hoffman did it. he also did chelation therapy and IV vitamins.

my primary care doc who retired at age 79 also did chelation and IV vitamins. he believed in vitamins and herbs too but if he felt you needed an antibiotic he'd prescribe it. because he was a DO he also did spinal manipulation. when my mom was here visiting she was in terrible pain. couldn't even hook her bra or bend to tie her shoes. he sent her for x-rays. she had arthritis but after some traction and a few spinal manipulations she was like a new woman. he was also the kind of doc i could call on his cell phone. for some reason DO's don't do spinal manipulation anymore, but naturopaths do.

[hedgehog]

98. From your post to my Facebook - many, many thanks!