So as my kids are getting older I'm noticing all the new vaccines kids have to get. Is it just me that finds this crazy?! I mean I didn't have that many vaccines and I'm fine. Take the chicken pox vaccine for example. When I was younger this was just a normal thing that everyone went through. You had the chicken pox and got out of school for a week. Now people look at it as a deadly disease compared with polio and measles.
I know there are people who can become very ill if they get the chicken pox but it was few and far between. With the vaccine now being mandatory for pretty much everyone in every state it seems to me that this could become like the measles where kids are getting vaccines which will protect them for a couple years but then college aged kids were getting measles years later and having re-immunizations for colleged aged people was required.
My other concern with this vaccine is that it is a live virus vaccine. So, your putting this live virus straight into your blood stream when if you were to just get the chicken pox your body has ways to defend itself against the virus before it gets to your blood stream. You would obviously get the virus still but to me thats just the natural course something like this should take.
What are the long term side effects this will bring to an individual and to the rest of the population? Is this going to become mandatory for everyone? I still have so many questions and I'm not finding the answers yet.
I know this is a Herpes Simplex virus so it's something that effects the nerve system as well as having other forms of the Pox showing up. Such as shingles. Also, adults and children with weakened immune systems, it is very deadly. "The most common complications of chickenpox are skin infections and pneumonia. Other complications are encephalitis (inflammation of the brain) and hepatitis. Chickenpox can also lead to severe problems in pregnant women, causing stillbirths, birth defects, or infection of the newborn during childbirth."
ReplyDeleteSo sometimes you have to outweigh the negative with the positive. You and I and thousands of others may not have had a not so bad experience with it, but 100 other people a year die from it and thousands are hospitalized.
We didn't vaccinate our daughter and we believe that she got it when she was around 1 from her aunt who had shingles. If I could do that over again, we would definitely vaccinate her. She could have had severe problems since she was on a steroid at the time.
Good luck in your search!!!
I should have gone more into depth with some things and yet I'm still learning about this one and sure I'll have a follow up blog on this vaccine. Those with skin and immune system issues should be vaccinated as this could be deadly to them. However, for everyone else it is just another childhood thing we went through.
ReplyDeleteI think, from what I have read so far, that this vaccine should be optional not mandatory for school. For the people that are at high risk it is probably a good idea to get the vaccine but those that aren't should have the option or their parents have the option for them. Doctors make this out to be more deadly than what it is. I'm not saying that it isnt deadly to some people but it isn't going to take over the world. More info to come after more reading!