Measles … I don’t understand!

My mum had a spate of getting shingles every couple of years and then she was finally given the vaccine when she was finally in the very narrow age group for receiving it.

Since the vaccine - no more attacks - and she had the vaccine some years ago now, way before covid. It seems cruel that they'd prefer to let people suffer when the vaccine is obviously very effective.

As I've just said in my post above - girls were vaccinated against rubella at 12 - it was routine before the MMR was given.

I was born in the 70s when we had the vaccine as a matter of course. Measles had almost died out in this country until Andrew Wakefield came along

There was controversy about a measles vaccine (in Japan I think?) and the MMR was already controversial before Wakefield came along.

And I was born in the 70s and there definitely wasn't an MMR or measles vaccine available in my childhood (in my part of the UK). I had the rubella vaccine at 12.

My dd2 was born in Abu Dhabi over 40 years ago - she was given the MMR at 12 months, it was routine. TBH I find it astonishing that the U.K. took so long to give it routinely, especially when rubella is such a risk to unborn babies - and mothers of babies and young children are exactly the category most likely to be pregnant and therefore at risk.

Well, that could all change if Trump gets back into office. There's a document called Project 2025 that talks about removing the CDC from recommending vaccines, which usually leads to schools mandating vaccines.

More about it in this discussion

I don't think the UK would ever go this way but who knows?

You can buy it privately. I am eligible and looked into it and apparently the protection only lasts around 4 to 7 years depending on which research you read.

The thing was that there was NO VACCINE and no protection and it was believed that the risk of serious effects increased as you got older. This meant that some people (not my parents) thought that of all the options, the safest one was to get it over early at a time when the child was otherwise in good health.

Cost v risk…..under 70s less likely to have any complications that will cost the nhs service

I had shingles in lockdown- Absolute agony
Why oh why is a vaccine only available to the over 70’s??

It’s possible to have shingles more than once

The pain is excruciating.
Can last for many months / years after the blistering has dried up.
Post - herpetic neuralgia.

Why only over 70’s when any age can develop shingles?

The vast majority of the HE community is vaccinated. Yes there is probably a greater proportion who are not but they are still a small minority - although they do tend to group together.

This won’t help. The HE community is already huge and the vast majority do not vaccinate. You’ll only make that a bigger issue if non vaccinated children can’t go to state nursery / school. I was banned from one home ed group once after my dc had the flu spray as they were all petrified over ‘shedding’ . I pointed out that the real flu virus is everywhere ?? So why was there a concern over a weakened version ??!! Nobody could answer me

People don't seem to realise or care it affects others too
I haven't had my MMR as I was severely allergic to egg and my mum was told not to give it to me
Then I became severely immunocompromised as an adult and can't have it still
I've had my rubella vaccine separately but I've no protection against mumps or measles

Enjoying the Blyton reminiscences and all the quarantines for measles and scarlet fever. I remember the twins being unable to go back to St Clare's because of a measles quarantine, Alicia failing 'cert' because of an unpleasant dose of the same, Dinah's eyes giving her trouble in the Adventure Series, and Irene in Malory Towers threatened with isolation in the 'San' for not returning to school with a health certificate.

The stuff about 'measles parties' is far more alarming and more reminiscent of Poe's 'The Masque of the Red Death'. Such a good thing we have reliable vaccines now and such craziness is no longer necessary ...

I think not so much believed to be a dick move at a time there was no protection from it (measles) and thought to be much more dangerous when caught as an adult. When my oldest sib was born, 11 years before me, our grandmother took out a penny policy for her. These were to be used to pay for burial if the baby didn't survive childhood. The "unlucky to bring the pram home before birth" thing had its basis in commonsense ie the child might not survive to use it. The past isn't that long ago!

They weren't less effective. It's just the govt couldn't be bothered to review the licence. Where you an adult parent of young kids at the time therefore able to " read the room" as such.

If the govt really were concerned about low take-up they would've been able to provide the alternative. Instead they chose to on the MMR or nothing choice

Agreed. I’m not saying we should copy the US in everything, far from it, but I do think they’ve got this one right - children need to be vaccinated before starting at state schools.

It really wasn't common in the UK to have measles parties in the 40-60s+

They might have been the (frankly dangerous) "done thing" in your small circle, but they were absolutely not a common thing.

The US had them though.

No, they really weren’t.

Imagine taking your kid to a party where there was a one in five thousand chance of them
dying.

One of the MMR jab does contain pork gelatine, but the other one doesn't.
https://www.nhs.uk/vaccinations/mmr-vaccine/#:~:text=The%20MMR%20VaxPro%20vaccine%20contains,the%20Priorix%20MMR%20vaccine%20instead.

They really weren't less effective.

It was a simple admin deadline - licences have to be renewed periodically, and the NHS decided that it would simply cease administering the single jab at the next expiration point, and without NHS as a customer, the companies decided not to renew the UK licence (even though they had all the required data and it continued to be licenced in other countries, including elsewhere in EU)

Those who have had single vaccines do not require further immunisation.

It was fiendishly bad timing that the Wakefield scandal came right on top of the licence expiration - because of course back then, the question marks had not been dealt with by further research. So there is a cohort of people, roughly in their mid-20s now, with extremely low vaccination rates. They will be at risk themselves, and babies born to unvaccinated mothers will not have any transferred maternal protection.

As an aside, there never was a golden age of high MMR take up. The figures before the NHS ceased providing the single jab were for all those immunised, ie both single and MMR. If the aim was to have high measles vaccination rates, then especially with the controversy beginning, it would have made considerably more sense to go for one more renewal (yes, paperwork needed, but all the required data existed) and let it lapse after all the further studies (which were then only just beginning) produced results.

I have read that the low vaccination rates in many cities, isn't due to the Wakefield effect any more, but a combination of chaotic lifestyles and health service disruption following Covid and some immigrant communities believing the vaccine contains a pork product.

It doesnt actually

The virus remains with you and unfortunately can come back as shingles which is very painful. Luckily now there is a vaccine for the over 70's

I don't know if that is directed at me but not 'reminising fondly' about anything.
(I was merely passing on that parents have had different reactions for decades, it's nothing new, but SM & that odd man Wakefield made it much worse.)
My Partner nearly died & was affected, physically & mentally for life by Polio.
I have given my children all the vaccinations I can. Everybody should imo.

I think the measles parties being spoken about where rubella ( German measles ) parties, girls were encouraged to get it pre puberty

Mum ( 86 ) had TB as a child and spent a year in a convalescence hospital . She remembers also a polio outbreak linked to the swimming pool - Latchmere perhaps ?

They thought Polio was eradicated and now thats making a comeback