have you given your child the chicken pox vaccine

[passivehoovering]

Hi all,

DD is 3.5 and is about to start her second year at nursery. She hasn't had chicken pox, and I really don't want her to. I don't want my darling child to get ill, feel bed, get scars, have awful complications, be seperated from her friends...So I was thinking about getting the Chicken pox vacine for her. I have mooted this with friends who also have children but they seem to want their kids to get chicken pox so I am wavering a bit.

If you have vacinated your children could you tell me how you went about it and where you found info? I don't know if I should try her GP in the first instance and ask them for info from Medline and if they know of anywhere that does the vacine. Also how was your child after? Anything else you can tell me would be much appreciated too.

Thanks

The point is BFG, it's not about protecting yourself. Again, if it is risky for you to catch a disease, do you vaccinate yourself or everyone around you? Why is it the responsibility of everyone else to protect you?

What are you having trouble understanding? As usual, you're going off in all sorts of off-topic directions. Vaccinating is always about protecting yourself before protecting others. The only vaccine I or you know of is rubella where this isn't quite the case. However, it's a far cry to say rubella is about 'vaccinating everyone around you' or indeed 'for the greater good' when it is in fact about protecting siblings and close relations. It's also a far cry to start dismissing vaccines other than rubella as being mainly about 'the greater good'.

Bumbley, can I ask what vaccinations, if any, you have thought worthwhile to give to your children?

I'm not going off in any direction BFG. I'm asking EB about her comment about herd immunity and replying to your comments about rubella. If the thread is going off course then you're just as guilty of taking it there as I am.

Why can't those siblings and close relations get themselves vaccinated rather than expecting their children, nieces, nephews etc to protect them?

I didn't vaccinate because of "exaggerated" belief of risk. I vaccinate because even if it is a mild illness, if I can stop my daughter having it, then that is great. I had CP as a child, probably would be classed as a "mild" case and it was miserable. Simple as that really.

I don't think people vaccinate their child solely to prevent rare complications!

In the interests of trying to keep things on track, I'll say one last thing with reference to rubella. They've done the experiement - they've vaccinated just the women and the results were overwhelmingly conclusive: it doesn't work. The women were contracting rubella during pregnancy...from the father of baby.

Interesting point happygilmore. I think as vaccines become more sophisticated and safer, the range of applications will be widened. Rather than treating ill people, we'll be vaccinating so people never get ill....

Well if it wasn't working them maybe they just needed to give them a more effective vaccine.

The reason I'm talking about herd immunity is because you said it doesn't work in vaccinated populations.

Herd immunity is all about reducing risk of exposure. Whether that exposure results in disease or a booster effect, it's still exposure. So you can't say, oh, herd immunity doesn't exist with measles vaccinations but does with cp. if you can't see that then its clear that you haven't understood herd immunity.

MacyGracy i am sorry but I don't know. I think your post has got a bit lost in the thread. I am going to the GP to ask about the vaccine, I will ask them if they can do it, or if they can suggest anyone who can. Could you do the same?

What does this herd immunity argument have to do with what I am saying about adults needing exposure to CP to boost their own immunity and reduce the risk of shingles?

If your child has Cp and you have had it previously, you get a natural booster and reduce your risk of contracting shingles. If your child is vaccinated and doesn't contract CP then you miss out on that booster.

BM

Your argument is that vaccinated herd immunity does not exist. In which case, vaccinating children will have no effect on any other individual's risk of exposure to the virus. Therefore, vaccinating against cp will have no effect on shingles since it will not have any effect on anyone's exposure to the virus and its boosting effects. You can't have it both ways BM.

The natural booster argument is an argument against CP vaccination, isn't it? Perhaps that's why the UK gov't hasn't brought in the vaccination? By not vaccinating, perhaps we protect elderly people from shingles?

As for herd immunity in general (say to measles) unless everyone is vaccinated, then how can you have herd immunity? You'd need to vaccinate parents, grandparents, neighbours, etc. Yet we only vaccinate children.

Well, then how does the cp vax affect shingles?! Herd immunity reduces the exposure of others to the virus. Therefore if you deny that vaccination leads to herd immunity, then cp vax cannot affect shingles incidence. Its the same process.

Btw, for the record, cp vax does increase shingles incidence, in the same way that it provides reduced chances of getting the disease for the unvaccinated. It's pretty basic

Btw tabuths. 250,000 people get shingles each yr in the uk. That alone would merit introducing the shingles vaccine (which the nhs is finally doing)

How can vaccination not lead to herd immunity if everyone is vaccinated and the vaccination works in practically everyone? (At least until such time as the immunity wears off). My point has always been that we don't vaccinate everyone.

Well here's another who privately vaccinated her DS for cp, for the simple reason that he'd been so ill with stuff the first year he was in nursery, that I ran out of annual leave and into unpaid and I couldn't afford him to be off with cp on top!

Since then I figure it's been well and truly tested since the whole blinking place had cp at Easter and he was merrily playing with everyone and not catching it. He only had the first shot as well, no booster. We were offered the booster after the clinic's policy changed but we declined due to a good chance it would have taken already. Think it was the right decision.

The natural booster argument is an argument against vaccination yes, although it could also be an argument for doing the shingles vaccine too so nobody is any more susceptible to getting shingles which is generally far nastier illness. You don't get an 'easy', pain free dose of shingles. TBH I would push for the shingles vaccine long before the CP because it is so nasty.

Oh, good grief.

Ok EB, consider this. There are 10 children, 9 of them are vaccinated against CP. Now, whether it not you believe that the 10th child will be prevented from catching CP by the fact that the other 9 are vaccinated makes feck all difference to poor old uncle Zebediah who has 9 less children to boost his immune system. Do you understand yet?

Do you understand that exactly the same process that protects the 10th child from catching CP, also prevents Uncle Z having a booster?

It's all about probability of exposure to the virus.

And in exactly the same way, if 9 children are vaccinated against measles, the 10th child is protected.

IT'S THE SAME THING!

BBB - that's exactly what is happening. A shingles vaccine is being rolled out on the NHS. In other countries, it's already available for the elderly. In most countries, it's recommended for 60+, on the NHS it'll only be made available for 70+. A step forward but not good enough IMHO.

Uncle Z is prevented from having a booster by the fact that the 9 children are prevented from having CP (provided the vaccine works for them). It doesn't matter if you think they are protecting other children from CP or not.

If people want to have the shingles vaccine then fine. I don't think increasing their risk of shingles so that they are effectively forced into vaccinating against it is a good thing.

Of course it matters,BM. It's the same process. And it's the same process with measles as well. So at least we've made progress. Vaccine induced herd immunity exists. Phew, it's like getting blood out of a stone. Let's remember this one when someone mentions it wrt the measles vaccine.

No one is forced into vaccinating against shingles. Currently 250,000 people in the UK get shingles each year with CP circulating. You can make a choice whether to vaccinate or not - I certainly would! But I will not expose my child to CP, just because you don't like vaccines and so peole have a choice about whetehr to vaccinate or not. Sorry, doesn't work like that. You'd have a point if there weren't a shingles vaccine. There is.

When my DD had chicken pox my GP, who always likes to tell me a bit of medical trivia when I go in, said that in the US it is rountinely vaccinated against, and as a consequence there is a significant mortality rate for young adults who catch the disease in their 20s once the vaccination has worn off, so to speak. It is far more serious if you contract it as an adult, and really not severe and controllable with calamine lotion, paracetamol and antihistamine in children.

No nor do I BM.

On one hand you have the vaccine for CP which is aimed primarily at children who will have a very mild disease and barely register that they ill. For most it is no worse than a cold and in fact for a lot of people that it is how it feels until the spots appear.

On the other hand you have the elderly (although not just the elderly) who stand to get a really nasty disease that is always painful, never mild in the same way that CP is and can go on for a very long time because of the children being protected from something that is not really a big deal for the vast majority.

I know where my priorities lie on this. We should learn from the US and vaccinate against shingles (if we vaccinate at all) before CP to avoid any rise in the cases of shingles. They are finding the rise in death rates from shingles offsets lives saved from the CP vaccine according to one piece of research I found here I think it is pretty much backing up what you have been saying BM about shingles increasing because immune adults are not getting exposures to the CP virus as boosters to their immune system because children aren't getting CP any more.

I also find it a bit worrying that they seem to have found a trend for people to get shingles much younger, even amongst vaccinated children.

my GP, who always likes to tell me a bit of medical trivia when I go in, said that in the US it is rountinely vaccinated against, and as a consequence there is a significant mortality rate for young adults who catch the disease in their 20s once the vaccination has worn off, so to speak.

your GP is full of smelly brown stuff.

www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21788222

RESULTS:

During the 12 years of the mostly 1-dose US varicella vaccination program, the annual average mortality rate for varicella listed as the underlying cause declined 88%, from 0.41 per million population in 1990-1994 to 0.05 per million population in 2005-2007. The decline occurred in all age groups, and there was an extremely high reduction among children and adolescents younger than 20 years (97%) and among subjects younger than 50 years overall (96%). In the last 6 years analyzed (2002-2007), a total of 3 deaths per age range were reported among children aged 1 to 4 and 5 to 9 years, compared with an annual average of 13 and 16 deaths, respectively, during the prevaccine years.