Measles is Awesome!

According to anti-vaccination author Stephanie Messenger (insert your own 'shoot the messenger' joke here).

The most fun part about measles is when you get it when you're four because a kid at your pre-school wasn't vaccinated and as a complication you also get pneumonia and you lose 20% of your body weight and the doctors tell your parents that you're going to die.

Jesus fucking christ.

You know, I have a few personal health beliefs that have little grounding in science. I believe that most artificial sweeteners taste like cancer, therefore I avoid them (although there have been a couple of recent studies -- ones not actually sponsored by the HFCS lobby -- claiming that aspartame may actually have deleterious long-term effects after all). I avoid getting flu shots because I'm not in a target concern group and I'm also kinda stupid. But not a goddamn bit of the anti-vaccination hysteria has anything to do with health; it's all hyper-libertarian "GUVMENT CAINT TELL ME WHUT TO DO" nonsense when schools tell you to vaccinate your fucking kids so they won't kill someone.

People who politicize health deserve to catch a horrible STD; people who do it to our children deserve to go to jail.

Oh crap, we ran out of sugar here at work, so I just used Sweet & Low in my coffee.....mmmmm....cancer taste.....

I prefer the taste of cancer to sugar these days.

Did she just get measles and chicken pox confused? Because that excerpt would seem pretty believable if it were a story about chickenpox.

Say what?

Rash, deliberately exposing children in order to make them "stronger" (resistant to shingles) when they're older.

What about that statement do you not understand? Chicken pox can be fatal when contracted as an adult, so it's better to have it as a child.

EDIT: turns out I'm wrong about fatal, you're just made resistant to shingles, like Alligator says above. Damn you, misinforming adults from my youth!

It's not measles, but these do happen for chicken pox.

I don't know where you're getting "resistant to shingles" from. Shingles is a reoccurence of the chicken pox virus, so if you never have chicken pox (because you've been vaccinated) you'll never have shingles. I had chicken pox as a kid, and have had shingles as an adult (just last year, in fact), and it wasn't much fun.

I am so confused.

Which has always been my understanding, is this not correct?

It's funny, even though Andrew Wakefield has, in a professional-sphere sense been thoroughly nailed to the wall, he really skated if one compares the personal consequences for him vs. the moral consequences of the shit he's put in motion. I see vaccine nonsense in my facebook feed all the time.

What? You aren't made resistant to shingles. If you have the chicken pox, you can then GET shingles later in life. I know, cause I've had both!

AlanT is right, so I am quoting him!

Goddammit, it hasn't been a good morning for me to post while waking up and not able to properly read and process sources.

Alright, now that we've settled that, back to summing up the OP:

Better?

The popular public assumption being that getting the virus at a younger age is less risky than getting it for the first time as an adult.

For the record, Shingles is chicken pox virus holed up in various nerves - where, exactly, you can tell by the dermatome in which the symptoms emerge.

I would be all for a law that stated that kids have to be fully vaccinated to attend public school.

This, minus the flu shot (since they're different every flu season) and minus any diseases the child has already been exposed to (such as chickenpox) where a vaccination wouldn't provide any additional benefit.

Plus the vaccinations should be available at no expense to those families. I'd hate to see a child be excluded from school because her family can't afford her tetanus booster or a hepatitis vaccine.

Oh yeah, I agree there, but I'm a fan of universal health care in general anyway. (And this is a total aside, but health care should include dentistry as well)

Has anyone considered that it would be better not to get chicken pox at all?

IIRC, the hepatitis shots I got were free and provided through the school system. I think this was around the time that there were some huge outbreaks and the nation was kindof freaking out about it so EVERYONE NEEDS A VACCINATION OMG.

I wouldn't be opposed to having the vaccinations administered by the school nurse or equivalent health center directly. It would make record-keeping much easier, that's for damn sure. I have NO IDEA what vaccinations I'm up-to-date on, other than my tetanus booster and maybe the aforementioned hepatitis shots (but I don't know how long those are supposed to last).

I really need to get a checkup with a general physician some time. Bleh.

While shingles is painful, chicken pox as an adult can be fatal. Seems like it might be better to get the pox early?

Or just get the vaccine? =)

I was under the impression that most US states already do require at least MMR immunizations before kindergarten. I'm pretty sure it's also required in most Australian states as well.

BINGO.

The vaccine contains live cells. Just sayin'.

So does your face.

I mean literally there's live cells all up in your face, mine too, I'm not being mean

Well yes, on both accounts. I've had chicken pox already, too :)

I haven't. I'm 36, it kinda bothers me that I might be in for a doozy. (I also still have my appendix and tonsils. God, I'm a ticking time bomb, now I'm depressed.)

A vaccine is probably a good idea for you then.

I have my appendix and tonsils too! My tonsils like to give me strep every so often. Bastards.

Can't you get the vaccine?

Same here! Shingles are un-fun.

Do you guys want him to get autism? :(

I know, I know, I really should. I'm someone who doesn't even willfully get a flu shot without being nagged to death about it. I did this year, for the first time in ages.

Fortunately, if I get tonsillitis and have to have them yanked, it's easy access for the surgeon since I don't have any natural teeth. But I've been lucky and never had any problems so far, knock on wood.

Is there a story behind this?

I really don't want to go into detail on BF about my days as a male street prostitute.

(Not exciting, bad genes, teeth started eroding from a young age, wear dentures. Don't think much of it since I've kinda always equated teeth with pain and annoyance, and I have whiter and straighter "teeth" than most people I know so it doesn't exactly break my heart.)

My guess was George Washington cosplay.

My reaction to the flu shot is my one area of discontent with vaccinations. It's my understanding that the flu shot is kind of a crapshoot with respect to whether it's targeted at the strain you're exposed to, whether it's effective, whether it even affects transmission rates substantially, etc.

As for me personally, getting a flu shot seems to have little bearing on whether or not I get the flu, and my body seems to have an adverse reaction to it. I develop flu-like symptoms -- yes, I know the vaccine can't cause actual influenza -- for a few days afterward and generally feel like shit, like clockwork. So I don't get it anymore. Instead I just do my best to avoid sick people, wash my hands neurotically, and don't go out or to work if I do get sick (a practice I wish more people at work would emulate). If the vaccine does work, and frankly the numbers aren't great, I figure a person here and there not getting it shouldn't have much effect on herd immunity.