Milestones Towards the Eradication of Polio

There is a lot more interest in polio these days, but not because we are close to eradicating this deadly disease, but rather because of the emergence of cases of acute flaccid myelitis (AFM).

Although the cases have a different cause, the symptoms of AFM are the same that we used to see during the outbreaks of polio that used to hit each summer in the pre-vaccine era.

Polio

Surprisingly, in most people, the poliovirus doesn’t actually cause any symptoms. They simply have an asymptomatic infection.

In some others, the poliovirus causes flu-like symptoms, including a fever, sore throat, nausea, and a headache – symptoms that last about 3 to 5 days.

Much more rarely, the poliovirus causes meningitis or paralysis.

It is these cases of paralytic polio that most people are aware of and that panicked parents during summers in the 1940s and 50s.

In addition to respiratory problems (think iron lungs), polio causes muscle atrophy.
In addition to respiratory problems (think iron lungs), polio causes muscle atrophy. (CC BY-NC 4.0)

After having flu-like symptoms, those kids who would develop paralytic polio can develop pain and then flaccid paralysis.

“The most severe form, paralytic poliomyelitis, which is seen in less than 1% of patients, presents as excruciating episodes of pain in back and lower limbs. In children, the disease may present in biphasic form—a period of prodrome followed by a brief symptom-free period of 7 to 10 days and then appearance of asymmetrical paralysis of limbs. Flaccid paralysis is the hallmark with loss of deep tendon reflexes eventually.”

Mehndirattta et al on Poliomyelitis Historical Facts, Epidemiology, and Current Challenges in Eradication

Of course, polio wasn’t always called polio.

Other names have included infantile spinal paralysis, infantile paralysis, Heine-Medin disease, poliomyelitis anterior acuta, and acute anterior poliomyelitis.

The first use of the name “polio” came from Adolph Kussmaul, with his use of the term poliomyelitis anterior acuta, which was derived from the Greek polios “grey” and myelos “marrow” and itis “inflammation.” It was because he knew that it was caused by inflammation of the spinal cord gray matter, even if he didn’t know why.

Polio History

Polio didn’t just suddenly appear in the middle of the 20th century though, it was likely around for ages.

That this Ancient Egyptian priest's leg is smaller than the other and he uses a staff to walk suggests that he could have had polio.
That one of this Ancient Egyptian priest’s legs is smaller than the other and he uses a staff to walk could suggest that he had polio.

In addition to an Egyptian funeral stele (a stone slab used as a monument) portraying Roma the Doorkeeper from 1500 BCE that suggests he had paralytic polio, archeologists have found evidence of polio in skeletons as far back as the Neolithic period.

A medical book from 1789 likely describes people with polio.
A medical book from 1789 likely describes people with polio.

Still, we don’t really know how long polio has been around and we don’t know why we began to see more cases in the mid-20th Century, although there are theories, including, ironically, about hygiene. While we often credit improved sanitation and hygiene for helping to reduce mortality from many diseases, some think that this actually set us up for polio outbreaks, as we were no longer exposed as infants, when we still had some maternal immunity.

The one thing that we do know is that we are on the verge of eradicating polio, as there are very cases now, in just a few countries.

Polio Timeline and Milestones

In addition to the more ancient discoveries about polio, there is a lot to learn about vaccines and vaccine-preventable diseases if we look at the major milestones of this important disease.

Although in the end it is a success story, the road to figuring out what caused polio symptoms and how polio could be prevented was very long.

  • Michael Underwood describes what is thought to be paralytic polio in his book A Treatise on the Diseases of Children, with General Directions for the Management of Infants from Birth  in a section on “Debility of the Lower Extremities” (1789)
  • first reported outbreak of polio in Worksop, England (1835)
  • Jacob von Heine, head of an orthopedic hospital in Germany, publishes a monograph that describes 29 cases of paralytic polio, and actually attributes the condition to inflammation of the anterior horns of the spinal cord, although the cause was still not known (1840)
  • first use of the term poliomyelitis by Adolph Kussmaul (1874)
  • Nils August Bergenholtz reports on an outbreak of paralytic polio in Sweden (1881)
  • Karl-Oskar Medin, a pediatrician who reported on a polio epidemic in Sweden (1887), later presents his findings at the Tenth International Conference in Berlin (1890)
  • the first major outbreak in the United States is documented in Rutland County, Vermont and causes 132 cases of paralysis and 18 deaths (1894)
  • Ivar Wickman tracks cases of polio during an epidemic in Sweden in 1905 and was the first to suggest that polio was contagious and that you could get it from “those afflicted with the abortive type” (1907)
  • although they don’t actually identify the poliovirus, Dr. Karl Landsteiner and Dr. Erwin Popper  identify that a virus causes polio when they inject material from the spinal cord of a child who had recently died with polio into the peritoneum of two monkeys, both of which soon developed paralytic polio (1908)
  • Simon Flexner, first discovers polio antibodies (1911), but unlike other researchers at the time, pushes the theory that polio was spread by the olfactory route, instead of the fecal-oral route, which was why we saw the development of nose sprays, etc., to try and prevent polio, none of which worked of course
  • a large polio epidemic in the United States causes at least 27,000 cases and 6,000 deaths (1916)
  • Philip Drinker and Louis Agassiz Shaw invent the first iron lung, the Drinker respirator (1929)
  • Frank M. Burnet and Jean Macnamara proposed that there were antigenically different strains of poliovirus (1931)
  • John R. Paul and James D. Trask help figure out how polio was spread by identifying the polio virus in human waste and sewage samples (1932)
  • Maurice Brodie and John Kolmer have unsuccessful field trials of early polio vaccines, including allergic reactions and vaccine induced polio because of poor attenuation (1935)
  • Sister Elizabeth Kenny establishes a clinic in Australia to treat polio survivors (1932) and later publishes her treatment recommendations, Infantile Paralysis and Cerebral Diplegia (1937)
  • the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis is founded by FDR to stop polio (1937)
  • the first March of Dimes fundraisers to stop polio (1938)
  • Carl Kling found traces of the poliovirus in the Stockholm sewage system (1942)
  • the Sister Kenny Institute is built in Minneapolis, as her treatment methods become widely accepted after years of controversy (1942)
  • the U.S. Army Neurotropic Virus Commission, including Albert Sabin, gets a grant from the NFIP to study polio in North Africa (1943)
  • Isabel Morgan actually developed the first inactivated polio vaccine, but only tested it on monkeys (1949)
  • John Enders, with T. H. Weller and F. C. Robbins, received the Nobel Prize in 1954 for their work on the cultivation of the poliomyelitis viruses (1949)
  • David Bodian creates the monkey model using field isolates of poliovirus and with Jonas Salk, identifies the three poliovirus serotyes (1950s)
  • Hilary Koprowki develops the first oral, live polio vaccine, (1950) although Sabin’s vaccine eventually gets licensed because it is thought to be less neurovirulent in monkeys and undergoes more testing
  • there are 58,000 cases of paralytic polio in the United States (1952)
  • Renato Dulbecco, with Marguerite Vogt, successfully grows and purifies polio virus (1952)
  • the Polio Pioneers vaccine field trial, led by Thomas Francis Jr.,  that proves that Jonas Salk’s polio vaccine is safe and effective begins (1954)
  • Jonas Salk gets approval for his polio vaccine (1955)
  • improperly inactivated polio vaccine from Cutter Laboratories (Cutter Incident) causes 40,000 cases of polio, 200 cases of paralysis, and kills ten people (1955)
  • Albert Sabin develops the first live, oral polio vaccine, which replaced Jonas Salk’s inactivated polio vaccine (1961)
  • that polio survivors can develop new, late complications or post-polio syndrome begins to get reported (1969)
  • last endemic case of polio in the United States (1979)
  • the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis officially changes its name to the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation (1979)
  • the World Health Assembly adopts a resolution for the worldwide eradication of polio by 2000 and the the Global Polio Eradication Initiative is launched (1988)
  • last imported case of polio in the United States (1993)
  • the WHO Region of the Americas is declared polio free (1994)
  • “last” case of VAPP that was acquired in the United States (1999)
  • wild poliovirus type 2 eradicated (1999)
  • the WHO Western Pacific Region is declared polio free (2000)
  • the United States switches back to using the an inactivated polio vaccine because of concerns over VAPP (2000)
  • the WHO European Region is declared polio free (2002)
  • outbreak of vaccine derived polio among a group of unvaccinated Amish in Minnesota (2005)
  • last case of VAPP that was acquired outside the United States, an unvaccinated 22-year-old U.S. college student who became infected with polio vaccine virus while traveling in Costa Rica in a university-sponsored study-abroad program (2005)
  • last case of VAPP, a patient with a long-standing combined immunodeficiency who was probably infected in the late 1990s (2009)
  • seasonal reports of acute flaccid myelitis in the late summer and early fall, which might be caused by a non-polio enterovirus, are reminiscent of polio epidemics in the early part of the 20th century (2014)
  • Bob Sears says that it is okay to delay the polio vaccine on his alternative vaccine schedule because “we don’t have polio in the United States” (2015)
  • a global switch from trivalent OPV to bivalent OPV in routine immunization programs (2016)
  • polio remains endemic in just three countries, Afghanistan, Nigeria, and Pakistan (2018)

So it should be clear, that despite what some folks think, polio wasn’t conquered overnight. And Salk and Sabin obviously had a lot of help, although those are the names we most commonly hear connected with polio eradication.

“Until poliovirus transmission is interrupted in these countries, all countries remain at risk of importation of polio, especially vulnerable countries with weak public health and immunization services and travel or trade links to endemic countries.”

Global Polio Eradication Initiative on Endemic Countries

And to be clear, polio hasn’t yet been conquered.

There is still some work to do unless we want to see cases of polio and paralytic polio return.

That’s why it is important that you don’t skip your child’s vaccines, even for diseases that we don’t have in the United States anymore.

More on the History of Polio

Where Are the Latest Chickenpox Outbreaks?

Chicken pox is a now vaccine-preventable disease thanks to the chicken pox vaccine that was first licensed in 1995.

Despite being added to the childhood immunization schedule in 1996, and the addition of a booster dose in 2007, we do continue to see occasional outbreaks of chicken pox.

Chicken Pox

Although chicken pox is said to have been a rite of passage for kids, it was never something that any of us looked forward to.

At best, you had five to seven days of fever and an itchy rash that covered your body.

“My life changed forever on June 30, 1988, when I had to stand by helplessly as an infectious disease claimed the life of my oldest child, Christopher Aaron Chinnes, at the age of 12.”

Rebecca Cole on Chickenpox Claimed the Life of My Son Christopher

But of course, some people had much more severe cases of chicken pox and some people died.

Chicken Pox Outbreaks

In the pre-vaccine era, before the mid-1990s, most kids got chicken pox.

And chicken pox parties, while not as common as some folks imagine, were definitely a thing, because you didn’t want your child to become an adult and get chicken pox, when it was more dangerous. But since most kids got chicken pox so easily, most got it when they were kids, even without a chicken pox parties, and tragically, many learned that it wasn’t only dangerous to adults.

Why are we still seeing clusters of chicken pox in schools when a safe and effective vaccine is readily available?
Why are we still seeing clusters of chicken pox in schools when a safe and effective vaccine is readily available?

These days, most cases and outbreaks of chicken pox are in unvaccinated children and adults.

  • at least 28 cases at Asheville Waldorf School in West Asheville, North Carolina (Nov 2018)
  • at least 5 cases at Daybreak Primary School in Battle Ground in Clark County, Washington, leading to quarantine of at least 38 unvaccinated students who will be kept out of class for at least 21 days (Oct 2018)
  • at least 5 cases at two schools in Ottawa County, Michigan, including Waukazoo Elementary and Kids First – Early Childhood Center in Jenison, leading to the quarantine of at least 34 children (Oct 2018)
  • a cluster of chicken pox cases in Grant County, Washington at Park Orchard Elementary, North Elementary and Longview Elementary schools (Sept 2018)
  • at least 5 cases at the The Little Red School House Too daycare in Westbrook, Maine (May 2016)

These cases are just the tip of the iceberg though, as there are still about 7,000 to 10,000 chickenpox cases reported in the United States each year. And that’s with some states, like Oregon and Washington, not reporting cases of this Nationally Notifiable Condition to the CDC.

Cognitive dissonance helps explain how these folks try to explain that chicken pox isn't dangerous.
Cognitive dissonance helps explain how these folks try to explain that chicken pox isn’t dangerous.

Still, since chicken pox caused a few hundred deaths and at least 10,000 hospitalizations each year less than twenty-five years ago, that’s a lot of progress.

Getting Chicken Pox

How do you get chicken pox?

Since it is very contagious, if your child is exposed to someone with chicken pox or shingles, then they might develop chicken pox in about 10 to 21 days (incubation period).

Of course, if they vaccinated and protected, then they probably won’t, although mild, breakthrough chicken pox infections are still possible in vaccinated kids.

Their risk is higher if they:

  • are unvaccinated, either intentionally, because they have a true medical exemption, or because they are too young for the vaccine, which is first given when kids are 12-months-old
  • are partially vaccinated, with only one dose of the chicken pox vaccine
  • have a problem with their immune system, including kids getting chemotherapy

In addition to being at risk for chicken pox, non-immune pregnant women, newborns born to women who develop chicken pox at around the time of delivery, premature babies, and those are immunocompromised can be at risk for severe disease.

Avoiding Chicken Pox

Want to avoid chicken pox and the chance of ending up in a chicken pox quarantine and having to stay out of school for 3 weeks or more?

Get your kids vaccinated.

That’s not an option for some kids with true medical exemptions though, including most kids who are immunocompromised. When they get caught up in one of these outbreaks and get exposed to chicken pox, it becomes a matter of life and death to work to try and prevent their getting chicken pox.

More on Chicken Pox Outbreaks

 

How Many People Get Measles Each Year?

It used to be that measles was very common and almost everyone got measles.

A measles epidemic hit New York City in 1951, as this front page NYTimes article reports.
A measles epidemic hit New York City in 1951, as this front page NYTimes article reports.

While it was a so-called rite of passage and a part of growing up, it wasn’t something you looked forward to, as some kids didn’t survive having measles.

How Many People Get Measles Each Year?

Fortunately, measles case counts have dropped in the post-vaccine era.

How much did they drop?

Let’s see..

Year Cases
1920 469,924
1941 894,134
over 400 measles deaths each year
1962 503,282
1969 25,826
1970 47,351
1978 26,871
1979 13,597
1983 1,497
1986 6,282
1989 18,193
1990 27,786
1991 9,643
1992 2,200
1993 312
last record high number of measles cases
1994 963
1995 281
1996 508
1997 138
1998 100
1999 100
2000 86
2001 116
2002 44
2003 55
record low number of measles cases
2004 37
2005 66
2006 55
2007 43
2008 140
2009 71
2010 61
2011 220
2012 55
2013 187
worst year for measles since 1994, with the largest single outbreak (377 cases in Ohio) since the endemic spread of measles was eliminated
2014 667
2015 188
2016 86
2017 120
2018 249+

Can you guess when the first measles vaccines were introduced?

Can you guess when we started to give kids a second dose of the MMR vaccine?

Can you guess when Wakefield became popular and Dr. Bob’s vaccine book was released?

Do you know how much it costs to contain these outbreaks?

Do you understand the consequences of a natural measles infection?

Can you explain why we will almost certainly have the second highest number of measles cases in one year since 1994, even though we see the devastation that high rates of measles is causing in Europe and other parts of the world?

How many people will get measles in the United States this year?

A lot has changed since we got reassurance from the CDC that we were seeing an expected range of measles cases, although there were plenty of warning signs then that this was going to be one for the record books.
A lot has changed since we got reassurance from the CDC that we were seeing an expected range of measles cases, although there were plenty of warning signs then that this was going to be one for the record books.

Although no one is reporting on this, with several large ongoing outbreaks still not under control – it will be another record year for measles in the United States.

More on Measles and Measles Cases

Updated on November 13, 2018

I’m Not Anti-Vaccine, I Just Don’t Believe in Flu Shots

Do you know any of these folks?

“I’m not anti-vaccine, I just don’t believe in flu shots.”

They likely get all other available vaccines for themselves and their kids, but for some reason, they skip the flu shot each year.

I’m Not Anti-Vaccine, I Just Don’t Believe in Flu Shots

Are they just anti-flu vaccine? Is that a thing?

Gloria Copeland told her followers that they didn’t need flu vaccinations because Jesus already “redeemed us from the curse of the flu.”
Gloria Copeland told her followers that they didn’t need flu vaccinations because Jesus already “redeemed us from the curse of the flu.”

Why don’t they “believe” in flu shots?

Typical answers you might get, if you ask, include:

  • I never get the flu – since about 5 to 20% of people get the flu each year, it is certainly possible that you never get the flu, especially if you aren’t around many other people that could spread the flu virus to you. But unless you live and work in a bubble, there is a good chance that you will eventually be exposed to someone with the flu, might catch the flu yourself, and will spread it to someone else.
  • I only get sick when I get a flu shot – flu shots are inactivated and can’t actually give you the flu. Even the live virus nasal mist flu vaccine won’t cause you to have the flu. While flu vaccines can cause mild flu side effects, if you get sick after after a flu shot, it could be that you have another respiratory virus, your flu vaccine didn’t have time to work, or that it wasn’t effective.
  • I don’t need a flu shot – you do, if you want to reduce  your chances of getting the flu and having serious complications from a flu infection, which can affect anyone.
  • I got a flu shot last year – you need a flu vaccine each year
  • Flu vaccines don’t work – flu vaccines aren’t perfect, but they can reduce your risk of catching the flu and avoiding serious complications, even if you do get sick.
  • Flu shots are too expensive – most insurance plans cover the costs of flu vaccines, but  if you don’t have insurance, it is sometimes possible to find free flu shots at a local health clinic, or you could get a flu shot for $24 at Walmart with a GoodRx coupon.
  • I don’t have time to get a flu shot – do you have time to get sick with the flu? Many doctors now offer regular flu clinics that make it convenient to just come in and get a flu vaccine or if that isn’t possible, you can likely get a flu vaccine at a nearby pharmacy.
  • Someone on the Internet told me to never get a flu shot because they are poison – if you are avoiding a flu vaccine because you are worried about thimerosal, miscarriages, that they contain a vaginal spermicide, or other misinformation, then you likely aren’t just anti-flu vaccine…
  • Gloria Copeland told me I didn’t need one – Jesus didn’t give us a flu shot and doesn’t want you to die with the flu, or measles.

Stop making excuses, none of which hold water.

Get your flu vaccine, preferably before flu season starts and you start seeing flu activity in your area.

More on Being Anti-Flu Vaccine

What Makes the Flu So Deadly?

Most people don’t think of the flu as deadly.

Why?

Because they have likely had the flu and didn’t die…

What Makes the Flu So Deadly?

Still, the flu can be deadly and although some folks are more at risk for dying from the flu than others, even otherwise healthy children and adults can die with the flu.

Why?

It surely doesn’t help that even after a natural infection, we don’t build up immunity to protect us from flu viruses in subsequent years. Or that even though the flu vaccine isn’t as effective as we would like, many people don’t get vaccinated and protected.

Mostly, the flu is deadly because it can lead to severe symptoms in many people, even otherwise healthy people.

Although most people associate the flu with a fever, runny nose, cough, and body aches, the flu virus can rarely cause a primary viral pneumonia. Even when it doesn’t, an influenza infection can make it harder to breath. The flu virus can also cause severe bronchiolitis, like RSV does, croup, and can trigger asthma attacks.

Other severe complications that can be deadly include:

  • bacterial superinfections
  • myocarditis (inflammation of the heart) and pericarditis
  • congestive heart failure
  • encephalitis (inflammation of the brain)
  • myositis (inflammation of our muscles)
  • toxic shock syndrome
  • multi-organ failure

More rarely, the flu can cause Guillain-Barrésyndrome and Reye syndrome (associated with taking aspirin).

“Most people who get flu will recover in a few days to less than two weeks, but some people will develop complications (such as pneumonia) as a result of flu, some of which can be life-threatening and result in death.”

CDC on Flu Symptoms & Complications

But why do some people develop these flu complications and die, while others don’t?

That’s the real question most people want answered, not what the flu does to our body and how the flu virus attaches to and enters our cells, replicates, destroys our cells, triggers an immune response, and causes symptoms.

If you must know, you can likely blame it on a combination of the virulence factors of the flu virus strain and host factors of the person who is infected, but mostly, it’s because the flu can be a deadly disease.

That’s when you get worsening flu symptoms and signs, which might include trouble breathing, chest pain, dehydration, irritability, lethargy, confusion, or persistent vomiting, etc.

185 children died with the flu during the 2017-18 flu season.
185 children died with the flu during the 2017-18 flu season.

And because this can happen to almost anyone, unless they have a true contraindication, everyone should get vaccinated and protected against the flu.

More on Flu Deaths

This Is the Modern Anti-Vaccine Movement

We often like to think that we know how anti-vaccine folks think.

They are just scared and trying to do the right thing for their kids, right? Just like all of the rest of us?

Maybe some of them…

This Is the Modern Anti-Vaccine Movement

Of course, you can’t group all anti-vaccine folks together, as many vaccine-hesitant or on-the-fence parents are truly just scared about the things they see and read about vaccines.

But they should know what they are getting into when they follow their favorite anti-vaccine hero, celebrity or Facebook group.

The modern anti-vaccine movement goes far deeper than worries about possible vaccine side effects.

Don’t believe me?

Hillary Simpson may not share the anti-Semitic views of one of her admins, but many of her followers do...
Hillary Simpson may not share the anti-Semitic views of one of her admins, but many of her followers do…

It is hopefully clear to everyone by now that the modern anti-vaccine movement:

Don’t believe me?

Why should this family have to come out and give an explanation for how their child died?
Why should this family have to come out and give an explanation for how their child died?

After a 4-month-old died of bacterial meningitis, anti-vaccine folks pushed the idea that it was a vaccine injury instead of an infection.

An anti-vaccine parenting group helping spread misinformation about this baby's death.
An anti-vaccine parenting group helped spread misinformation about this baby’s death.

And they push their views that everything is a vaccine injury on everyone, even though most folks understand that vaccines are not associated with SIDS, shaken baby syndrome, autism, and most other things.

There is no connection between vaccines and acute flaccid myelitis, no matter how hard anti-vaccine folks are trying to make one.
To be clear, there is no connection between vaccines and acute flaccid myelitis, no matter how hard anti-vaccine folks are trying to make one.

Award winning?

Please.

Sure, everyone and everything in anti-vaccine world is the very best, except if they are, then why are they trying so hard to convince you of that… So maybe you will agree with some of their more far-out claims, suggestions, and conspiracy theories?

Learn the risks of following bad advice. Are you really going to say no to chemotherapy if your child has cancer?
Learn the risks of following bad advice.

After all, it’s one thing to consider skipping or delaying your child’s vaccines when you think you can get away with hiding in the herd or to buy some essential oils and supplements, but are you really going to say no to chemotherapy if your child has cancer? Brandy Vaughan seems to think you should.

If there is a RISK, there must be a CHOICE.

Do you think it is okay to put infants who are too young to be vaccinated at risk for measles and other vaccine-preventable diseases because you don’t like the choices you have been given between getting your kids vaccinated and protected or keeping them out of school?

What about the parents of the kid who is being treated for cancer who gets exposed to chicken pox because someone else made the choice to not vaccinate their kid? Do you think that’s fair?

The modern anti-vaccine movement is only about choice when it is about their choices and doesn’t seem to care about the risks their unvaccinated kids pose to others.

Believe it or not, the modern anti-vaccine movement also equates getting vaccinated with rape…

Don’t believe me?

Meryl Dorey has also claimed that vaccination is rape.
Meryl Dorey has also claimed that vaccination is rape.

Do you agree?

What else do most folks in the modern anti-vaccine movement believe?

They believe that:

And of course, they believe that vaccine advocates are behind a big conspiracy, are lying to you, and are trying to force everyone to get vaccinated.

Is that what you believe?

Some nurses and doctors are refusing to get a flu shot and have to wear masks at work.
Some nurses and doctors are refusing to get a flu shot and have to wear masks at work.

Even though these and every other anti-vaccine point you have heard has already been refuted a thousand times already.

The RhoGAM shot helps prevent hemolytic disease of the newborn. It is not a vaccine and is not part of a Big Pharma profit ploy...
The RhoGAM shot helps prevent hemolytic disease of the newborn. It is not a vaccine and is not part of a Big Pharma profit ploy…

Do you believe in chemtrails or that Bill Gates has a plan to depopulate the world using vaccines?

“As a result, multiple breakouts of measles have occurred throughout different parts of the Western world, infecting dozens of patients and even causing deaths.”

Hussain et al on The Anti-vaccination Movement: A Regression in Modern Medicine

If you do, understand that you have been fooled by the propaganda of the modern anti-vaccine movement. If you don’t, understand that many of the folks in your anti-vaccine groups probably do.

More on the Modern Anti-Vaccine Movement

10 Myths About Chicken Pox and the Chicken Pox Vaccine

You remember chicken pox, don’t you?

Is this really a disease that we need to vaccinate our kids against?

Obviously, the folks who posted the following comments don’t seem to think so.

It is just as obvious that they are wrong though.

That she doesn't understand survivorship bias doesn't mean that you shouldn't vaccinate your kids.
That she doesn’t understand survivorship bias doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t vaccinate your kids.

No one ever says that chicken pox, measles, mumps, and rubella kills everyone that gets them.

Even in the pre-vaccine era, when measles would kill 500 people a year in the United States, there is a very good chance that you wouldn’t have known anyone that died of measles. Of course, that doesn’t mean that nobody died of measles or chicken pox or any other now vaccine-preventable disease.

You likely know someone that plays football, right? Maybe on a youth football team or in middle school or high school? Do you know anyone that plays on a team in the NFL? While millions of kids might play football, only a few thousand play in the NFL.

Benign diseases don't kill kids.
Benign diseases don’t kill kids.

Chicken pox was never a benign disease. It was considered a rite of passage because we all had to endure it, but it wasn’t something anyone looked forward to. You don’t die from a benign disease.

Trying to scare people into thinking that vaccines are poison... Anti-vaccine propaganda is all about fear.
Trying to scare people into thinking that vaccines are poison… Anti-vaccine propaganda is all about fear.

Part of that is actually true – “they keep you a customer for life” because you didn’t die from a vaccine-preventable disease!

The UK doesn't haven't routinely vaccinate against chicken pox, but they do have chicken pox deaths...
The UK doesn’t routinely vaccinate against chicken pox, but they do have chicken pox deaths and the same rise in shingles rates…

Many countries don’t have the chicken pox vaccine on their routine immunization schedule because they don’t think it is cost-effective and they were concerned about what controlling chicken pox could do to rates of shingles.

“About 3 in every 1000 pregnant women in the UK catch chickenpox. Between 1985 and 1998, nine pregnant women died in the UK from chickenpox complications. Their unborn babies are also at risk from a rare condition called foetal varicella syndrome (FVS). This can result in serious long-term damage to the baby or even death, particularly if the mother catches chickenpox in the first 20 weeks of pregnancy.”

Vaccine Knowledge Project on Chickenpox (Varicella)

These countries have the same rates of shingles as countries that do use the chicken pox vaccine, but still have high rates of chicken pox and complications of chicken pox!

The UK does not vaccinate for chicken pox, but young, otherwise healthy kids die with chicken pox in the UK.

Don't trust the CDC, but do trust anyone with a website or Facebook page that says what you want to believe.
Don’t trust the CDC, but do trust anyone with a website or Facebook page that says what you want to believe…

Most folks should understand that when anti-vaccine folks say “do your research,” they mean look at their websites and Facebook groups that regurgitate misinformation and anti-vaccine propaganda.

Natural immunity is not better than vaccine induced immunity when you consider the risks of a natural infection, which can include death.
Natural immunity is not better than vaccine induced immunity when you consider the risks of a natural infection, which can include death.

We don’t need disease.

There is no diet that will help you beat chicken pox.
There is no diet that will help you beat chicken pox.

While you will be at higher risk for complications from chicken pox and most other diseases if you have a compromised immune system or are malnourished, if you are otherwise healthy, there is nothing you can do to boost your immune system to try and beat chicken pox – besides getting vaccinated.

Homeopathic vaccines do nothing.
Homeopathic vaccines do nothing.

There is also no homeopathic remedy or homeopathic vaccine that can help you avoid chicken pox.

Adults don't need boosters to most vaccines, so actually are up-to-date and immune to most diseases.
Adults don’t need boosters to most vaccines, so actually are up-to-date and immune to most diseases.

The chicken pox vaccine provides long lasting protection. Ironically, anti-vaccine folks often misunderstand how herd immunity works, the one thing that can protect their unvaccinated kids as they try to hide in the herd…

Chicken pox parties were never as common as folks think they were, but when done, it was out of necessity, as we didn't have a vaccine.
Chicken pox parties were never as common as folks think they were, but when done, it was out of necessity, as we didn’t have a vaccine.

Chicken pox parties kind of made sense in the pre-vaccine era. Since it was inevitable that your child would get chicken pox, you wanted them to get it at a young age, so they weren’t at increased risk for complications as an adult.

But intentionally exposing your child to a life-threatening infection when a safe and effective vaccine is available?

Do your research. Get vaccinated and protected.

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