We know that kids with cancer aren’t at big risk from shedding if someone has recently been vaccinated.
The real risk comes from those who are unvaccinated.
People with Cancer Are at Risk from Unvaccinated Kids
Confused on how that works?
Kids with cancer typically have a compromised immune system, so are at greater risk for getting sick and catching infectious diseases. This includes a risk from vaccine-preventable diseases because they often can’t be vaccinated and any vaccines they had in the past might no longer provide protection.
Don’t believe me?
Want some examples?
- a 6-year-old girl who was in remission for ALL and had just received her final dose of chemotherapy was admitted with fever and neutropenia, found to have measles, and died after 28 days of intense therapy (1989)
- an 8-year-old being treated for leukemia developed chicken pox and died two weeks later (1998)
- a partially vaccinated 4-year-old girl who was being treated for acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) was exposed to a cousin with chicken pox and later developed multi-organ failure and died (2012)
- a 26-year-old man who was being treated for chronic lymphocytic leukemia died in Switzerland after he became infected with measles (2017)
- a 6-year-old boy with leukemia died in Italy after catching measles from his intentionally unvaccinated sibling (2017)
Of course, there are many more, including many kids with cancer who get exposed to a vaccine-preventable disease and have to get treated with immunoglobulin and hope they don’t get sick. And many more who do get sick and are treated in the hospital for weeks and months and thankfully, get better.
And there are even more who get caught up in quarantines because they have true medical contraindications to getting vaccinated, and so have to stay home from school with the intentionally unvaccinated kids whenever there is an outbreak of measles or chicken pox, etc.
What can we do about this?
Vaccinate our kids! We have a choice. These kids with cancer don’t.
More on People with Cancer at Risk from Unvaccinated Kids
- VAXOPEDIA – Who Dies from Chicken Pox?
- VAXOPEDIA – Who Dies with Measles?
- VAXOPEDIA – Measles Deaths in the 21st Century
- VAXOPEDIA – Who Is at Risk If You Don’t Vaccinate Your Kids?
- VAXOPEDIA – How Can the Unvaccinated Spread Diseases They Don’t Have?
- VAXOPEDIA – Hiding in the Herd
- MMWR – Notes from the Field: Varicella-Associated Death of a Vaccinated Child with Leukemia — California, 2012
- Severe measles in immunocompromised patients.
- Varicella in a Previously Immune Patient With Leukemia.
- MMWR – Varicella-Related Deaths — Florida, 1998
- Fatal Measles Virus Infection After Rituximab-Containing Chemotherapy in a Previously Vaccinated Patient.
- Victims, vectors and villains: are those who opt out of vaccination morally responsible for the deaths of others?
- Children with cancer: stories from the 2011 measles outbreaks
- Protecting Children with Cancer from Measles
- To the Parent of the Unvaccinated Child Who Exposed my Family to Measles
- One more time: Vaccine refusal endangers everyone, not just the unvaccinated
- Why Worry About the Unvaccinated?
- Is my unvaccinated family putting my child at risk?
- Trying to live a normal life
- When It’s Not a Choice: Measles and Leukemia
- A Boy Who Had Cancer Faces Measles Risk From The Unvaccinated
- ‘I Give A Damn!’ – Leukemic Marin 1st Grader Pleads For Ban On Unvaccinated Children In Schools
- To the parent who risked my kid’s life
- Mother of leukemia-stricken child speaks out about importance of vaccines
- Parents of kids with cancer worry about unvaccinated children
- Protecting Those Who Need It Most
- Mixing unvaccinated children with vaccinated children: Whose rights prevail?
- Why I won’t let unvaccinated people around my kids
- The importance of immunization in cancer prevention, treatment, and survivorship.
- A spell of chicken-pox on a cancer patients’ ward.
- Measles Outbreak in Pediatric Hematology and Oncology Patients in Shanghai, 2015
- Measles in bone marrow transplant recipients during an outbreak in São Paulo, Brazil.
- Fatal visceral varicella-zoster virus infection without skin involvement in a child with acute lymphoblastic leukemia.
- Chickenpox in varicella IgG positive patients: experience of a regional paediatric oncology centre.
- Breakthrough varicella in a cancer patient with persistent varicella antibody after one varicella vaccination
- Two Cases of Vaccine-Derived Poliovirus Infection in an Oncology Ward
- “My son can not attend the school because 5 classmates are unvaccinated”. On the question of compulsory vaccinations and the risk for immune-compromised children into the schools: the case of paediatric cancer patients.
- 100 cancer patients may have been exposed to measles
- 80 child cancer patients exposed to measles at Petah Tikva hospital
- Alberta father calls for mandatory vaccinations after son exposed to measles
- Measles Virus Infection in Pediatric Liver Transplantation Recipients.