Tag: MMR vaccine

Can I Give My Kids Tylenol When They Have Their Vaccines?

Many parents ask about acetaminophen (Tylenol) when kids get their vaccines.

Is it okay to give kids Tylenol when they get their shots?

The Tylenol and Vaccines Controversy

As you can probably guess, there is no real controversy about Tylenol and vaccines.

Instead, what we are talking about are the myths surrounding Tylenol and vaccines that anti-vaccine folks have created, including that:

  • giving Tylenol right before a child gets their shots somehow increases the risk that they will have side effects
  • giving Tylenol right after a child gets their shots somehow masks the symptoms of serious vaccine damage
  • giving Tylenol after the MMR vaccine is associated with developing autism

Fortunately, most parents understand that like other anti-vaccine misinformation, none of these statements are true.

Why do some folks believe it?

Well, there have been studies warning people about giving Tylenol before vaccines. It had nothing to do with side effects though. They suggested that a vaccine might be less effective if the child got Tylenol before his vaccines. It is important to note that they never really found that the vaccines didn’t work as well, as all of the kids in the study still had protective levels of antibodies, they were just a little lower than kids who didn’t get Tylenol.

Other studies have found the same effect if Tylenol was given after a child got his vaccines. Although interestingly, other studies have found that giving Tylenol after vaccines does not affect antibody titers.

“Antibody titres to diphtheria and tetanus toxoids and pertussis bacteria of the placebo (n = 25) and acetaminophen (n = 34) groups did not differ significantly from each other. It is concluded that acetaminophen in a single dose schedule is ineffective in decreasing post-vaccination fever and other symptoms.”

Uhari et al on Effect of prophylactic acetaminophen administration on reaction to DTP vaccination

Giving Tylenol after the MMR vaccine is not associated with autism.
Giving Tylenol after the MMR vaccine is not associated with autism.

The only thing that this had to do with side effects though, is that the kids who got Tylenol had a little less fever.

Could giving Tylenol mask something like encephalitis, which some anti-vaccine folks think can be vaccine induced?

Nope. It typically can’t even keep someone from getting a febrile seizure.

What about the association of MMR, Tylenol and autism? Although one study did suggest that to be true, the study, a parental survey, was found to be “fatally flawed.”

Can I Give My Kids Tylenol When They Have Their Vaccines?

So, can you give your kids Tylenol when they get their vaccines?

The better question is, should you give your kids Tylenol either before or after they get their vaccines?

Have some Tylenol or Motrin on hand after your kids get their vaccinations, just in case they need a dose.
Have some Tylenol or Motrin on hand after your kids get their vaccinations, just in case they need a dose. Photo by Vincent Iannelli, MD

Notwithstanding the very small chance that giving Tylenol might cause decreased immunogenicity (lower antibody production) if you give it before your kids get their vaccines, since there is a good chance that they won’t have any pain or fever and won’t even need any Tylenol, then why give it?

Skip the “just in case” dose and wait and see if they even need it.

What about afterwards?

If your kids have pain or fever and are uncomfortable, then you should likely give them something for pain or fever control, such as an age appropriate dose of either acetaminophen or ibuprofen. Will that cause lower antibody production? Maybe. Will that mean that their vaccines won’t work. That’s doubtful. It certainly won’t lead to increased side effects though, unless they a reaction to the dose of Tylenol itself.

Should you give a pain or fever reducer after a vaccine “just in case?” Again, there is a good chance that your kids might not need it, so it is likely better to wait and see if they do, instead of giving a dose automatically after their shots.

There is even some evidence that giving acetaminophen or ibuprofen before vaccines, or as a routine dose right after, especially with booster shots, doesn’t really prevent side effects that well anyway. They work better if given on an as needed basis instead, and these kinds of doses are less likely to be associated with decreased antibody production.

What to Know About Tylenol and Vaccines

Giving a pain or fever reducer either before or after your child’s vaccinations likely won’t affect how it works, but since it often isn’t necessary, it is likely best to only given one, like Tylenol or Motrin, if it is really needed.

More on Tylenol and Vaccines

Can MMR Shedding Start a Measles Outbreak?

Have you ever noticed that any time that there is a new outbreak of measles, folks tend to ask the same basic questions.

How did the outbreak start?

Why weren’t they vaccinated?

Was it from shedding?

Wait, what?

Shedding??? Really?

Can MMR Shedding Start a Measles Outbreak?

It seems that the idea that the MMR vaccine sheds and can lead to measles outbreaks is one of those anti-vaccine myths that just won’t go away.

It comes back with each new measles outbreak.

The myth that MMR shedding leads to measles outbreaks is commonly spread on Facebook, like this discussion on a recent outbreak at a Kansas City daycare center.
The myth that MMR shedding leads to measles outbreaks is commonly spread on Facebook, like this discussion on a recent outbreak at a Kansas City daycare center.

While the oral polio vaccine is indeed associated with shedding and vaccine associated disease, that doesn’t happen with MMR. Experts don’t even recommend any restrictions for use of the MMR vaccine for household contacts of people who are immunosuppressed. And yes, your kids can even visit a cancer patient if they just had their MMR, as long as they don’t have RSV, the flu, or some other contagious disease.

What about the fact that a study once found measles virus RNA in the urine of of kids who had recently been vaccinated? Doesn’t that mean that they were shedding the vaccine virus?

No. It doesn’t.

To be considered shedding, those measles virus RNA particles in their urine would have to be contagious. Now, measles is spread by respiratory secretions. So how are measles virus RNA particles in urine going to become airborne and get someone else sick?

They don’t.

Another Facebook post about MMR and shedding.
Most measles outbreaks in daycare centers have been started by an unvaccinated child or worker who traveled out of the country.

But what about that case in Canada? Anti-vaccine folks like to bring this up when they talk about shedding. In 2013, there was a case of vaccine-associated measles. That proves that the vaccine sheds, right?

Absolutely not!

“Of note, only one case report of transmission from vaccine-associated measles has been identified.”

Murti et al. on Case of vaccine-associated measles five weeks post-immunisation, British Columbia, Canada, October 2013

That child got measles about 5 weeks after she was vaccinated in the middle of a measles outbreak. Because she had no links to the other cases and she tested positive for vaccine-strain measles, it is thought that she had MMR vaccine-associated measles, which is extremely rare.

Shedding Light on Measles Outbreaks in Daycare

MMR shedding is not causing outbreaks of measles – or rubella and mumps, for that matter.

If shedding from the MMR, by any method, got kids sick, then why aren’t there even more cases of measles?

Daycare centers everywhere have a mix of infants and toddlers, including some who are intentionally unvaccinated, those who are too young to get their first MMR, and those who are just getting vaccinated.

When a case of measles does pop up though, it isn’t because of shedding, it is typically because someone who wasn’t vaccinated traveled out of the country, got measles, and brought it back home, exposing others.

What to Know About MMR and Shedding

Measles outbreaks are not caused by shedding from the MMR vaccine.

More on the MMR and Shedding

Recommendations for Reporting on Measles Outbreaks

Unfortunately, we hear news reports about measles outbreaks a lot more than we should.

We don’t get much information in many of those news reports though…

Anatomy of a Measles Outbreak Report

The big reason we don’t get a lot of information in those news reports is that many of them are simply repeating health department press releases.

A news release from the Texas Department of State Health Services.
A news release from the Texas Department of State Health Services.

Those press releases often leave a lot of important information out though.

Although that information might not be available yet, if you are a journalist covering a measles outbreak, instead of simply repeating the health department news release, you might call the local or state health department and ask a few questions:

  • Where did the person get measles? Most cases these days are imported – an unvaccinated person travels out of the country and returns home with measles, starting an outbreak. If they didn’t recently travel out of the country, then there’s a problem – where did they get measles? Unless there is already an ongoing outbreak in the area, then that means someone else in the area has measles that we don’t know about.
  • Where did the person go while they were still contagious and might have exposed others?
  • Hold old are they and were they vaccinated?

Do we have a right to this information? While the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) protects a person’s medical information, those rules don’t necessarily always apply in an emergency or outbreak situation. Plus, you are still getting de-identified information.

“Health care providers may share patient information with anyone as necessary to prevent or lessen a serious and imminent threat to the health and safety of a person or the public.”

HHS on HIPAA Privacy in Emergency Situations

How is knowing someone’s vaccination status going to be helpful? Unvaccinated folks tend to cluster together, so knowing the person is unvaccinated, especially an unvaccinated child, might indicate that many more people have been exposed. But then, most measles outbreaks are started by someone who is unvaccinated…

Important Points for Covering Measles Outbreaks

An infant hospitalized during a measles outbreak in the Philippines in which 110 people died.
The symptoms of measles include a high fever, cough, runny nose, and red, watery eyes. The rash doesn’t start until 3-5 days later, as the fever continues. Photo by Jim Goodson, M.P.H.

In addition of covering the basics about the person with measles, there are other important points to cover, especially that measles is a vaccine-preventable disease!

Two doses of the MMR vaccine offers great protection against measles, and is especially important if you are unvaccinated and are going to travel out of the country. Even infants as young as six months old should get an MMR before international travel.

While most people hopefully know all that, they may not know:

  • the vaccination rates in your area schools
  • the non-medical vaccine exemption rates in your area schools
  • the number of measles cases in your area and in your state over the past few years
  • that measles is very costly to contain
  • that the incubation period for measles is 10 to 21 days after you were exposed, so it can take that long before you show symptoms
  • that they should warn their doctor or hospital before getting evaluated so that they can make sure you don’t expose other people, as measles is very, very contagious
  • that the quarantine period for unvaccinated people who have been exposed to someone with measles is typically up to 21 days after their last possible contact
  • that a dose of MMR within three days of exposure can help prevent your child from getting measles if they aren’t already fully vaccinated
Vaccine preventable diseases are just a plane ride away.
Vaccine preventable diseases are just a plane ride away.

You should also consider interviewing and quoting a local pediatrician and reinforcing the facts that vaccines work and they are safe.

And obviously, as we see with these outbreaks, vaccines are necessary.

You should avoid also false balance in your reporting.

You should fully cover each outbreak in your area, as they help remind people to get vaccinated and protected.

What to Know About Reporting on Measles Outbreaks

Journalists can help reduce the size of measles outbreaks with good reporting that vaccines work and that they are safe and necessary and by reminding folks to get vaccinated and protected.

More on Recommendations for Reporting on Measles Outbreaks

Rash After the MMR – Is This Normal?

It is not uncommon to get a rash after your child gets their MMR vaccine.

In fact, about 1 in 20 people get a rash after their first dose of MMR.

It typically shows up about 6 to 14 days after the dose.

Fortunately, it doesn’t mean that your child has full-blown measles as some people suspect.

Rash After the MMR

So why do some kids get a rash after their MMR?

It depends on which rash they have.

While there is one classic MMR rash that we think about, there are actually a few other rashes that can occur even more rarely, including:

  • hives – an allergic reaction to the vaccine or one of it’s components
  • petechia and/or purpura – caused by temporary thrombocytopenia (low platelet count) in about one out of every 30,000 to 40,000 doses of vaccine given

And then there is the rash that up to 5% or people get about 7 to 10 days after their dose of MMR – a mild vaccine reaction that goes away on its own without treatment.

Most importantly, the presence of this measles-like rash does not mean that your child has actually gotten measles from the vaccine.

How do we know?

For one thing, the MMR vaccine is made with an attenuated or weakened form of the measles virus, so it can’t actually cause full-blown measles, unless maybe a child has a severe immune system problem.

Also, there is no viremia after vaccination.

“There are no reports of isolation of vaccine virus from blood in normal humans.”

Plotkin’s Vaccines

It is also important to note that “person-to-person transmission of vaccine virus has never been documented.”

And kids who get a rash after their MMR vaccine are not considered to be contagious. At most, you would expect them to shed the weakened vaccine virus, but they don’t.

What’s causing this measles-like rash then?

Like the fever, it is thought to be a delayed immune response to the live, attenuated virus in the vaccine.

When the Rash Really is Measles

Are there any situations in which a child gets a rash after their MMR vaccine and it could really be measles?

Sure.

An infant hospitalized during a measles outbreak in the Philippines in which 110 people died.
An infant with wild type measles hospitalized during a measles outbreak in the Philippines in which 110 people died. Photo by Jim Goodson, M.P.H.

Your child could have been exposed to wild type measles right around the time they got vaccinated, and then went on to develop regular measles.

While getting a measles vaccine within 72 hours of exposure (post-exposure prophylaxis) can reduce your chance of getting measles, it isn’t a perfect strategy.

Or your child could have been vaccinated and been one of the few people for whom the vaccine failed to work. So their rash, again, would be from a wild type strain of measles that they were exposed to and not from the shot.

Can you tell the difference if someone has measles from the vaccine or from a wild type strain?

Sure.

“During outbreaks, measles vaccine is administered to help control the outbreak, and in these situations, vaccine reactions may be mistakenly classified as measles cases.”

CDC on Genetic Analysis of Measles Viruses

You just have to test the measles strain to see if it is the wild type virus or a vaccine strain.

Does It Matter If It Is the MMR Vaccine or Measles?

About now, you are probably wondering why it matters knowing if a child’s rash is caused by measles or the MMR vaccine, right?

For one thing, if a parent thinks a vaccine gave their child measles, then they might not want to get vaccinated again. They will especially think twice about getting another MMR.

Also, if a child really does have full-blown, wild type measles and you simply blame their MMR vaccine, then you might miss someone else in the community that exposed the child to measles. And that’s why some outbreaks are hard to stop.

Lastly, if you simply blame the vaccine, you might miss something else that is causing the child to be sick.

Need an example?

During the 2010 measles outbreaks in Canada, a 15-month-old develop a rash, fever, and other symptoms 12 days after getting their MMR vaccine. Did the have measles, a vaccine reaction, or something else?

Turns out that he had scarlet fever.

The child tested positive for Streptococcus pyogenes (group A streptococcus), the bacteria that causes strep throat and scarlet fever. He also tested positive for vaccine strain measles. He did not have the wild strain of measles, and in fact, did not have measles at all.

Again, he had scarlet fever and it was just a coincidence that he had recently received an MMR vaccine.

But isn’t there another case report from Canada that does prove that you can get full-blown measles from the MMR vaccine? While there is such a case report, it is hardly proof of anything.

“It is possible that the case’s symptoms were not measles-vaccine-related but an inter-current illness confounding the presentation.”

Murti et al on Case of vaccine-associated measles five weeks post-immunisation, British Columbia, Canada, October 2013

The problem with the case?

For one thing, the child already had high levels of IgG antibodies at the time he had the rash, which developed 37 days after he got his vaccine.

“The two-fold rise between acute and convalescent measles-specific IgG suggests the vaccine-mediated immune response had been underway prior to the onset of symptoms.”

Murti et al on Case of vaccine-associated measles five weeks post-immunisation, British Columbia, Canada, October 2013

This was neither a typical reaction nor a typical case. And it very well might not have been measles. If it was, it was a very rare exception to the rule that rashes after the MMR vaccine aren’t full-blown measles.

What to Know About Rashes After the MMR Vaccine

The rash that your child can get after their MMR vaccine is not a sign that they have developed full-blown measles, instead, it is a mild vaccine reaction that will quickly go away without any treatment.

More on Rashes After the MMR Vaccine