Paranoia, thy name is Q

[qthewetsprocket]

So, we're having ourselves a delightful little measles outbreak round these partsEveryone wishing to smack the living daylights out of the tinfoil-hat-wearing idiots who think vaccines are a government conspiracy to make your child gay/autistic/ADD/Justin Bieber fans, form an orderly queue. Behind me

Comments

[crossbow1]

My doctor just gave me an MMR booster this past year, so after reading your post I went to look up how often adults are supposed to have it. Turns out, unless they work in certain fields, they're not. Maybe they did it because I work with foreigners? I just went in for a flu shot and they wanted to give me MMR too. Maybe because they don't have my childhood records, but they didn't ask, and I know I was vaccinated as a kid. My mom is a nurse and I have my smallpox scar. I remember my booster shots.

I've never gotten the flu in a year I've had a flu shot, but I just read that healthy adults only have a 4% chance of getting the flu in the first place so that's not as impressive as I thought. But I do live with someone with a shitty immune system and severe asthma, so it's best if I don't bring any bugs home.

PS. The Meningococcal vaccine wasn't around until 1978 and Hep B in 1981, so you probably didn't have those. Here Hep B is required for adults.

[brewsternorth]

*nods* My immune system is pretty robust, but my fellow householders are susceptible to complications if I bring bugs home, so I do get the flu jab where it's made available.

Could be that your booster is to do with your work, depending upon the nationality of the foreigners you work with.

[crossbow1]

Well, it's a volunteer tutoring job, and I can't remember if I even told my doctor about it or not.My students are Somali refugees. I doubt they have great vaccination records, so I don't want to transmit anything to them. I remember what happened when there was a chicken pox outbreak among the foreign students at my college - everyone who got it had to be hospitalized.

[qthewetsprocket]

But I do live with someone with a shitty immune system and severe asthma, so it's best if I don't bring any bugs home.

See, this is the kind of consideration I wish the anti-vaccine nutjobs had more of: awareness of all our responsibility to herd immunity.

Re: the MC and Hep B vax - ah, that's probably why then. Off to the doctor's office with me.

I remember getting a jab when I was about two or three. No idea which shot it was. The nurse asked me if I was going to be brave, and I promised I would be. Then I bawled anyway when she took the needle out.

[brewsternorth]

Yipes.

I guess a doctor's visit *is* due, just to be sure. Hope your medico is awesome about it.

It's sort of weird for me in that in order to get my immigration forms processed I had to undergo all sorts of vaccinations (in some cases repeats of ones I'd already had), whereas I don't know if there are compulsory vaccination programs in the US for US residents...

[qthewetsprocket]

There aren't. Annoyingly enough. Well, there are, but they've got no teeth whatsoever - technically, you're required to have certain vax to attend public school, but paranoid parents just home school their kids instead. Also certain jobs require certain shots, but if people don't want the jabs they either find a doctor to lie for them or they just find a different job.

I remember seeing the Truffaut film Small Change where there's a scene of the schoolkids lining up for their jabs - it was like picture day or something. And I thought how much easier that would be, just to have your jabs at school so if your parents were clueless or delusional or lazy about it, then you could get them anyway. Alas, such widespread health care for each and every citizen is patently un-American.