My "Non-vaxing" Friend's Kid Has the Mumps. :(

I agree.

How sad. The threat of autism from vaccinations comes from the thimerosol that is used as a preservative in multi-dose vials. Asking for single dose vials solves that problem.

http://www.fda.gov/cber/vaccine/thimerosal.htm

And Thimerosal has been phased out, too.

I did INTENSIVE research while deciding on vaccinations for the sozlet (I think some current A2Kers helped me with that), and was just amazed at how much misinformation has been uncritically accepted by otherwise intelligent people. Sigh.

Me, too. I hope your friend's child recovers quickly and her parents rethink their stance.

That's so great that you saved yourselves any worry by serendipitously not being at your non-vaxed friends' party. Sometimes things just work out right.

I have a vague recollection of a community around here that has a lot of unvaccinated kids... can't remember which one, maybe Vashon Island?

Something that is tangential to this... adults need to revaccinated for a few things. Mr.P stepped on a nail and just had a tetanus shot last week. It's real important to stay up-to-date on that one.

Re: My "Non-vaxing" Friend's Kid Has the Mumps. :

Me too. While it may well be true that vaccinating your child isn't worth the potential side effects, that's only true because other people do vaccinate their children, therby keeping your own child unexposed to the disease. Therefore, I think no better of parents who don't vaccinate their children than I think of fare dodgers, or people who let their dogs **** into other people's gardens. They may serve their self-interest well, but they let society pay the bill. Like you, I also prefer to keep the government out of it. But I believe these people deserve to be shunned by their peers in the coldest way possible.

I'd be curious to hear, Soz, whether the kid's illness has changed its parents' opinion of vaccinations. Do they still think the merits of vaccinations aren't worth the risks? Or is this something you wouldn't ask them because you don't like I-told-you-so-s?

And THAT soz, is the trouble with this entire country of purposefully ignorant lazy people. It is why your friends child has the measles it is why our country is sick with the Bush virus it is why this country is sick with intolerance and ridden with antiquated cliched thinking.

I apologize for politicizing this subject, but you left it hanging out there so far I had to.

I hope your friends childs' measles runs its course normally and the child is out playing again soon, and am glad the sozlet is vaccinated, and glad you didn't go to the party. Adult measles is nothing to screw around with.

no the country is sick with the Bush virus because of crooked politics with a lil help for george at the polls but I agree if you do your research you see the very very small risks of vax outweigh not doing so.

crooked politics wouldn't go on if the population didn't allow it to and paid attention to what was happening while insisting on accountability. that's hard work though.

I will stop digresssing now. Sorry.

No, it's a valid parallel, I think. Too many people just don't want to bother with getting all of (or a lot of) the info and making up their own minds. They just go with what "feels right."

Thomas, I don't know yet about whether their minds have changed. From the initial conversation, I'd say "no". We'll see, though.

haha I agree it's a valid point but it's hard to say that when everyone in politics is full of it so your choice is lier and lier.....you can't exactly change what politics does to ppl. anyway ppl who don't vax are nuts. Oh and about polatitions......they are like diapers, full of **** and need to be changed often. lol a quote from my wifes grandad...respect the guy alot he faught in 3 of our major wars.

with any luck, the kid's dad was also unvaccinated - will get mumps, and be unable to propogate further. those non-vaccinators infuriate me.

What are the school laws in your state? Most states require a double armful of immunization shots before the kid enters kindergarten.

I'm with eBeth on wishing that the Moppet with Mumps share with his caring daddy. Not only will this put daddy out of the gene pool, but swollen testicles are extremely painful.

I don't a lot of patience with self-righteous types who know instinctively and without research that the medical establishment must be wrong. Still, I remember, that George Bernard Shaw came out strongly against smallpox vacinations, proving that someone can be wrong headed on a single topic but otherwise intellectually gifted.

Lord, what fools these mortals be.

That community near Seattle, sozobe, is Vashon Island. There was an article on this subject in the NY Times a while back. Some of these folks, for what they deem appropriate counter-cultural reasons, aren't vaccinating their kids.

Now don't get me wrong, I'm all for the counter culture. But these people are nuts and endangering their kids and other people's kids. Whooping cough is on the increase in the community.

One anecdote had to do with a girl who, some years ago, stepped on a nail and developed tetanus. Her mother ignored it until her leg swelled to an alarming degree. Then took the kid to the doctor and saved her. Now the girl is a grown woman herself and has her own kid. Guess what? No vaccinations for her kid, either. And this is no urban legend: The two women were interviewed in the article...

Noddy, they homeschool. So no school laws apply, evidently. Homeschooling is not completely evil, I understand there is a lot to recommend it, but in their circumstances the things that annoy me about their decision not to vaccinate also annoy me about their decision to homeschool.

The caring Daddy grew up in New Zealand and is not sure whether he had mumps as a kid, almost certain he wasn't immunized. (His sister came down with mumps as an adult, when she moved to London.) He has two daughters, one of whom has it and since the other isn't immunized, the other one will presumably get it. He talked to E.G. about it and then went off on a plane trip, merrily exposing several plane loads of passengers to the mumps germs. Double grr. So we don't know the latest, just that older girl came down with it a couple of days ago. What's amazing, to me, is that he is a physicist which you would think would imply a certain level of intelligence...? Thomas can set me straight.

D'Art, yes, I do think that was the article I had in mind.

as hamburger often points out, intelligence doesn't mean smart.

May the free-thinking, naturally oriented physicist develop a swollen testicle far from home, among strangers. When he returns to the bosom of his loving family, may his second testicle swell.

This summer I had the pleasure of working with several home-schooled kids at the recreation of a PA Dutch 18th century farm. By fortunate happenstance local home-schooling parents looking for a bit of structure with projects hooked up with the Quiet Valley folks.

I considered home schooling my own sons--particularly the dislexic geek who was bullied unmercifully.

I have also met a number of narrow minded, proudly anti-intellectual people who home school their children as a demonstration of personal power.

At least both girls have mumps--and the mumps is over and done with.

I remember as a child in the l940's being taken with my to a German Measle party so that we would have measles over and done with and not risk contracting the disease during pregnancy.

When I came home from kindergarten with mumps I was encouraged to suck the first layers of lollipops and then give them to my brother so that he could accomplish mumps in the flower of his youth rather than in the anguish of age.

Oy.

Had lunch today with friends, one of whom's mother-in-law has whooping cough (apparently she [the mother-in-law] had had it as a child, hence no vaccine). The woman is 88. Evidently, it could take a year before she is better.

88!

There is a great-grandson, 2 years old. Presumably, he's been exposed to whooping cough. I suspect he's been vaccinated, but who knows?

The bottom line is, all of those lovely childhood diseases from years ago are not magically gone. Not vaccinating against them is to deny reality.

I'd be happy to, but I don't see the contradiction with your story. Physicists, see, are immortal and invincible, meaning that mumps can only happen to other people. Given that other people's health isn't worth protecting, infecting several plainfuls of travellers is a perfectly intelligent thing to do -- so what's your problem here? You almost sound as if you find such an attitude condescending or something!

Thomas, I think I love you! :wink: