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

Good one, Thomas.

Did anybody see an article a month or so ago about how ritualized skin scarring and tattoos provided a primitive kind of vaccination? I have a vague memory someone found evidence it was deliberately done, at least in part, as protection against certain infectious diseases. The visible marks proved the person was safe or had lived through it.

What's the latest word, Sozobe?

Now she's been through the wringer!@!

Let's not forget that chicken pox "survivors" can be re-infected. In the elderly (with weakening immune systems) the virus causes shingles--a very uncomfortable condition.

When I think of third world mothers who would probably prostitute themselves if that would insure their children immunity from childhood diseases....

Oops, how could I miss that one? You're not so bad either

Interesting article

Well, isn't that grand.

My parents were "non-vaxing" so I had to get my immunization by catching all the childhood diseases as we travelled from country to country.

I didn't mind, I always loved being sick as a kid, meant I could rest.

When I was a teen it was a pain (in school) because I had to sign papers saying I didn;t have an immunization record because it was against my religion (it wasn't, it was against my parents' crazy ass religion).

My little sisters nearly died from whooping cough back in the 50s. It's what made me a believer in getting vaccinated.

There is a whooping cough epidemic in the Lehigh Valley and one of the most prominent invalids is a local pediatrician whose childhood shots had elapsed.

Some people make it possible for us to have all the local color of a third world country.

Mind if I borrow that quote?

Eva--

Borrow by all means. You are very flattering.