Childhood vaccinations

Family, Education, Health and Pets
1
Thank you Belgianmom. Great post.

Personally I wonder how many of the parents who rushed to get CoVd vaccine for their 5-11 also got the chicken pox vaccine for them? Genuine question.

Anyone willing to answer and rationale?

Asking as surrounded by people who vaccinated children against CoVid but not chicken pox and I just don't get it...

2
Our son was never vaccinated for chicken pox, but we did get him vaccinated for Covid (although he ended up getting Covid immediately after the vaccine, so I guess the vaccine was unnecessary to some extent). I don't think we were ever even given the opportunity to vaccinate him for chicken pox, as he already got it at quite a young age. Now that I think about it, though, I wonder if vaccinating a child against chicken pox would prevent him or her from being able to get shingles later in life (no idea). I had shingles years ago and it was awful.

I'm not sure what your reasoning is behind your question, though. It doesn't make sense to me to try to compare Covid with chicken pox. Many children have been being admitted to the hospital with Covid in the US, for example. My close friend's six-year old grandson caught Covid last year and was unable to walk for a few weeks because of it causing severe inflammation in his joints. And her own daughter who is a teenager still suffers severe brain fog due to Long Covid.

3
We had our son vaccinated against Chicken Pox. One of my earliest memories is of suffering with said infection and it being beyond awful.

I didn't know there was a vaccine for this, and at work, asked a French colleague what he thought - he said that for what he considered non-dangerous illnesses, he preferred to have the immune system sort it out for his children. This guy was a trained chemist. Thought it interesting.

For the Covid vaccine in children, I think we will do this. Though we live in the countryside and it's easy to forget about the current situation sometimes, it doesn't make one immune. The wife and I are triple-jabbed, and I think it's the right thing to do.

4
Maybe he ought to stick to chemistry?

Since the vaccine came out, the number of adult and child deaths from chicken pox has fallen dramatically.

OK, it wasn't amazingly high anyway but surely a non-dangerous illness shouldn't kill you.

Pneumonia, infected blisters, encephalitis, multiple-organ failure are pretty serious effects of the varicella virus.

5
Myself, I would not take vaccine advice from a chemist.

Presumably, he did not know that chickenpox is very dangerous in pregnancy which illustrates the risk of asking the wrong people.

Researchers found was that kids who were vaccinated against chickenpox had a 78% lower risk of developing shingles.

6
The chicken pox vaccine is not part of the usual vaccination program in the UK. I think it’s only available on the NHS if there’s a person at risk in the household. Both my kids caught it quite young, so vaccination was not even a topic. I think that’s quite often the case with most kids, thus making the topic a moot discussion for most people.

7
That's the thing - it's so infectious that most children get it when they are young - and then they have immunity.

It can be serious disease for adults who never developed immunity or have lowered immune system.

8
I didn't take his advice, my son was vaccinated against it.

I was responding to the question about rationale about why to take it, I thought it was awful, others prefer a different approach.

9
It is interesting as a perfect example of the False Authority logical fallacy . Your colleague is not a biologist, nor a virologist, nor an immunologist, nor a vaccinologist, so his opinion doesn't really carry that much weight. I'm glad you didn't follow his advice.

I had chicken-pox as a child. Apart from a few scars, I made a full recovery. But I was very sick for a while. Of course catching the sickness doesn't protect you 100% against shingles.

10
I got it as a kid and my kids got it when they were very young too.

I remember one summer at a badi here by the Zürich lake, a lady turned up with one child who looked like she had some sort of rash, and when people asked her, the lady quite openly said it's chicken pox. Some minutes later the Badimaster came and told her to leave. He told her that while it's nice of her to offer to spread it to all the other children at the badi, there are some adults at the badi too and some pregnant women!

11
The vaccine is only 75% effective.

Again, like the COVID vaccine, many people are asked to take it to protect other people rather than to protect themselves - healthcare workers who never had chicken pox or siblings of a child with leukemia.

12
Yeah, exactly. I added that note as a point of interest, not intending to legitimise the view.

I also agree on the experience of having it. Awful.

13

Thank you.

I am not trying to compare CoVid with Chicken Pox as i by no means have the knowledge to do so.

I was baffled by people around me saying they are vaccinating children 5-11 against CoVid to "prevent them getting it as it's not pleasant" and yet same.prople have not vaccinated against chicken pox "as it builds the immune system" - I find this contradictory and was curious if others did the same as perhaps there is something I am not understanding.

Thank you to all who replied - did not want to hijack the thread.

14
Thinking back, I did take the strategy that my kids should just catch chicken pox naturally as it would build their immune system, all the while telling myself that if they don't get it by a certain age, they would get the vaccine (and they both caught chicken pox while in kindergarten).

Right now, I am on the fence when it comes to the Covid vaccine for kids. I think if they catch Covid, it will build their immune system and the risk of a bad Covid for them is low.

But there is a huge difference. When kids have chicken pox, they stay home and it is obvious that they are sick. With Covid, kids are the biggest trojan horses in the whole community, unknowingly spreading it amongst their friends, family ,etc.. This is why I decided to vaccinate my kids.

15
It's rather the opposite: shingles are a result of dormant chickenpox virus becoming active again. It's not something you catch as an adult, you get shingles because you had chicken pox as a child and the virus never left your body. Chicken pox is awful, but from what I've seen shingles are even worse. If I had kids I would absolutely have them vaccinated against chicken pox: spare them the agony of a terribly itchy and unpleasant childhood illness, and also protect them from having shingles in their adult years.

16
But vaccines also build the immune system, how do you think they work?

https://ec.europa.eu/research-and-in...ecific-disease

17
I got chicken pox vaccine to protect me later during pregnancy, but it didn't work. I had zero antibodies few months after second dose and got illness few years later (luckily, not during pregnancy).

18
Are people confusing the chicken pox vaccine with the shingles vaccine? Because they are two different things.

19
I had the chickenpox vaccine, that's for sure. I think that probably the dosage is too low for adults, as my friend also had zero antibodies after 2 doses.

There were rumours that people who got chicken pox vaccine and didn't have illness will be protected from shingles afterwards. As far as I understand it's not yet clear.

20
I didn't say they work differently.