The question of the day is, should measles vaccinations be mandatory or not? I can’t imagine anyone not getting their kid vaccinated. How many readers have actually had red measles? I have. It was a horrible disease and I will never forget having it. I especially remember the hallucinations I had during it. I was sick for a good 2 weeks and I remember having horrible dreams. I cannot specifically remember what those dreams were (Give me a break, I was only six!) but I remember having the dreams that also spilled over into day time dreams.
Some people weren’t as lucky as I was. Some kids who got measles also had complications like encephalitis, blindness and I guess a few died. Mumps was pretty miserable also. I had rubella also supposedly 3 times which I don’t think is possible. There were probably lots of diseases back in those days that mimicked German measles.
I vote for mandatory. No one wants their kid to have measles. It is one nasty disease. In fact, I can’t even discuss it with those who don’t want to vaccinate. Its like death penalty discussions. I just don’t do them.
I had measles as a child. What i remember most was how bad everyrhing tasted while i was sick.
Its a public health issue. I vote for mandatory.
I remember not being able to eat mustard for a long time after mumps but measles…making things taste bad..yea…vaguely I remember that. I don’t think I even ate. It might have been a spoonful here and there. Ice cream wasn’t even good.
Yes.
I had measles, mumps, and chicken pox all within the first two years of starting elementary school followed three years later by whooping cough. I think vaccines should be mandatory for public school children. Doctors and parents may decide not to vaccinate in rare circumstances given a particular child’s medical condition but the general school population should be protected.
Thumbs up. I totally agree. I also had whooping cough. I was a very young baby when I had it. Expect asthma to follow at some point if you had a parent with asthma. (this pronouncement according to my son’s allergist.)
My daughter had the measles the year before the vaccine became available.
She had never been as sick as was then. Really worried about her.
Fortunately, no after shocks. Luckily, her two younger siblings did not catch it
and they were vaccinated later.
My brother had polio. Every fall, parents were scared that their child would
get sick with that horrible illness. Seemed like the cases always started in the fall.
Nobody knew what caused it. One family’s three children were hit; one ended up
in an iron lung, the other two in wheelchairs.
VACCINATE!!!
I very much agree with you. You are lucky you didn’t get polio. Did your brother fully recover without any debilitating effects?
I knew many kids who had had polio. A couple died. Some just were crippled by it.
I thought that they WERE mandatory.
I know that you can’t get into school without the MMR.
There are religious exemptions. There are also conscientious objectors or something…wrong term but that is the gist of it.
@Moon-howler
He was paralyzed in a wide belt around his torso and was fortunate
enough to end up with “just” a slightly crooked spine.
Poor child.
In those days, he was lucky. I remember seeing pictures of the iron lungs and being terrified.
We want inoculation, not necessarily vaccination. If someone doesn’t want to be vaccinated but has no medical reason not to then they should be quarantined and given the disease to become naturally immune. I’d bet if the choice was vaccination or the disease there would be almost no anti-vaxxers. Anti-vax logic only works when they can rely on herd immunity.
I like that we have insurance that will pay the medical cost of anyone who is injured by a vaccine. I know it is socialism, but it seems like the fair way to deal with tiny probabilities but huge costs to those who “win” the lottery.
Not sure I know the difference in inoculation and vaccination. I thought I did. Isn’t an inoculation just a shot?
When I was a kid I went through all sorts of malingering so I didn’t have to get a polio shot.