varicella
Chickenpox shot clinics in our schools?!?!
Okay, I really thought I would be finished expressing my concerns about the new mandate in Alaska that requires all school-aged children to have a chickenpox vaccine. Honestly, I was going to be finished. But then the cutesy little school newsletter comes home yesterday and announced that my children’s school will be hosting a free chickenpox shot clinic during school next month. Oh…My…God! So, I am once again compelled to discuss my concerns about this mandate and this strategy to meet the mandate.
I understand the schools are trying to make this as easy as possible for those who are comfortable with the vaccine and I can respect that. However, my concern is that parents really aren’t being informed as fully as they should be about the disease, the vaccine and the possible side effects. What happens if a child suffers an immediate and severe reaction to this vaccine being administered at school without their parents around? Who is going to document just what occurred and when? Why should parents feel pressured to allow medical services to be provided to their elementary aged-children when they are not present?
Let’s talk about chickenpox. I am baffled as to the sudden concern about children NOT getting the chickenpox when it used to be that parents exposed their children so they WOULD get the disease and thus create their own natural immunity to it. Chickenpox is rarely serious and mostly just inconvenient. An antiviral medication can be administered to treat chickenpox so that the disease runs a very mild course. Now, let’s talk about the vaccine. It contains the live virus, sugar, saline, gelatin, MSG, potassium, human DNA cells, EDTA, neomycin, and cow fetus serum. Animal and human tissue that we hope to Hell has been screened for any infectious disease. In the late 50’s and early 60’s some of the monkey tissue used for the production of the polio vaccine contained the SV-40 virus which is known to cause certain types of tumors and cancer. Let’s hope the screening of the tissues used today is effectively catching our most serious viruses, such as Mad Cow Disease.
If you chose to vaccinate for chickenpox I would encourage you to accompany your child to your pediatrician. Make sure they are healthy and not fighting any bugs. Read all the paperwork and witness the administering of the shot. You should spend time with your child afterwards to make sure they aren’t having some kind of reaction. If they do have a reaction, you need to document it, get your child back to your doctor and make sure they are treated immediately. You need to be sure the reaction is reported to VAERS which is the CDC database that tracks reactions to vaccines so they can be further studied.
Vaccinating for the sake of convenience troubles me. But, what troubles me even more is systems put into place that allow for drive-by or mass vaccinations of children while their parents are absent. Unfortunately, some families will pay much too high of a price for such convenience.
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National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC)
