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Once upon a time, we all got chicken pox as a child. Sometime, usually in grade school, it would sweep through the schools, infect all the kids (lucky parents having multiple children would have five speckled kids simultaneously) and that was the end of it. Of course there were those who had the natural immunity and never fell victim and even though chicken pox is theoretically a "one-time" event, there were those kids who had to outdo us all and get it twice. It was inconvenient, itchy, smelly (remember calamine lotion) and potentially scarring (grandma told you not to scratch, but you did, didn't you?). It was a rite of passage.
Then it became important to find a vaccination to prevent this childhood disease. Along with mumps, measles, whooping cough (and more) came along a vaccine to prevent a child from catching this disease. For some children, this is vitally important. An asthmatic child, treated with steroids, was very vulnerable to serious complications should chicken pox attack. Death could even result as steroids reduce the immunity to the point that chicken pox for a child like that was not a simple illness. And of course, there are other children who should not catch something like this: a child with cancer, a child who lives with an immuno-compromised family member or a child who is on immune suppression medications. A vaccine for these kids became a life maintaining necessity. Considering how virulently contagious chicken pox is, being one of the few air borne viruses, these kids need protection. After all, it is very true that you can walk into a room that a person with chicken pox was in several hours ago and catch it. There aren't many diseases that can boast of that kind of contagious ability. "Chickenpox is one of the most common childhood diseases. It is usually mild and not life-threatening to healthy children. The most obvious sign of chickenpox is a skin rash that develops on your child's scalp and body, then spreads to the face, arms, and legs over a period of 3 to 4 days. The rash forms between 250 to 500 itchy blisters that dry up into scabs 2 to 4 days later. School-age children often get a mild fever for 1 or 2 days before the rash appears." This is the statement as to what chicken pox is according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. They go on to say more. "Although chickenpox is usually mild, vaccinating all children at age 1 can prevent serious medical problems and reduce the costs related to the disease. Chickenpox can be expensive and inconvenient. Parents may have to miss work while their children are home from school or child care. In the average household, a child with chickenpox misses 8 or 9 days of school, and adult caretakers lose up to 2 days of work." So perhaps, the issue, at least with the AAP is not the seriousness of an illness but the fact that it is an economical issue for parents. Expensive and inconvenient? So is the vaccine safe? The AAP says it is. "Before becoming available, a chickenpox vaccine was tested in over 9,400 healthy children and over 1,600 adults in the United States. Since the chickenpox vaccine was licensed in 1995, several million doses of vaccine have been given to children in the United States. Studies continue to show the vaccine to be safe and effective." Go To Page: 1 2
The copyright of the article Chicken Pox - Another Vaccine and Another Potential Problem in Public Health Issues is owned by . Permission to republish Chicken Pox - Another Vaccine and Another Potential Problem in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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