This article seems to be indicating I should get an MMR booster. Is there any harm to this?
3
There is a potential for harm with any pharmaceutical product. Read the vaccine insert to find out more. https://www.merck.com/product/usa/pi_circulars/m/mmr_ii/mmr_ii_pi.pdf
I would like to point out an error in this article in the quote from Dr Joseph Lewnard. who says outbreaks of measles, unlike mumps, appears only in unvaccinated pockets. This is incorrect.
Dr. Richard G Mathias reported on "The role of secondary vaccine failures in measles outbreaks." AJ Pub Health 1989. He says:"We conclude that secondary vaccine failures occur and that while primary failures account for most cases, secondary vaccine failures contribute to the occurrence of measles cases in an epidemic. "
Dr Benjamin Nkowane, in 1987 reported a Measles outbreak in a school population with a 98% vaccination rate. Almost half the measles cases were due to "vaccine failure" thought to be due to either inactive vaccine or inadequate host response.
Dr Bruce Edmonson reported on"Mild Measles and Secondary Vaccine Failure During a Sustained Outbreak in a Highly Vaccinated Population." in JAMA 1990. An outbreak of measles involved 36 of 37 unvaccinated school children and also 29 of 198 vaccinated children. The authors noted that some of the cases were due to secondary vaccine failure which is the result of waning immunity over time. However these cases were difficult to identify and "may lead to underreporting of measles cases and result in overestimation of vaccine efficacy in highly vaccinated populations." quote from Dr. Edmonson. For more see: http://jeffreydachmd.com/?s=measles&submit=Search
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I have commented from time to time on the one data point re measles immunity who I knew personally when the NYT has run measles vaccine articles. My maternal grandmother had measles at least 3 times while I was growing up (1948 onward) but was not similarly affected by other "childdhood diseases". She was a walking advertisement for the need for herd immunity. My understanding is that this was an uncommon but not unknown and not well studied condition. It seems unlikely that it affected over 10% of the vaccinated children in a representative sample of the US population, but the number of unvaccinated children, 37 out of 235, over 12%, seems high for a vaccine compliant population. Could many of them come from the same northern Swiss ethnic groups that predominated in Grandma's heritage? Prominent would be Dunkards, Amish and Mennonite people.
Those articles were written when only one dose of measles vaccine was recommended. About 5% of people don’t become immune after one dose (primary failure), which is why a second dose was recommended.
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Does the immunity acquired from getting mumps (pre vaccine development) wane also? I had it in 1945.
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from the article
"The mumps resurgence has been largely in people 18 to 29, most of whom received the recommended two shots in early childhood, and not in older people who gained immunity through natural infection before the vaccine was developed."
The article doesn't say it explicitly, but the implication is that the immunity acquired via infection is longer lasting than that received from the vaccine.
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Yes, that’s correct. Immunity from disease is more durable than immunity from vaccine.
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Why does this article leave out the fact that Merck is being sued for falsifying efficacy data for the mumps component of the MMR vaccine? The mumps component is ineffective, and that’s why vaccinated individuals are spreading mumps. A third shot won’t solve the problem. http://m.huffingtonpost.ca/lawrence-solomon/merck-whistleblowers_b_58819...
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There is a currently a federal whistleblower lawsuit by two former Merck bench scientists in which they allege they were pressured to improve the results of the mumps vaccine when it wasn't performing. They were asked to spike it with rabbit blood.
Why isn't this mentioned as possible reason for the mumps resurgence?
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I ask the same question. The case is active and we should be hearing more about it soon. To add a booster shot would just be feeding the beast at the expense of patients’ health.
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There's a Bunnicula joke in here somewhere. Help me find it.
4
Before the vaccine mumps was a childhood illness. Now we are seeing mumps in an older population due to waning immunity. How many booster shots will ultimately be required? Is the mumps shot a boon or a burden to public health?
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I had my MMR immunity checked before I studied abroad back in college. Turns out I needed another dose of the vaccine, my antibody count was too low. Doctors should definitely start offering a booster in young adulthood.
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Was the vaccine they received different from the MMR (measles, mumps, and rubella) vaccine that was given to my generation?
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I think we got a weakened live virus, while today it's just a piece of the virus and not the whole thing. Not sure though, anyone else have better data?
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Mumps vaccine uses live attenuated virus and is made the same way it always has been.
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