Originally posted by F4guy
reply to post by FortAnthem
A harmless desease, huh? I guess that is only if you were not the parents of the approximately 105 people who died from it each year, or the
parents of the 11-12,000 who were hospitalized with severe cases each year. Until, that is, 1995 when the vaccination campaign began. Chicken pox,
caused by the varicella zoster virus, often results in pneumonia, encephalitis, and/or fatal liver damage. A 2012 study in the journal Pediatrics
found that pre-1995 chicken pox caused medical ecpenses of about 330 million dollars/year, and societal costs (lost work) of 1.5 billion
dollars/year.
Shingles is caused by the same viron, which lives forever in the body of someone who has had chicken pox. Shingles attacks mostly the elderly, who
were too old in 1995, when the vaccine was first licensed, to have been vaccinated. So, as opposed to the suggestion in the OP, the occurence of
shingles is caused not by the attenuated varicella zoster vaccine, but rather by the lack of a vaccine pre-1995.
It may sound a little callous but, those numbers seem pretty small compared with all the kids put at risk from even more vaccinations every year. The
105 who died (out of how many millions of Americans?) is puny and probably represents mostly the elderly and people with compromised immune systems.
Same goes for those hospitalized; 12,000 isn't that bad compared to the general population and more people die from the common cold and the flu every
year than that.
The medical expenses and lost work are probably more than made up for by the cost to vaccinate EVERY SINGLE CHILD IN THE US. That's a drain on the
pocketbooks of everyday Americans going straight into the pockets of big pharma every year. How many people had to miss work to take their kids to the
doctor or sit at home with them when they had an adverse reaction?
Why spend all that money on vaccinations that wear off right when the disease is most likely to cause the most damage and then end up leaving the
treated person with the likelyhood of getting shingles later on? If you read the article, it points out that vaccinated children become carriers for
shingles and can infect others like their parents, grandparents and any elderly person they happen to run into which is what is causing the epidemic
right now.
The old way of letting kids get the pox when they were small and best able to fight the disease seemed to work best. It gave them the antibodys to
become immune for the rest of their lives and a better resistance to shingles down the road. Now, the new vaccinations are probably leaving all of
America's children vulnerable to shingles when they get older.
Of course, Merck is ready to step up with a solution to that problem with a seperate vaccine for the shingles. Way to go guys; creeate a problem and
then step up with the solution. All in the name of squeezing a few more bucks out of the public.