Just a vent...

Jo wrote:

I am copying an article here which includes references to several studies.

This article has so many problems I hardly know where to begin.

Admittedly, we mommies and daddies were not caught in the mainstream
with this somewhat rebellious act. Today's conventional wisdom says to
go with the shot, which many parents do "to be on the safe side." But we
at the party were doing what we felt was safest, after weeding through
the propaganda and rhetoric about America 's latest "Red Scare": the
deadly scourge of chickenpox panic.

This is just propaganda rhetoric.

Varivax, the varicella vaccine manufactured by Merck, was approved by
the FDA in 1995.

That right there refutes your statement that "adults" are now getting
chickenpox.

Two years after vaccine licensure, in the 14 states that maintained
continuous reporting of varicella, the incidence remained completely
unchanged, at 107.0 cases per 100,000 population. (The national
incidence, however, was reported by the CDC as dropping to 36.9. 4 )

Two years after licensure...that hardly means anything. We're now
-eleven- years after licensure.

While the CDC estimates the vaccine to be 86 percent effective in
children, a 2001 CDC study showed that that effectiveness might actually
be as low as 40 percent. 5 But authorities at Maryland's Takoma Park
Elementary School might quarrel even with that. There, reportedly, 12 of
the 16 cases of a recent chickenpox outbreak involved children who had
already been vaccinated. 6

Well. 86% is not a wonderful effectiveness rate, but the other 14% of
children get less severe cases of chickenpox when they do happen.
This one school is proof of nothing, because if you randomly drop a
bunch of dots all over the floor, some of them will randomly bunch
together.

It began with a child who had
been vaccinated, contradicting the theory that "breakthrough"
cases-i.e., children who develop true chickenpox despite having been
vaccinated-are not contagious.

I've never heard that theory, and the research I've seen doesn't claim it.

Studies from Cedars-Sinai Medical Center also refute the idea that vaccine-borne varicella is not contagious. 8-10

Where is the statement that says it's never contagious? Because the
information I've read says this:

Transmission
Post-marketing experience suggests that transmission of vaccine virus
may occur rarely
between healthy vaccines who develop a varicella-like rash and healthy
susceptible contacts.
Transmission of vaccine virus from vaccines without a varicella-like
rash has been reported but
has not been confirmed.
Therefore, vaccine recipients should attempt to avoid, whenever
possible, close association
with susceptible high-risk individuals for up to six weeks. In
circumstances where contact with
high-risk individuals is unavoidable, the potential risk of
transmission of vaccine virus should be
weighed against the risk of acquiring and transmitting natural
varicella virus.

Nor, perhaps, is the vaccine as safe as advertised. A 2000 article in
the Journal of the American Medical Association disclosed a wealth of
reports made by doctors and parents to the Vaccine Adverse Event
Reporting System (VAERS). "This FDA report confirms our concern that the
chickenpox vaccine may be more reactive than anticipated in individuals
with both known and unknown biological high risk factors," said Barbara
Loe Fisher, president of the National Vaccine Information Center (NVIC). 11

The problem with VAERS is that it both over- and under- reports. ANY
illness a child might have after a vaccine is reportable to VAERS.
That doesn't mean the vaccine caused it.

Allowing for underreporting, the authors estimated that 4 percent of
vaccine-induced adverse reactions

IOW, they made these numbers up and words backwards from a
pre-determined conclusion.

(about 1 in 33,000 doses) were
serious, resulting in shock, convulsions, encephalitis,
thrombocytopenia, and 14 deaths. The report adds 17 adverse events to
the manufacturer's product label, including secondary bacterial
infections (cellulitis), secondary transmission (infection of close
contacts), and Guillain-Barré syndrome.

For an actual study about effectiveness, side effect, and etc of
Varivax in clinical trials, try this:
http://64.233.167.104/search?q=cache...ient=firefox-a

"This vaccine should not be mandated," said Fisher. "There are too many
questions about the true adverse event and efficacy profile of this
relatively new live virus vaccine." 12 Fisher's concerns are not
theoretical. Her son was left with multiple learning disabilities and
attention deficit disorder after a severe reaction to a DPT shot.

Wow, let's try to question the effectiveness of Varivax, using a scare
tactic by someone who supposedly was damaged by an unrelated vaccine
that isn't even in use any more! And for which the causality from
that shot to those problems is extremely suspect.

But, some vaccine critics say, the wild version has its advantages.
Allegedly, it produces much higher antibody levels than the vaccine,
making individuals less prone to developing shingles, the adult version
of chickenpox.

Herpes Zoster
Overall, 9454 healthy children (12 months to 12 years of age) and 1648
adolescents and
adults (13 years of age and older) have been vaccinated with Oka/Merck
live attenuated varicella
vaccine in clinical trials. Eight cases of herpes zoster have been
reported in children during 42,556
person years of follow-up in clinical trials, resulting in a
calculated incidence of at least 18.8 cases
per 100,000 person years. The completeness of this reporting has not
been determined. One
case of herpes zoster has been reported in the adolescent and adult
age group during 5410
person years of follow-up in clinical trials resulting in a calculated
incidence of 18.5 cases per
100,000 person years.
5
All nine cases were mild and without sequelae. Two cultures (one child
and one adult)
obtained from vesicles were positive for wild-type varicella zoster
virus as confirmed by restriction
endonuclease analysis.
5,17
The long-term effect of VARIVAX on the incidence of herpes zoster,
particularly in those vaccines exposed to natural varicella, is
unknown at present.
In children, the reported rate of zoster in vaccine recipients appears
not to exceed that
previously determined in a population-based study of healthy children
who had experienced
natural varicella.
5,18,19
The incidence of zoster in adults who have had natural varicella
infection is
higher than that in children.

Getting chickenpox naturally works something like this: The virus enters
the body through the mucous membranes and the upper respiratory and
gastrointestinal tracts, giving the body time to work up a strong immune
response. Once the body's immune system has built an antibody for the
virus, the body will always build that same antibody on future contacts
with the virus. Theoretically, if the first encounter with chickenpox is
through vaccination, the resulting inferior antibody that the body
develops is what will be used whenever the body encounters chickenpox in
the future.

This theory is supported by no research that I'm aware of.

Critics of vaccines say that catching the wild version can mean the
difference between temporary and lifelong immunity. According to Merck's
literature, "the duration of protection of Varivax is unknown at
present." Although studies in Japan report a 20-year vaccine duration,
the CDC theorizes that that immunity will wane if wild viruses are wiped
out. 13

The study I posted suggests a booster may be a good idea.

Painful or not, catching chickenpox may be necessary for health, claim
some clinicians. Internet medical celebrity Dr. Joseph Mercola theorizes
that since varicella virus is a member of the Human Herpes virus family
(herpesvirus 3 or HHV3), naturally acquired chickenpox may provide
protection against other herpesviruses that have been implicated in
causing cancer, Bell's Palsy, multiple sclerosis, AIDS, and chronic
fatigue syndrome. 18

o.O And here we are into WAG territory again. "Internet medical
celebrity"? Are ya kiddin' me, here?

Technically speaking, people die not from chickenpox, but from
complications, such as pneumonia, staph infection, meningitis, and
encephalitis.

Vaccinating for the original disease protects against the complications.

Moreover, some investigators suggest that modern medicine is to blame.
After reviewing the medical records of several children who had
allegedly died of chickenpox, Gary Krasner, director of the Coalition
for Informed Choice, an anti-vaccine advocacy group, concludes: "Nearly
all of these deaths were a result of standard medical care. Physicians
would treat the children with antibiotics, analgesics, or steroidal
medications as their condition grew progressively worse. . . . The
doctors responded to each new symptom with yet another drug, until the
children died." 20 Here's one such report:

I'm taking this less and less seriously with every paragraph like this.

Michelle
Flutist