Ive never had chicken pox or the vaccine…
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Watch out… chickenpox does the rounds every year… we get warnings at the school…
and , if you do get chickenpox in later life… I can confirm it is atrocious… a friend caught it when she was 38… and years later, we now can laugh… but at the time it was ghastly… so much worse that when caught in childhood…
She had no idea why she had never been vaccinated as a child… reckoned she must have been ill in bed on that day… 
I caught chickenpox from my sister when I was 17 - it was not fun (as Stella observes).
I was 17 when I had chicken pox. It was awful. It didn’t help when I walked in to the living room and said to my Mum 'I’ve got spots ’ and she burst out laughing
I think the quote may have come from the independent article…???
What are your thoughts on the greenmedinfo article…???
No need to apologise…! You know I love ya…x 
But Chicken pox isn’t measles mumps or rubella though…in its natural form it’s a very mild childhood dis-ease…I had it when I was little…my kids all had it and my unvaccinated grandchildren have all had it…
Maybe because the chickenpox vaccine wasn’t even thought of then…???
Well said Helen… thinking back, she is 10 years younger than I am…but even so, chickenpox was a “childhood illness” that parents liked their children to catch early… so got kids partied… and let nature take its course…
My siblings and I were given all the vaccines on offer… but also “successfully” caught all the childhood illnesses as well… and always in the school holidays. 
The chickenpox vaccine came in too late for us… we wore gloves to stop us scratching and moaned a bit… but that was it… our Dad was very careful that our spots did not become infected… 
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Just a thought
TETANUS
For those of you who have had this jab in the past.
Are you up to date… have you had the necessary booster shots ???
There is a change in opinion regarding tetanus.
It now seems that the tetanus vaccination remains active for much longer than previously thought.
I asked for a booster and although I did get it, it was because we use a lot of manure on our garden.
So, if you are not coming into contact with stuff llike that, do not worry that it might be over ten years since your last shot.
Fair comment Jane… our Doc mentioned Tetanus one time… after OH had cut himself rather badly… we both get involved in what our Doc calls “dodgy situations”…
We knew we had both had them back in UK but no idea how long ago…
He gave us each a booster… and (as he suggested) I made a note and we went back again after 10 Years…
He was surprised that my diary was as efficient as his computer
I was regularly given tetanus shots at work, but about 20 years ago they told me I couldn’t have any more, risk of developing the disease if over vaccinated (apparently).
Interestingly, I’ve never been offered one in france, despite a few trips to "Urgences " for various mishaps .
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Ah… we certainly had a T shot in UK… but not “regularly”… 
Not a lot, only glanced at it (life is too short for a detailed analysis of every bit of anti-vaccine stuff the 'net can throw up) and TBH I’m not entirely sure what point they are trying to make.
It seemed to be along the lines of “Vaccines aren’t 100% effective and aren’t 100% safe in all imaginable circumstances so must immediately be abandoned” with the typical cherry-picking the data to give the impression of a huge scandal where one does not really exist.
It is expected that the attenuated virus will replicate and I believe that it is not a surprise that immunized individuals shed virus - so, obviously, could pass on the attenuated virus to anther individual - I don’t see that as remotely commentworthy.
These facts taken together do not “doubly disprove that the administration of multiple doses of MMR vaccine is ‘97% effective’. ”
In fact I really can’t see any link between the two statements in their “headline”.
I pretty much stopped reading after that although I did find the text of their first quoted paper which is here
Some (probably selective) highlights from that paper not brought out by the greenmedinfo article:
- Following introduction of vaccination in 1963 incidence of measles in Nueces County fell from 44 cases per 1000 population to 0.3 in 1973 in line with expectations from effective vaccination
- Of the 1806 children tested 4.1% were seronegative - in line with expected failure rates and certainly close enough to the 3% rate implied by the 97% effective claim.
- Although 99% of the children had been vaccinated only 12% had received two doses - seroconversion rates were significantly higher in this population (6.8% seronegative with one shot, 1.4% following two).
- Although a higher rate (of 30/1000) was observed at another school, the rates in the two schools in the study (at 3/1000 and 18/1000) were still lower than pre-vaccination incidences.
- None of the seropositive children contracted measles.
In short this paper shows that vaccination is effective, there was an expected failure rate of around 4% from one shot which allowed a small outbreak to occur and seroconversion rates are significantly higher following two vaccinations.
TL;DR - the evidence in the paper is actually for a booster dose.
I suspect that if I went into the other papers I would find similarly that they do not support the claims in the article (such as they are).
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Paul… what are your thoughts on Tetanus jabs for us Older folk… ??
I have been told that I no longer have to have tetanus boosters, although I am not sure what would happen in an emergency. I was also told after my last Hepatitis B booster I would not need more
Not my area of expertise so I don’t have a view as such (except see my final comment).
The UK recommendation is that you need the primary course of three shots and two boosters after that at a 10 year interval. If immunisation is complete then further protection, even if a “tetanus prone” wound is received is not needed (but immunoglobulin can be considered for high risk cases). If immunisation is cont complete & up-to-date then a booster at the time of injury is advised.
Glancing at the US schedule that seems to be for a booster every 10 years.
Personally I probably would not bother. I can’t remember if I had a full course - and that’s probably the situation for most adults (who on earth still has their vaccination record when they are in their mid 50’s?) so would almost certainly be offered (and accept) a booster if I had a wound likely to be at risk.
I guess if you live on a farm it might be advisable to lean towards 10 year boosters.
Our last “10-year” shot runs out next year… so I’ll see what our Doc thinks then…
Just my opinion, of course, but I think if you have good immune system, there’s no need to take flu shots. Hubby is over 70, I am almost 70, and so far we’ve never taken one, even though we get a letter every year offering them for free. We rarely get sick. I read somewhere, that once you take the 1st shot you HAVE to repeat every year for the rest of your life.
As for tetanus, if you are a gardener, I would say keep up with that one. Better safe than sorry. You could step on a rusty nail, for example, actually happened to me.
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Unfortunately 'flu can be a killer, especially in the over 70’s - particularly if you get a bacterial pneumonia as a complication (which is common).
You have to repeat the 'flu jab every year because the virus mutates rapidly and you get different strains each year. Last year’s vaccination won’t protect you from the strains prevalent this year.
There have been newer vaccines developed though which target bits of the 'flu virus which don’t change as much so they offer longer protection.
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