mumps...to vaccinate or not to vaccinate?

Nurses General Nursing

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I had the MMR vaccine when in 79 when I was 1 year old, and an additional measels vaccine in 89 when we had an outbreak at my school. I'm trying to decide if I should go ahead and get the 2nd MMR. The health department said if I'm under 30 (yup), in college (yup), and in healthcare (on my way), I should probably get it. Also, they're having outbreaks now near my parents and I'm going to visit there in a couple of weeks. What do you think? This is my finals week and I don't want to have a reaction to it, but I also start nursing classes next week and don't want to wait and then have a reaction and miss those classes. There shouldn't be any ill effects from getting it should there? It's only $10, so I probably will. Has anybody else had to do this because of current circumstances?

Thanks!

Specializes in Too many to list.
Thanks for the clarification and don't worry I am often off my rocker too....LOL ;) and thanks for that link, I had not seen that before and it was very informative.

Doesn't anyone else find it interesting that those with 2 MMR vaccines have the highest rate of mumps by FAR? Isn't that odd??? Your more likely to not get mumps if you only had 1 MMR...lol Weird but true, can anyone make sense of that??

This is going to be interesting to follow, I was reading somewhere that mumps goes in cycles and normally is over by the summer months traditionally. I can't help but find it interesting that a disease we highly vaccinate for is spreading like wildfire.....

Yes, very odd, and no I can make no sense of it, just glad, my titers show me immune from the disease itself, not from the vaccine. Wonder what the titers of those with just one vaccination would show. Jump on me now, but it's not on unheard of to get vaccine induced disease. You think...nah!!!

Specializes in Specializes in L/D, newborn, GYN, LTC, Dialysis.

yea, but much more common was it for people to get very sick and die before these vaccines.

Specializes in ICU, CVICU.

With any kind of statistics you ALWAYS have to consider the reference population (which this paper did not give). For example (and this is purely hypothetical):

Say 200 people have 2 boosters and 50 come down with mumps that's only 1/4 of the vaccinated population.

If 25 only have one booster but 13 come down with it that's 1/2 - in this case there might be less people with one booster getting ill but the risk is higher.

Also consider that they only have vaccine status on 255 people (that's how they got those percentages) but there are over 500 cases! That is pretty significant in terms of statistics.

I feel so bad for these poor people but gosh I really love this stuff!!!

Specializes in Too many to list.
With any kind of statistics you ALWAYS have to consider the reference population (which this paper did not give). For example (and this is purely hypothetical):

Say 200 people have 2 boosters and 50 come down with mumps that's only 1/4 of the vaccinated population.

If 25 only have one booster but 13 come down with it that's 1/2 - in this case there might be less people with one booster getting ill but the risk is higher.

Also consider that they only have vaccine status on 255 people (that's how they got those percentages) but there are over 500 cases! That is pretty significant in terms of statistics.

I feel so bad for these poor people but gosh I really love this stuff!!!

Interesting, thank you for clarifying.

This is very interesting. I had titers drawn to return to nusring school last summer and despite having had all my MMR's on schedule in childhood,I was not rubella immune and my rubeola was also negative. I had two boosters, titer were just drawn again, and guess what: negative. Repeated just the titers and sent them to a different lab: negative.

Who knows! :)

Specializes in Adolescent Psych, PICU.
This is very interesting. I had titers drawn to return to nusring school last summer and despite having had all my MMR's on schedule in childhood,I was not rubella immune and my rubeola was also negative. I had two boosters, titer were just drawn again, and guess what: negative. Repeated just the titers and sent them to a different lab: negative.

Who knows! :)

Ya that is strange. Most people don't get titers done so it makes you wonder how many people who think they are "covered" are really not?

I read a paper (and I can find it if anyways wants to see it) where they did a study of women who were immune to rubella and even though they were vaccinated for rubella they were not immune to the rubella vax but to wild rubella.

I really enjoy reading and learning about this stuff.

Specializes in Adolescent Psych, PICU.
With any kind of statistics you ALWAYS have to consider the reference population (which this paper did not give). For example (and this is purely hypothetical):

Say 200 people have 2 boosters and 50 come down with mumps that's only 1/4 of the vaccinated population.

If 25 only have one booster but 13 come down with it that's 1/2 - in this case there might be less people with one booster getting ill but the risk is higher.

Also consider that they only have vaccine status on 255 people (that's how they got those percentages) but there are over 500 cases! That is pretty significant in terms of statistics.

I feel so bad for these poor people but gosh I really love this stuff!!!

You would think the first thing they would want to find out is the vaccination status of all those infected! I will be keeping up with all this to see how it turns out. It's very interesting to me.

Thanks for your input, because I don't understand stats very much at all when it comes to real world type of stuff to be honest (yet managed to make an A in the class....lol).

I guess we will just have to wait and see. I feel bad for all those infected as well, thankfully no one has died at least.

Specializes in OR.

I have had 3 MMR's done as an adult and had no reactions. I got the first one because I wasn't showing an immunity for measles and still don't, even after the other 2 shots. It's very freaky but they've given up on tring to vaccinate me anymore....

You would need to call them up and ask. Some will, others not.

I was told that the titers were cheaper than the vaccines while on AT 2 years ago....

Specializes in Too many to list.
Ya that is strange. Most people don't get titers done so it makes you wonder how many people who think they are "covered" are really not?

I read a paper (and I can find it if anyways wants to see it) where they did a study of women who were immune to rubella and even though they were vaccinated for rubella they were not immune to the rubella vax but to wild rubella.

I really enjoy reading and learning about this stuff.

Question:

Would it not be better to be immune to wild rubella rather than to vaccine rubella?

Specializes in Adolescent Psych, PICU.
Question:

Would it not be better to be immune to wild rubella rather than to vaccine rubella?

Yes!

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