Should I Get An MMR Jab?

Clearly ILE cannot answer this for me though...

I am a (nearly?) middle-aged student but still subject to the requirement to show proof of immunization. If I didn't get MMR series, they'd hold my transcript and deny me registration for next semester. I called my moms and asked her if she had my proof of innoculation and she was--"What are you nuts!? I don't have your shot records. How's my grandson?"

All of us old folks grumbled, but my friend Marlys--she got the reaction about a week after the shot (I'm not sure if it was the first or second). She said she felt perfectly fine, but of course she was covered, REALLY covered, in little red spots. It took a couple of weeks to clear up.

Good luck--

A few years after I had the MMR I got measles and mumps, though happily not at the same time. So I guess I shouldn't really talk from personal experience cos I clearly got a jab from a dud batch. Measles was rough but mumps I remember as being not so bad.

I would not have the MMR jab for myself, even if I worked in an environment where there were lots of younger people who might possibly be coughing the mumps, measles or rubella virus all over me. The only one which should concern you is the rubella one, as catching that when (at some point in the future) you might be pregnant can be harmful to your unborn baby. However, it is possible for the doctors to check yout rubella-immune status with a simple blood test - so I'd recommend you see whether you actually need the immunisation for that first. You can be immunised against rubella separately, and not have the combined MMR jab, if you make enough fuss about asking for it.

Mumps would be unpleasant to catch, but it's not that awful, is it? Mumps is a problem for boys, as it can impair fertility. Have all the men in your life had mumps as little kids and got it over-and-done-with? I don't think it's something you can catch twice in a lifetime.

I didnt know peopel did shots - what happened to chickenpox parties as a kid? Didnt everyone go thru these nasties on purpose to get resistance? I know I did.

i thot this thread originally read "Should I Get An MRR Job?" and I was gonna write "YEAH MAXIMUM ROCK N' ROLL PUNK ROCK FANZINE DUDER!"

it is no longer found in the US, but shots are still recommended here

a mate of mine got mumps recently and it was horrible, so I recommend getting the jab done.

(Trayce: I remember my parents having 'measles parties' and stuff but they were middle-class hippies after all... It doesn't seem very common now though, and I think I would have my kids get the MMR, on balance.)

Archel, you're not messing with the defences, you're adding to them. As a grown up, the chances of any negative side-effects to you are negligible. However, if you've had all these diseases already, I can't see why you'd need the jab. (xpost)

(I have never had measles, though I managed the others, including german measles aged 15, which was the gayest disease ever - I didn't even feel ill. Should I do something about this?)

And yeah I know that, logically, about vaccines. But I still don't really *understand*.

Also, I think there's a place called Mumps isn't there?

(we first caught the common cold from horses!)

I have never had chickenpox. I moved around so often when I was a kid that I never knew anyone who had it. The UK apparently doesn't vaccinate for it...

I have had the MMR, no lasting effects on me yet proved besides what it was intended for.

Where did this MMR controversy come from, anyway? Since there seems to have never been much evidence that it's Evil. Are lots of people just gullible hippies like me?

Private Eye still supports the MMR-causes-autism theory - every time yet another survey disputes it, they run a "yes but really this wasn't the right sort of survey and they've interpreted it wrong so really it backs up what we're saying" piece.

The other railway station in Oldham - the one that isn't called Oldham Mumps - is Oldham Werneth.

no one claims that all autism - or even the autism spike - is caused by MMR

(the spike remains unexplained)

wakefield is fairly clearly a dick, though the campaign of vilification at the outset wz a REALLY bad strategy - many ppl distrust feisty independent doctors less than they distrust doctician-spokesmen for the govt, strangely enough

(this was in An Anthropologist On Mars by Oliver Sacks)

the "anti-MMR" argt currently seems to be that a small minority within those disposed to autism have this disposition "switched on" after a particular type of bowel inflammation, which MAY be connected to measles in the context of MMR

the prob being i think (this is all from memory) that the numbers being talked about are so small that all studies so far render interpretation statistically questionable

(I don't think Bidder was, but I could be wrong)

The whole Doc Wakefield controversy is a direct upshot of what happens when a researcher gets bored by the academic process (easily done) and chats to his mate in the media down the pub after a few beers. Though he is a knob, the academic community often forget what their spats look like outside the rarified atmosphere of acadaemia (ie they look like out and out WAR).

Is MMR given in the US any more? Lots of (perhaps spurious) court cases in the '70s and '80s = increased cost.

i obv have doublestandards regarding this sort of thing because i wuv private eye so haven't stopped reading, yet if i see anyone reading the sunday times, all i can think off is all that shit they published about HIV not being the cause of AIDS.