Not all vaccines last a lifetime

[HuckleB]

http://jacksonville.com/news/health-and-fitness/2010-08-23/story/not-all-vaccines-last-lifetime

"Most parents realize the lifesaving benefits of immunizations aimed at preventing serious illnesses in their children. What they may not realize, though, is that they need some of the same shots in the arm themselves.

According to a report from Trust for America's Health, a nonprofit organization that focuses on nationwide disease-prevention awareness and education, up to 50,000 U.S. adults die each year from vaccine-preventable diseases. One of the main reasons for this may be that many adults think they're too old for vaccines or mistakenly assume their childhood vaccines last a lifetime, the report states. That's not necessarily the case, doctors say.

"Vaccines wear off over time and lose their effectiveness," said Matthew R. DeBoer, a family medicine physician with Baptist Primary Care, St. Johns Forest. "The body's level of immunity against diseases such as tetanus, diphtheria and pertussis decreases over time and boosters are given to keep their levels high enough to fight disease."

William Schaffner, an infectious diseases physician and co-author of the report, said it's not totally your fault if you haven't been inoculated since you were in the sixth grade. "The country has an absolutely stunningly first-rate system for immunizing children, but too many adults still fall through the cracks," Schaffner wrote in an online article posted on the American Academy of Family Physicians website. "It's really time to build a better strategic approach for systematically immunizing adults."

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Good information for the general public, IMO.

:hi:

[Dorian Gray]

1. It's good to be tested for these things

if you can be. When trying to get pregnant, I learned that I wasn't immune to German Measles, despite getting the proper vaccine when young. They gave me the shot, and I was good to go. It's easy enough to get tested for immunity, though I don't know how much of the blood work insurance companies would cover.

[HuckleB]

2. At least on first thought, testing for immunity seems like a good idea.

You are right, though, I'm not sure if insurance companies cover it.

[gkhouston]

3. They probably don't. Before I tried to conceive, I decided to get booster shots

because I hadn't been vaccinated in decades. My doctor pooh-poohed the idea: "measles doesn't happen anymore". I told her that the last time I'd had a booster for measles had actually been during an outbreak of a disease that "doesn't happen anymore". She wandered off to see another patient and I overheard her dissing my request to a nurse. I dumped my file in the trash and left, never to return. The county health department was delighted to re-vaccinate me and when I got pregnant some months later, that was one less thing I had to think about.

[SheilaT]

4. And those of us old enough

to have actually gotten the German Measles (Rubella) do have lifetime immunity.

Sometimes I get a job in a workplace that wants proof I've been immunized against measles, mumps, and rubella, and I always laugh at them since I actually had all of those diseases more than fifty years ago now. My most recent was when I went to work in a hospital, and they did the testing for my immunity. Yep. I'm still immune.