There are many things you never expect to hear, even living abroad. I remember when my pediatrician mentioned in conversation how it was meningitis season. Say what?! Don't you mean cold season??
That too.
Seriously, being raised in the states you take certain things for granted, like the lack of gnarly diseases. Our most reason run in was with Scarlet Fever. I thought everyone was joking but no, 2 kids at my sons' school were diagnosed with it. Our pediatrician actually diagnosed one of them. What's next, Cholera?
But it is a fact of life in a third world country. While people in the bigger cities pretty much have little risk of being exposed to anything like this, things happened. A close friend of mine's son came down with not one but two types of meningitis at the same time.
That is where the public system comes in. They do massive free vaccination campaigns down here. Any given month it is any given thing, and people push you left and right to go in and take it. I can't even tell you how many arguments I've gotten in with peoples' nannies when I said my kids didn't need them! My kids are up to date on vaccinations. They have it all, Brazilian public and private.
Sorry anti-vaccine, it is a fact of life where I live. I do, however, draw the line at double vaccinating. They truly push everyone to go back in as mass vaccinations are the easiest way to eliminate a disease in a population.
Of course I went to my pediatrician and asked him directly. Does Chatterbox (as The Menace wasn't born yet) really need to get this again? He said no but to not talk it about (oops). He said that the sad thing is that the public medical community is so overloaded that it can not manage to educate the general public as it should. If they should give an out then people who should get vaccinated may not, nulling the process as a whole.
While the process of being harassed into getting repeats of yet another vaccine annoys the crap out of me, I understand where it comes from. Part of me wonders if Americans have forgotten why vaccines were made in the first place and how powerful these diseases can be. Obviously it is a personal decision but it does effect the public as a whole.
My bottom line, if you are going to live in the 3rd world, please vaccinate. S
Hey Rachel,
ReplyDeleteI actually had scarlet fever when I was around 10 years old. Swear to god. Isn't that really weird? Nothing happened to me though, thank god. Maybe it left my brain damaged and that's the reason I act the way I do hoje em dia.....?
And I would normally agree with vaccinations, but after seeing a neighbor in my old town become paralyzed from the neck down from a flu shot, I don't know if I could personally ever take that risk or subject anyone to that. Of course it's the exception, but still, it lives in my brain.
Abracos,
Alex
Not wanting to sound like a hypocrite, I never get the flu shot and did not get my kids the swine flu shot. I don't know, there are just certain things that it feels like vaccines were made just to avoid. Dude, I can handle the flu. Ok, maybe not the elderly but I can
ReplyDeleteIt's not exactly a 3rd world problem, as you put it, it's more likely a tropical weather country problem.
ReplyDeleteI've heard that before, that we are a petri dish just ripe for bacteria down here. But is there any truth to it?
ReplyDeleteThat's what i've always heard, at least. But the diseases that are spread by mosquitos that's for sure is a tropical problem, since they survive more in hotter weathers.
ReplyDeleteI honestly think it depends more on the animal life that lives in the region that you are in.
ReplyDeleteTake Africa vs. South America. Africa on average is probably a little hotter than all of South America but they are relatively close and both mainly tropical, although South America has more Subtropical and Temperate areas than Africa.
BUT Africa has chimpanzees and much more monkey/ape life than South America. And most of the world's most dangerous diseases (AIDS, ebola plus alot of other things) came out of African Rainforests. The worst thing in South America is Dengue and Malaria.
My two cents!
Abracos,
Alex
I make sure my son gets all of the scheduled ones, but the extra vaccines, I normally don't do...even though I've read there is no harm in it, like the mmr this past year, I didn't do, because he was already up to date, but then I read, it won't harm him to take an extra one, so cunfusing! Swine flu, yes, flu shots, just for me and my hub. So far, we are pretty healthy. And there are so many routine vacs here that are not routine in the US, sometimes I think it is ME who should be getting vaccinated. My son is much better protected than I am at this point.
ReplyDeleteThe face on that little girl in the picture... it makes me want to run over and give her a big hug. I hate needles, but I do believe in vaccinating yourself, especially in tropical places such as Rio. However, I don't get the flu shot or whatever usually.
ReplyDeleteExcept I did get the swine flu shot, but that was not what I had planned. I was at the doctor and since I am a teacher and there had been several outbreaks of swine flu in the Bay Area (where I live) PLUS I have a compromised immune system, the doctor told me I couldn't leave until I got it. I guess I could of gotten up and walked out, but was so persistant, immediately had a nurse walk in and jab the needle in my arm. Oh well, one less illness I needed to worry about...
Rachel, as long as your kids are vaccinated the rest of the world could walk around unvaccinated & it wouldn't matter (isn't that the point, to survive/resist exposure?)
ReplyDeleteAs for me, I'm with the first poster, having seen the extreme negative side effects in some cases I'll pass. Also, the experiences of my Native & African American ancestors have made me pretty wary of accepting injections handed out for free from ANY government.
Adverse reactions in even 1% of the population still equals tens of thousands of people each year at the numbers we vaccinate worldwide. And because they're mass produced on such a scale dangerous preservatives like mercury are still being used (even in the US). The government is concerned with cost vs risk, and like your kid's doctor said, they're afraid of telling the public the whole truth (re: need to go back in for double dips) because some people may then opt out.
Understanding vaccines means understanding that you can protect yourself & your family without compelling one single other person to do it too. :)
I had scarlet fever/scarletina when I was a kid growing up in Indiana...not really a 3rd world disease, though it's thankfully less common than chicken pox. There are certain diseases I would vaccinate for depending on our country of residence (the biggies, like hepatitis, MMR, cholera, polio, smallpox, etc) but there are others that seem unnecessary to subject the population at large to, especially in light of the scarcity of long-term data/testing or one's probability of contracting the disease (HPV, flu). My mother exposed us to chicken pox in the 80's--playdates with friends who were sick!--and while that's probably considered child abuse today, I'm glad I contracted the disease as a kid rather than an adult. I wonder what the avoidance of childhood diseases does to our immune systems over a generation...even so, wondering doesn't mean I'll be guineapigging my children to test out a theory!
ReplyDeleteI have to say too that the Brazilianpublic vaccination schedule makes me less nervous. If you vaccinate your kids at the public health post, they do it old school and seperated. While it is annoying to take your infant in every month or two, i prefer it.
ReplyDeleteAs for us already being safe, vaccinations aren't 100%. You have a much lower chance but still can get something anyway. I only got my oldest vaccinated after his best little friend got the two kinds of meningitis. It was the worst wait of my life to do the wait and see if my son got it. I'm just saying that the prevalence here is higher than at home. That should be remebered.
Jenna, that is exactly how I feel. Although they did manage to convince me to grudingly do the chicken pox one (they being family and ped). I
Not to get all public health on your blog (it's my field), but It´s not a third world tropical thing, it´s a herd-immunity and socio-economic-environmental thing. Now that the anti-vaccine people (who think vaccines cause autism even though there is zero scientific evidence) have been gaining support in the US there have been outbreaks of diseases we aren't used to seeing anymore. Parents who are "anti-vaccine" and don't vaccinate their own kids are trusting and relying on the fact that everyone else does vaccinate their kids. The need for vaccines only goes away when everyone in the population is vaccinated and so the virus doesn't have any more hosts (like small pox), so in the states it's not that we don't need to vaccinate, it's that everyone already is-- or the entire generation before was, so we no longer have those diseases circulating in the population. It's true that we simply don't vaccinate for certain things like tuberculosis in the US (if you've ever noticed that everyone in South America has a small vaccination scar on their upper arm but people in the US don't, that's why), and that has to do both with living conditions making tuberculosis less common and the decision to combat TB in the US by treating latent tuberculosis instead of widespread vaccination. But many things- like scarlet fever- we are automatically vaccinated for and then completely forget about because it's so routine in the states (and required by schools for enrollment). And other "tropical" diseases like malaria used to be endemic in the American South (it was a huge problem during the Civil War) until socio-economic-environmental conditions improved.
ReplyDeleteEva, get all public health on my blog, it's your field! :)
ReplyDeleteI agree with everything you said. How could I not, it's on the money. My sons were vaccinated for TB and have the little scar. My Finish friend says she has one, as they still do it (at least did it when she was born 30 yrs ago) but the scar is on their upper thigh. Hell, if Finland is doing it, it must be a good idea!
The thing I've heard, from non-medical people as myself, is that the tropical hot and humid climate is idea for bacteria growth. The only thing I can vouch for is that the hot and humid climate makes having any sort of bacteria that much more uncomfortable. It is so much better being sick in cold places ;)
You're right. Before I moved to Brasil I was sitting there thinking will I give my kid all vaccines, will I delay some of them? Now that I'm here, I'm giving my kid vaccines that I wouldn't have in the US, like meningitis, and I am definitely not delaying things. It's not worth it. I agree that I'm not big on getting the flu shot for myself, but always do for the kiddo (though not the swine one funny enough).
ReplyDeleteit has nothing to do with 3rd world country though and, to tell you the truth, it's quite un-PC to refer to brazil as a 3rd world country ESPECIALLY if you're a foreigner (you know how touchy feely brazilians are about criticsm or anything with a bad connotation coming out from the mouth of a foreigner). the correct term is "in development".
ReplyDeleteI refuse to play the political name calling game ;)
ReplyDelete