Re: Measles and the Hive Mind‏

NL writes:

I'm was glad to read that someone remembers the measles as I do. I was beginning to think that I lived in some sort of fantasy world where measles weren't considered dangerous, just a nuisance. In fact, we looked forward to getting the measles/mumps/chicken pox since we did not have to go to school!

I don’t actually remember the measles, although there are plenty who do.  I was born more a decade after the vaccine was introduced. Even for those of us born in the 70s, measles in the popular imagination was anything but some sort of dreaded death sentence. I do  remember, though, that in our first reading book, which was a type of Dick and Jane book, but which featured characters named Tiger and Dolly, one of the characters had mumps in one of the stories. The character did not die, go blind, or become sterile. Today, however, if you refuse the mumps (i.e., MMR) vaccine, you’re told that your child will likely meet some horrible mumps-related fate.

I guess that’s what they’ll tell my kids in 20 years about chicken pox when they have their own children. “What? You’re refusing the chicken pox vaccine? Don’t you love your children?” Back in 1982 or so, I contracted the chicken pox when I was in kindergarten. I remember watching a lot of TV and getting a nice break from school.

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