Mumps Outbreak In Highly Immunized Population

April 29, 2008 / 8:36 am • By Dr. Melissa Clouthier

Yep. I got mumps. My husband and his brothers got mumps and we were all immunized. Here’s the study showing the biggest outbreak of mumps in recent American history and most of the people were immunized:

In a study reported in last week’s New England Journal of Medicine, researchers from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and several Midwestern state health departments examined the 6,584 cases in the Midwestern outbreak. They found that the incidence was four times higher among people 18 to 24 years old than in all other age groups combined. This was despite the fact that 84% of the mumps patients in that age group (and 63% of the patients overall) had received the recommended two doses of mumps vaccine.

Immunization does not confer 100% immunity. And the problem with this outbreak is that mumps is relatively harmless in children. Uncomfortable, yes. Miserable, yes. Deadly? No. But in young adults, it can cause sterilization and reproductive problems.

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  • Rorschach

    Doc, it isn’t just mumps either. Chickenpox is another one that is mostly harmless as a kid but is not so great as an adult. Texas requires vaccinations for all school kids. which means that about the time they get to college, they will be vulnerable again.

    A more insidious one is the HPV vaccine Pecos Perry tried to shove down our throats (or elsewhere). Here is the deal, it only protects against 3 really bad strains (and one relatively minor one), requires a series of 3 shots, and then on average lasts about 10 years after the last shot. There is another one that Glaxo is working on that is Phase III trials right now that will protect against something like 7 bad strains. If you start one series, and then decide you want the other one, then you have to start the series all over again and at over $350 a shot, that is not a small amount of money. And both will be wearing off about the time young women are really getting out into the sexual world (early-mid 20′s). The sad fact is that adults do not get booster shots. They simply don’t.

    I predict that in about 5-7 years, there will be a massive epidemic of chickenpox in young adults that did not catch it as kids because they were vaccinated.

  • http://www.melatoninfaq.com Luis Howard

    I got mumps last year and it was really very painful. I have to take some pain killers to ease the pain. `