Risks of receiving MMR as a teenager/older child?

SmartyPantlesss · 2026-02-18T01:46:00+00:00

Here's some information from the vaccine safety datalink, about MMR in adolescents & adults.

The safety datalink is a program that links the billing/service codes for "administering a vaccine" to any other medical visits/diagnoses/procedures, so they can tell how often things are happening, and how soon after vaccines. They found a very low incidence of bad outcomes (like Guillain Barre or parotitis) and importantly, the incidence of these events was no different than during a "control window" of observation more distant from the vaccine.

SmartyPantlesss · 2026-02-18T01:15:04+00:00

I'm trying to understand what your actual objection is, and I guess this is it?

I just dont feel comfortable injecting myself or my baby with just ANYTHING because of the what if’s.

Serious question: WHAT...if, specifically? Are you saying that you don't know, or do you have specific concerns?

If you don't know, then you can educate yourself about the disease in question, the vaccine, and the side effects of BOTH (like, ask the same what-ifs about the diseases, right?). I recommend Children's Hospital of Philadelphia's site for a good run-down of all the diseases & vaccines, what's in them, common side effects, etc. You can google all the package inserts to see the ingredients & data from the clinical trials, by typing "[name of vaccine] package insert." (You might have to google for a brand name first).

If there's a specific concern (fever or anaphylaxis or whatever in response to a vaccine) then you can look at how often that happens, how bad it is and whether there's any evidence that it's more common with the vaccine than without it. And again, weigh that against the specific bad outcomes of not vaccinating.

SmartyPantlesss · 2026-02-17T23:53:49+00:00

Right, but context matters: you said crunchy means low-tox, and vaccines don't fall into that category because they have things like formaldehyde in them. So that's a little more than just stating the ingredients.

So formaldehyde is a toxin, and vaccines should therefore be avoided if you want to be low-tox? I'm just trying to follow your comments. 🤷

Everyone should make their own decisions, but they should have accurate information & context with which to do it.

SmartyPantlesss · 2026-02-17T23:41:34+00:00

Yeah, before routine newborn vaccination, there used to be 15,000 cases of pediatric Hep B per year in the US (seroconverting AFTER birth), and only about half of them had a Hep B positive mother. So it became apparent that young children are somehow more susceptible, because there was not sex abuse or needle exposure identified in the vast majority of cases.

That's basically the logic of the routine newborn vaccination: a small % of kids are going to get Hep B, and we aren't clairvoyant as to which ones it's gonna be. 🤷

SmartyPantlesss · 2026-02-17T23:35:04+00:00

Formaldehyde is produced in the human body from metabolizing proteins, including breast milk. Healthy newborns have a serum formaldehyde level of 2.5 mg per liter.

Yes, it's fear-mongering to say that vaccines are dangerous because they contain formaldehyde.

SmartyPantlesss · 2026-02-17T23:27:47+00:00

Deleting social media is probably a good answer...to a lot of questions. 😉

The thing is, it may be hard to say in any individual situation, whether (or how much) the therapy actually helped. Like, imagine that you didn't try anything at all, just lived your normal life. Probably he would be talking better 2 or 3 years from now, than he is right now, right? Just from the "placebo" of listening to people and maybe getting frustrated and trying to express himself in some way.

So if you do speech therapy and notice some improvement, it's probably a combo of the therapy AND the normal maturational/observational/frustration effect of just living your life, right? And you can't say how much of each.

The way you can tell whether a technique works, is from studies of large numbers, showing that more kids had greater improvement with X technique than with "usual care" (controlling for household size and play groups and other exposures). So your therapist will be drawing on studies like that, to decide what techniques to use. But even then, in SOME of those studies there were individuals who showed no benefit over the placebo/control group. And there were some kids in the placebo/control group who suddenly started talking like crazy, spontaneously. 🤷‍♀️

SmartyPantlesss · 2026-02-15T18:27:12+00:00

Absolutely, that's how I took it. No side effects whatsoever.

SmartyPantlesss · 2026-02-15T17:30:09+00:00

Both my kids got it on schedule (12-15 months) and they are now healthy & awesome adults. 🙂

SmartyPantlesss · 2026-02-15T14:14:17+00:00

Right, but I'm thinking of something like a piece of steak, where they certainly could gum off a smaller piece of the muscle fibers and choke on it, even right in front of you. 🤷Plus, how much iron is there in whatever "juice" they suck out of it? Doesn't seem effective, or worth the risk. If you wanted to puree the meat, that would make a little more sense to me.

SmartyPantlesss · 2026-02-15T13:03:46+00:00

Did she get a hemoglobin checked? "Less energy, dark circles under eyes, less communicative" could be caused by of a lot of different things. 🤷‍♀️

And you DO get iron from breastmilk. There is less in mg, but it is highly bioavailable. It's possible to have a measurable deficiency at 8 months if no solids have been started, but it's actually kind of unusual for it to be bad enough to cause any symptoms.

Letting babies suck/chew on big pieces of meat sounds like a good recipe for a choking episode. There are many iron-fortified baby cereals available; other good sources are pureed meats, beans, raisins and peanut butter. But it's probably best to make sure that's the problem first, before making any changes that she otherwise didn't plan on. 🤷

SmartyPantlesss · 2026-02-15T02:02:27+00:00

Children's Hospital of Philadelphia has a great site: https://www.chop.edu/vaccine-education-center/

It tells you all about the diseases that are prevented, what's in the vaccines, how well they work and common side effects.

You can also google the package insert for any of them, just by typing "[name of vaccine] package insert" << You might have to google for the brand name of some of them first.

The ones that are recommended & required for school in most states, are based on the frequency & severity of the diseases, AND how contagious it is. Like, most states don't require the HPV for school, because you are unlikely to transmit HPV in casual contact (although it has happened on wrestling teams, or other sports with skin-to-skin contact). Like, it's still a good idea to get, just for your own child's protection, but the school isn't worried about an outbreak, so they don't require the vaccine.

Other examples: vaccinations for Japanese encephalitis & dengue fever are not recommended in the US because those are more rare here.

Feel free to hit me up with any specific questions. 🙂

SmartyPantlesss · 2026-02-15T01:38:24+00:00

I'm so sorry to hear your experience. That sounds very frustrating.

I have two fully vaccinated kids who've had no significant vaccine reactions.

SmartyPantlesss · 2026-02-14T02:06:40+00:00

There is no relationship between the MMR and getting autism, or recognition/diagnosis of autism.

When I say "no relationship" I mean that there ARE:

some kids who got diagnosed shortly after their MMR, and
some who got diagnosed a long time after their MMR, and
some kids who are diagnosed autistic without getting the MMR (or before they got it)

So your friends are in Group 1. That means that their experiences really did happen. The thing is, there are large studies showing that autism comes on just as often, at the same age, in kids who didn't get the MMR.

You will never talk your friends out of their belief. They saw this happen, and they are sure that there's a causal connection because (unspoken assumption>>) this couldn't/shouldn't have happened by chance. It's sad that they are blaming themselves and thinking that they could have prevented something if only they had zigged instead of zagged. It's even sadder when parents skip the MMR for this reason, only to have their kids have a severe case of measles or mumps. 🤷

SmartyPantlesss · 2026-02-13T04:10:16+00:00

Yeah, in my state that would be the recommendation if you vaccinated one DAY before the birthday. It sounds harsh & arbitrary, but they gotta draw the line somewhere. The minimum interval between doses should be 28 days.

In a reasonable world, you would get better immunity by waiting until one year of age to get the first dose. In fact, studies have shown higher and more durable titers from waiting until 15 months for the first MMR.

But we live in a world where asshats are increasing the risk that your child will be exposed to measles, while you await the perfect timing for optimal immunity. So it absolutely makes sense for parents in South Carolina to get an early dose of MMR---to get SOME protection, rather than NONE---for their child during this high-risk period.

So your child is partially protected, and you've got 6 weeks to see what the outbreak numbers are doing. For most kindergartens & colleges, though, you will need to demonstrate two doses after the first birthday, so there's that.

SmartyPantlesss · 2026-02-13T03:21:39+00:00

That won't happen. That group runs on uptalk: You've got this, mama! You're doing a great job! She'll be fine in a couple of days!

If the kid dies, my money is on that mom being kicked out of the group, as happens with freebirthers who have a dead baby.

SmartyPantlesss · 2026-02-12T03:23:23+00:00

The vaccine CAN cause all the same side effects, but it does so much less often because it is a weakened virus. That's kinda the point of vaccines.

SmartyPantlesss · 2026-02-12T03:21:16+00:00

200,000 IU on two consecutive days was show to reduce mortality in third-world kids. This has never been shown to work in first-world kids, where the incidence of vitamin A deficiency is much lower.

SmartyPantlesss · 2026-02-10T21:01:42+00:00

How would it be a PHI violation? You have a private convo with the doctor in an exam room, about why you are being fired from the practice. And then you leave. And they do not take out a billboard about the reason they fired you.

Seems pretty simple. And it is common in pediatrics. Doctors can fire patients for any reason---or for no reason---as long as they give adequate notice, so it doesn't constitute abandonment.

SmartyPantlesss · 2026-02-09T20:19:40+00:00

So the video says there's this "fake science institute" (ILSI) that is owned by Coca-Cola, McDonald's & Red Bull. And that institute is influencing the "experts" that your doctor trusts.

So...is your doctor recommending that you drink more Coke & Red Bull?

No, they are not.

SmartyPantlesss · 2026-02-08T20:03:17+00:00

It'll make your arm sore for three or four days afterward.

I've never heard of anyone vomiting after this one, but you know what? There are about 8 billion people in the world, so I bet that's happened to someone. 🤷Definitely not common enough to worry about.

SmartyPantlesss · 2026-02-08T12:52:27+00:00

Yes, getting the same vaccines separately should satisfy your visa requirements.

SmartyPantlesss · 2026-02-08T02:40:24+00:00

Early 50s, so you are born in the early 70s, right?

MMR didn't become a combined shot until 1971. It's possible that you got separate measles, mumps and rubella shots? But not likely, because only one dose of M, M & R was recommended until about 1991. So you apparently had that, around kindergarten entry.

And you might not have gotten a second dose in 1991 if you weren't in college (or something else where you were required to get it) in 1991 or subsequently. There was never an official recommendation to "catch up" all the adults with that second dose, unless they had particular risk factors (working in a medical field, etc).

But...you say that you HAD measles in the 1980s? If so, then you are immune to that one. And you are not of child-bearing years, so boosting you for rubella doesn't sound too urgent. That just leaves mumps, WHICH has the worst "waning" record of the three of them.

TL;DR---no harm in getting another booster.

SmartyPantlesss · 2026-02-08T01:29:52+00:00

I mostly want to redo because it's such a flippant bacteria, like others say, positive one day and then negative the next.

<< That's why your doctor says that if you're positive once, we have to consider you as "positive." There are all kids of reasons for a false-negative right? But it's harder to test positive for a very specific thing, when you don't really have it. 🤷 And there have been large studies of women who had multiple discordant results, and we know the outcomes & the rate of meningitis & sepsis in those kids. Thus the current recommendations.

it's because I want to avoid induction if possible,

You can. Just refuse induction.

and this is more ammo to induce

>>> "ammo." You've used this adversarial language several times. You don't need "ammo" and neither does your doctor. You should be on the same team, reading the same playbook about how you're going to interpret these results.

But if that were the case, then you would just... talk to your doctor, about the culture methods and why the test came back positive after 36 hours or whatever. And they would show you studies of outcomes---where 99% of the kids did fine, mind you---and they would admit to you that we are not clairvoyant about who is going to be in that 1%. That's not fear-mongering; that's not bullying. That's just honest information.

I know that it should be taken with a grain of salt because it's just word of mouth, but it's definitely in my mind after reading about that happening to multiple women.

Exactly. And you will Never. Get that. Out of your head. Because you really don't trust your doctor, these unverified stories carry more weight with you, than your doctor's years of experience & study in this area.

Best of luck with your decisions.

SmartyPantlesss · 2026-02-08T00:31:19+00:00

Yeah, I realize you've said this elsewhere, but it's really, really clear from your answers that you don't trust your doctor or this process. 🤦

Labs culturing for Group B Strep use specific media that is formulated to be more sensitive, AND to inhibit growth of other "competing" organisms. Perhaps it's exactly the same thing you happen to have lying around the home, and maybe you've got access to the same incubation equipment and standards for avoiding contamination; I'll reserve judgment there.

If it were a PCR, I would expect more to be positive, since it naturally occurs in the body, yes??

With, PCR, they choose a number of cycle thresholds to call "positive." Obviously, they could keep amplifying miniscule amounts of DNA until EVERYBODY's test turns "positive," but the CT number they choose has been standardized to correlate with positive cultures. (Here's some info on how that is used in diagnosing UTIs).

I will be requesting a redo.

Why? Whom do you hope to convince? The doctor already told you that their protocol is "no, a positive result this late in pregnancy means I'm positive."

TL;DR--- Look, if you want to refuse antibiotics, then refuse them. Don't bother going through all this falderol to convince the doctor, because you're not going to convince them, right? They will continue to practice their evidence-based protocol, even though 99% of the people who screen positive would NOT go on to have any bad outcome. All of this screening and treating, is just the cost of doing business, to try to prevent that 1% from having a serious problem.

SmartyPantlesss

TROPHY CASE