New Study: Chickenpox vaccine doubles the risk of shingles

by: | September 13, 2015
New Study: Chickenpox vaccine doubles the risk of shingles
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(NaturalHealth365) Once again, a vaccination that parents are being pressured into for their children comes with some added baggage that is still revealing itself.  Thankfully, the Vaccine World Summit provides much of the lifesaving information concerned parents will need to make an informed decision. Because, after all, we don’t want to make a mistake with our children.

So, while many countries, including the United States, have established programs to vaccinate children against the routine childhood disease, evidence from a new study suggests doing so doubles the risk that an adult will develop the more worrisome disease of shingles.

Are vaccines actually weaken our ability to prevent disease?

Shingles virus is actually caused by reactivation in the body of the varicella-zoster virus, the same virus that causes chickenpox. After contracting chickenpox in childhood, the virus remains dormant in the body, held in check by the body’s immune system. However, it can become active again, particularly in older people and those with compromised immune systems.

There is documented evidence that exposure to children who are suffering from chickenpox helps give a boost to adult immunity to the virus re-emerging as shingles. Today’s adults are not likely to have received the chickenpox vaccine, so the exposure is actually re-exposure to the virus for most people.

Fewer children with the actual chickenpox virus equates to fewer adults with the opportunity to be around the virus as adults. That may not seem like a problem, but scientific research is beginning to reveal otherwise.

Science warns us about the dangers of the chickenpox vaccine

Researchers in Belgium recently published findings that showed when children within a population were vaccinated at about one year of age for chickenpox, there was double the incidence of shingles among adults aged 31 to 40.

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The reason? Those adults likely had chickenpox as children. Being re-exposed to the illness later in life by being around children with the disease would have given a boost to immunity that helps to guard against shingles virus.

But with far fewer children contracting chickenpox because of the vaccine, that effect would disappear, and unvaccinated adults would be at much higher risk of shingles.

Are you exposing yourself to an increased risk of nerve damage and excruciating pain

This chickenpox vaccine became available in 1995. But, the vast majority of children who grew up before then, came through the virus without serious complications and often suffered only mild symptoms. Of course, big pharma would like us to ignore that truth.

However, shingles in adults can be much more serious. Symptoms include a painful rash and blisters. The virus can lead to complications such as nerve damage, known as post-herpetic neuralgia, that can cause excruciating pain and last for months.

Although considered widely administered in the U.S., the chickenpox vaccination rate of about 85 percent is lower than with many other childhood immunizations and the vaccine remains controversial because of the fear it increases the rate of shingles.

How dangerous is the chickenpox vaccine?

Other countries have been less willing to make chickenpox vaccines a part of childhood immunization programs. For example, infectious disease modelers at the Health Protection Agency in Britain have estimated that shingles could increase 30 to 50 percent in the adult population if childhood vaccination for chickenpox becomes widespread. Their conclusion is that the damage the increase in shingles would cause outweighs the benefits of reducing chickenpox rates in youngsters.

There are other reasons for avoiding the chickenpox vaccine. In addition to concern over higher incidence of shingles during adulthood, there are concerns over live virus vaccines causing potentially dangerous vaccine-strain infections. The threat can affect children being vaccinated as well as their siblings.

Plus, let’s not forget, there is growing evidence that immunity to the virus – brought about by the vaccine – can be short-lived. This leaves adults vulnerable to contracting the disease later in life, when complications can be much more serious, even deadly, after missing out on its milder symptoms in childhood.

References:
https://elifesciences.org/elife-news/Press-package-Chickenpox-vaccination-does-increase-shingles-cases-but-mainly-in-young-adults
https://www.news-medical.net/news/20150812/Study-Chickenpox-vaccination-increases-incidence-of-shingles-in-younger-adults.aspx

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