AAP on Chicken Pox: Before and After

[Turquesa]

I was watching the Shoot Em Up DVD about vaxes, and there was mention of how the AAP did an about-face on the chicken pox issue. Once upon a time, it was a generally harmless illness and nothing that rest and soup and time couldn't take care of. Does anybody know where this or related AAP statements are available (short of hard copies from journal articles)? I thought I saw something like it online, but now I can't locate anything.

I shouldn't have to tell you how the story ends. Once the CP vax was introduced, the disease morphed overnight into something vile and deadly.

I'm just curious to gather evidence on the contrast of pre and post-CP vax attitudes. TIA.

[Deborah]

Go old-fashioned. Get your hands on some old medical manuals from a year or two before the vaccine was introduced. And hang on to the manuals, because once you have them they'll be useful for other old data. Find the chickenpox page, then scan it into a computer and save it. Once it is scanned it can be posted online where it can easily be shared.

[Turquesa]

Ugh! I figured that would be the case. I don't know when I'll get a chance to go to the library and sift through old journals. I'm curious enough to make it happen eventually, though. Thanks!

[Deborah]

I found The American Medical Association Family Medical Guide in my library--an outdated copy published in 1987. I tried scanning in the section on chickenpox, but my equipment can't cope with such a big book. Anyway, they do not make it out to be a scary disease in children, but do say that adults are more likely to develop complications.

We have a Merck type home medical guide from 1997, and their section on chickenpox is a lot scarier. They mention and promote the immunization.

Ask at your local library if they have any really old medical guide volumes for sale or giveaway and keep your eyes open at book sales and yard sales. You can pick up copies of this particular volume on Amazon for 1 cent plus shipping and there are hundreds available. Plus it has the 1987 vaccine schedule--DPT and Polio and MMR and that is pretty much it.

We need to nab this information before it becomes hard to find. Tracking down medical manuals from the 1950s with the awful truth about measles has become really difficult, lets keep that from happening with chickenpox!

[Turquesa]

Great suggestions! Thanks! And I agree that we need to get a hold of this. I'm not terribly tech savvy, but I do have a scanner. Perhaps a site like NVIC or Jenny McCarthy's would be interested in posting it.

[Deborah]

You can try that. If they aren't interested, we could ask insidevaccines. They like stuff about disease history.

[newmum35]

I would also be interesting in reading before and after, for chicken pox, and measles too... anyone find anything available online?

I did bookmark a link to an old vaccination schedule, back when it wasn't so cluttered!

[Baby_Vol]

I clearly remember it not being a big deal. My Mom and Dad were only concerned about me scratching the pox b/c it would "make a scar for life." That was it. No other concerns. I'm fairly certain I didn't even go to the doctor. She got some of that pink lotion and rubed it on me, and I slept.

I laughed at my pedi when she tried to scare me. I just said "you are never going to convince me of that, so please don't even try."

I don't have any old medical journals, but I'll search at my in-laws when I go over there. My MIL is a nurse ...has been for years. I bet she has an old journal laying around.

[Deborah]

Not just journals. Your best bet is truly an old medical manual or textbook. The very best thing to get hold of would be one from the 1950s, but that is a long shot. Then we could get the info on measles, too. And mumps.

[Baby_Vol]

My MIL graduated in the 70s ...I bet she has a textbook from then.

Man, wish my grandma was still here. She passed away in 2007, but she was a nurse as well. I don't think any of her textbooks are still around ....or if they are, I think my cousin has thrown them away.

[Deborah]

70s would be very good.

It might actually be hard to find journal articles about chickenpox, because it so rarely did anything interesting back then. I mean grown-ups occasionally died from it, but it was taken for granted that childhood diseases were dangerous for adults, so that wasn't interesting in and of itself.

[Turquesa]

Originally Posted by Deborah

Not just journals. Your best bet is truly an old medical manual or textbook. The very best thing to get hold of would be one from the 1950s, but that is a long shot. Then we could get the info on measles, too. And mumps.

I went to bookfinder.com and couldn't find any pre-1995 AAP textbooks, (1995 is when they introduced the CP vaccine). But I did track down a comprehensive AAP guide for parents, which is sure to include a how-to on caring for CP. It was only $1.99, so why not?? I'll let you know what I find.

I'm sure it will say what my 1993 edition of William Sears' The Baby Book says . . . . which is to say, very little. In his chart on childhood illnesses, Sears simply says to call the doctor only if you're concerned about a secondary bacterial infection developing, which is easily preventable with Calamine lotion and other scratch-control measures . . . and presumably treatable with antibiotics. (Yea. Serious stuff. Thank you, vax makers, for heroically saving my kid's life. )

But check this out. Sears himself has done an about-face: [Emph. my own].

In my first years in pediatric practice, I remember making hospital rounds every morning and treating children with meningitis, and complications of chicken pox and other illnesses that have been either eliminated or lessened in severity by the widespread use of vaccines.

The "FAQ" response naturally encourages you to get all vaxes. I don't think that Sears is necessarily speaking with Pharma dollar signs gleaming in his pupils. I just think that as a physician, he's probably been swept up in the wave of vax hype and dogma that has overtaken his community.

At any rate, I'd appreciate it if the rest of you would share your findings. If nothing else, our answer is probably sitting in some small, rural library that rarely updates its stash . . .

[maxwill129]

I used to work for some doctor's and they had a medical journal I looked through a lot. Even though it said that everyone should vaccinate, they said measles, mumps, rubella, and chicken pox were no big deal (okay, it didn't say no big deal, but they said pretty harmless!). I don't work there anymore so I don't know the name of the medical journal, but I know the info is out there!

[ZoeyZoo]

This isn't a "medical text" but How to Raise a Healthy Child in Spite of oyur doctor was written in 1981 and has a section on chicken pox. The book argues against vaxes so it is not the most mainstream view from that peiod but it's interesting the contects the diseases are decsribed as.

[maxwill129]

I was going to mention, also, that if you look at older medical textbooks, while they tell you to vaccinate, I feel like they do a better job at giving you the facts on the diseases and the side effects of the diseases. In the book I was talking about above it stated that while sterility is a possible effect of mumps, it is extremely rare, death with chicken pox is extremely rare, that rubella vax was soley created to battle congenital rubella and that the disease itself is not dangerous.