Our local newspaper put out a short article discouraging people from having measles parties.
The fact that this even has to be said… 
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It was a thing that was done before the vaccines in the 50’s. Get it over with and have everybody get infected together.
I’ve seen more than a few people on anti-vax Facebook pages saying, “I got measles as a kid and it wasn’t bad at all. Much less dangerous than vaccines!” Good grief, it’s scary.
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Even without close contact with an infant, people in that risk group are recommended to get a booster unless they know they had measles or a live attenuated vaccine (as opposed to the inactivated vaccine that was often used prior to 1968).
Even back in the day I never heard of measles parties. Chicken pox yes but measles and mumps were serious, well known to be dangerous quite often and frightening. I was born before 1957 and still remember having measles and lying in bed in a dark room.
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Well I got curious about this and thanks to google discovered this was indeed true for measles and german measles back in the late 50’s
Here are a few things I found
“According to a 1960 article in the Los Angeles Times entitled “‘Measles Parties’ Put Spots on Tots,” this was a growing trend in Canada, where parents wanted their children to come down with the disease before adulthood.”
Note that “German measles” is rubella, not measles. Rubella is usually mild, but can be dangerous during pregnancy due to risk of causing fetal defects.
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Which is why they vaccinated all the girls at school at just before puberty. I don’t recall the boys getting vax’d, maybe by private doctors but not as part of the mass program.
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Paywall.
The TX outbreak is not over yet…
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And anti-vaxxers pipe up with, “He died WITH measles, not FROM measles.” ?!? If you have an underlying condition, get measles, and die, measles is still the cause.
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Yes- like when someone who is diabetic gets shot in the head.
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Or say someone with a bleeding disorder is attacked and dies when an injury doesn’t stop bleeding. The killer is still at fault. “He wouldn’t have died if he didn’t have a bleeding disorder!” would be a ridiculous defense.
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I have been doing some serious geneaology digging, which entails hundreds of pages of official records of deaths. It is pretty sobering stuff – I’m looking in the 1880s of New England, and the number of children dead from diptheria, typhus, and “pox” or “fever” is horrifying. We know that, but page after page of “unnamed” dead at 2 months, or course of illness = 6 weeks and only then does Samuel die at 3 yrs emphasizes it and is truly sad. I wish anti vaxxers could come help me.
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I discovered today that another friend of mine, in her 70s,never had chicken pox (neither did her mother or grandmother). Her doctor does not recommend her getting the chicken pox shot followed by the shingles shots. At this point, he wants to keep that virus out of her body. BTW, she has been a children’s librarian for her entire career and is a mother and grandmother, so she has probably been exposed many times. (I also posted this on the shingles thread).
Well, I got a titer (blood test) and got results—“positive, abnormal.” H had same test & got same result. Both of our docs said we have immunities (from having gotten infections) and no need for booster.
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What does the “abnormal” (versus “normal” or nothing) mean here?
My mother swore she never had chicken pox as a child but she got shingles as an adult. I think she had an asymptomatic case, she was the second youngest among her many sibs. She also didn’t get it as an adult when my brother, sister and I all had it.
Believe abnormal refers to the # of antibodies in titer but we have NO #s because that’s a different test and costs more and has to be ordered separately and takes more blood. Our MDs seem fine with positive abnormal.
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