I guess I’m slightly advantaged, I’m young enough to have had a full set of MMR vaccinations as a child, but when I went back to school for a while for a new degree (didn’t have a chance to finish) in my 30s, I didn’t have the documentation, so I just got a new set. I’m still not taking anything for granted, and after the vax-hostile new administration, I went ahead and stocked a number of N95 masks for the household just in case. Because I can’t trust in any federal efforts to prevent spread of any inflection, measles or otherwise.
Given she’s sussed out the cause of more than one medical issue I was having when MDs had not, and prescribed the correct remedy, I’m inclined to trust her judgment.
I was going to add that your MD probably isn’t a solid medical authority either.
I haven’t seen my PCP in years. I only ever see the NP.
Ah, I see. I have seen my assigned PCP in the last year for something or other, and she’s excellent, but I’m fortunate to be a patient of a family practice with very good staff all around. And they see me promptly!
Be your own advocate, first.
You’re just one of hundreds they see.
She is following long established CDC guidance
Acceptable evidence of immunity against measles, mumps and rubella includes at least one of the following: 1) Written documentation of adequate vaccination, 2) Laboratory evidence of immunity, 3) Laboratory confirmation of disease, or 4) Birth before 1957 . Before vaccines were available, nearly everyone was infected with these viruses during childhood. Most born before 1957 are likely to have been infected naturally and therefore are presumed to be protected against measles, mumps, and rubella.
Okay, now I consider that an authority. 
While it exists anyway.
I was born well before 1957, and I never had mumps, so I wouldn’t bet I had any kind of immunity. As I mentioned I got an MMR shot when my first child was born so I wouldn’t get it as an adult. I did have measles and rubella.
No harm to getting a dose. The expert opinion however remains that memory of having had or not those born before 1957 likely had had disease. Still healthcare workers may opt for testing and two doses if not protective titers. So the “most” does not mean “all.”
Wonder why 1957? I was born in 1958 and had all three. When I started dental school in 1986 I had to get the MMR vaccine since it was a public school. There was no MMR vaccine when I started school. The requirement must have started after I graduated college in 1980.
Born 1962
I probably had the earliest available vaccines - Mom didn’t want to deal with a sick child if she could help it!
When I was in college in 82, there was a measles outbreak in the Texas universities, so I got another jab
I was once involved in treating a case of tetanus. For exposure in a non-immunized person, there’s antitoxin and antibiotics, and if the disease develops, it’s treated symptomatically.
It didn’t have to happen to this person.
Probably because most people born in 1957 started school in 1962, when the first vaccine was released.
I know there are antitoxins and such. But once a muscle becomes paralyzed because you are unimmunized, I’m not sure you can do much for that. There could be something new I don’t know about.
The denial is strong:
Full Title: Man Whose Daughter Died From Measles Stands by Failure to Vaccinate Her: “The Vaccination Has Stuff We Don’t Trust”
Identified only as Peter, the father at the heart of this tragedy is, like many others in Seminole, the small West Texas town at the center of the outbreak, a member of the traditional-minded Christian sect known as Mennonites. There’s apparently nothing in that group’s doctrine barring modern medicine, but like many other conservative religious groups, many Mennonites are vaccine skeptics.
“The vaccination has stuff we don’t trust,” Peter told The Atlantic. “We don’t like the vaccinations, what they have these days. We heard too much, and we saw too much.”
Your local epidemiologist says you can get the measles shot as young as 6 months. You still need to get two shots after age 1, for persistent immunity. But if there’s a lot of measles in your neighborhood, or where you plan to travel, you can get temporary protection for your infant. And i see the pediatrician among us says his practice will do that:
You can also get your titers tested. For complicated reasons, i did that 6 years ago when measles was spreading in NY, and learned that I was immune to measles.
I mean, my money is on Bird flu being next.
Especially with Kennedy’s latest nifty idea:
And a no-cull policy would expose farmworkers to sick chickens, according to Koci. “You’re exposing more humans to more chickens,” he says, “and just buying more lottery tickets for that pandemic strain.”
I was not aware of that. I had measles and mumps (I still hate pickles) before the vaccines were in use, but my childhood vaccinations for polio and various other diseases have held out. My rabies vaccination was given in adult hood, and last time I was bitten, it was still good.
I take minor offense to that. My experiences with nurse practitioners show them to be more interested in my welfare and more careful in practice than most physicians.
This seems like basic human psychology. If your choices led directly to your child’s death, wouldn’t you double down to avoid facing that you more or less killed your own daughter?
The alternative, that your stupidity meant that your child suffered and died in vain, is hard to face.
I absolutely agree about the caring and competence of most NPs. Questioning whether they represent a solid medical authority, i.e., are they a source of current, well-researched, authoritative medical practice guidelines? If so, yippee. Frankly, most physicians aren’t even that.