Update: I contacted my PCP’s office this morning. They confirmed that the pharmacist (and it was the pharmacist, not a pharmacy tech) has got the wrong end of the stick regarding the Evidence of Immunity statement. I am in the process of scheduling the vax at my PCP’s office as soon as she orders it done.
I did point out that this pharmacist’s misunderstanding of the rules could cause real harm to persons who have not yet received either the vaccine or been infected with Measles Rubiola, especially. Having experienced it as an adult, I know how awful it can be – and I was lucky, suffering only a secondary respiratory infection and no need for hospitalization.
I encouraged them to do what they could to set this pharmacist straight, since I am sure I won’t be the only person turned away for an MMR vaccine by him. I hope my efforts yield a result.
Update to the update: My PCP’s office just called me back and said they would not authorize an MMR vaccine without me first obtaining a titer test to ascertain if I have no immunity to rubella. So apparently, my PCP’s office agrees with the information I received from the pharmacist on Tuesday.
Update to the update to the update: So I went and got lab work as directed by my PCP’s office, then got the results. Immune to measles rubiola, as I had told them. Immune to mumps, as I had told them. NON-immune to rubella. As I had told them.
I’m waiting now for my PCP’s office to transmit the results to the pharmacy so I can finally get the damn MMR vax. I realize my chances of getting rubella are miniscule, as there were only 11 documented cases in the whole country in 2024. But a year ago, we thought we had measles rubiola licked, too. Rubella is highly transmissible and since there is an effective vaccine, I may as well get it.
What grates my carrots is that by the time I’ve gotten through this stupid bureaucratic obstacle course, I will have made 4 trips, as well as taken up time of the lab and their techs, all for a shot they could have just given me on my first trip to the pharmacy. (Not entirely true, since they had to order the vaccine, but still.)
When I finally get the shot, I intend to pin the pharmacist down on exactly what rule or directive he relied on to put me through all this. I suspect @hajario is right, probably the insurance company. I’ll update again either way once I find out.
When you were a child, the three vaccines were delivered separately. They were later combined into the MMR. I’m slightly younger than you, and i remember having mumps and getting a measles shot. And my mother told me that she took me to get German measles shot as soon as it was available – and at first it was only available to girls, so we stood in a long line of women and their young daughters.
I got a German measles titer as part of getting a marriage license, and a measles titer during the last US outbreak of measles (mostly Orthodox Jews in NYC) so I’m not personally in need of those vaccines.
My mother was a bit of the kooky sort of person who thought natural immunity was best (at least in certain instances), so I well remember getting mumps with my siblings. It was a doddle as a child. I guess I got chicken pox, too, though I don’t remember that one. A titer showed I had it. My mother did have us get small pox vaccinations and I remember standing in a long line to take a sugar cube to immunize against polio.
Measles rubiola at age 32 was not a doddle. It was the sickest I’ve ever been in my life. So much for natural immunity.
Rubella is not really a threat to me. I wouldn’t like to get it, but for most adults, it’s not horrible like rubiola was. However, it is highly transmissible. Someone who has it will infect, on average, 15 other people. What if one of those persons is pregnant? The idea of that horrifies me. It’s more than enough to cause me to pursue this vaccination.
I bet. I had chicken pox at 12, and i think that’s the sickest I’ve been in my life. And that is considered a minor disease. Mumps at 8 was mostly an annoyance.
Yes, back when marriage and children were more closely linked, and there were more adults who hadn’t been vaccinated as children, my state required that a woman get a rubella titer, or a fresh vaccine, or have a doctor sign a form that said they’d been advised on why it was important for potentially pregnant women to be immune. That’s why i know i had immunity.
I think I was around 6 when I got it. We kids were all quarantined together in one bedroom and teasing our parents by puffing up our cheeks while they were trying to check our swollen glands. We thought it was hilarious. I don’t even remember suffering with it, only being told I had it.
I’m sorry chicken pox was so hard on you! I don’t even remember getting that one. I paid to have a titer done because I was trying to avoid getting the shingles shots. Once I learned I’d had it, I went ahead and got the shingles shot series. The first shot was pretty unpleasant, but the second one was… almost nothing.
Rubiola is nothing to mess with, as some folks are now learning in states where there is lots of vaccine resistance.
Rubella is still dangerous to pregnant folks. I hope the Vaccine Resistant don’t learn this lesson (again) the hard way. But I will do my part to at least keep from spreading it if it does again become a threat in the country. Which, under the circumstances, is not beyond the realm of possibility.
The last time i gave blood, i got a letter from the Red Cross that began, “in testing your blood we have found …” Not really a good opening line. But what they found was that i had an unusually high chicken pox titer, and my blood could be used to extract protective gamma globulin for people who needed protection against chickenpox. Sadly, i also developed an unpleasant reaction to having my blood drawn (the inside of my vein would itch for two days afterwards) and i decided it was a bad idea to keep donating.
So on my doctor’s advice, i held off getting the shingles vaccine until i was 60. It was unpleasant, but I’ve had more unpleasant vaccine reactions.
I and one other household member got MMR shots back in March. Apparently they were in pretty short supply just then - the pharmacist said I’d gotten their last dose and they were having trouble re-stocking it. So at least around here, people are not refusing it.
This was just as the morons in Texas etc. were beginning to make major headlines.
My mother claimed I’d had measles as a baby when one of my brothers brought it home. The pediatrician disagreed - and solved it by just giving me a shot right then - I was about 12. Neither of them thought I’d had the mumps - and I had a shot for that at 10 or 11.
I got tested for rubella prior to reproducing and that was actually fine. Having school-age siblings was pretty useful, I guess.
Anyway - in my case, the mumps and measles jabs were in the late 1960s very early 1970s. Having the booster was likely unnecessary. But I’m not sorry I got it.
Getting it even if you don’t need it won’t hurt you. I’ve gotten it 5 times. Twice as a toddler, as part of normal childhood vaccines; again at age 9, before we moved to the Soviet Union, because my doctor thought I needed extra doses of all the vaccines I’d already had (except smallpox); but just for fun, I did have a TB vaccine.
Then, there was an outbreak of it in my college in one of the dorms. I didn’t live in that dorm, but the entire undergrad population had to either produce proof of vaccination, or get a shot. I just got the shot. Took about 10 minutes.
The army gave me my 5th dose, because everyone got vaccinated for everything (plus a TB test). The army doesn’t ask what you had as a kid, and try and sort you, they just give everyone everything.
Though, that is why I got a few vaccines that were routine vaccines in 1993 when I was inducted, but not around yet when I was a child: Hib; rotavirus; & meningococcal meningitis (which wasn’t even around when I was in college, and in fact, I had a friend die from it).
It’s nice to have had those now that I work with small kids.
I test perfectly negative for TB now, and I remember once when I was young (teen, IIRC) having a TB test that was inconclusive, and the issue was resolved by demonstrating that I had been vaccinated, so I had antibodies, but not the bacteria. Now that the test is negative, I must not have immunity anymore.
I just read a few days ago that the BCG vaccine is most effective in young children, which is why some countries still give it at birth.
Before doing clinicals in 1994, we all had to be tested for tuberculosis. Most of us could have the PPD, but I had two classmates who had emigrated from places where the BCG vaccine was required for entry into the country, so they had chest x-rays. This was all at the school’s expense.
There was some talk about x-raying my chest, and I was sort of excited, never having had anything but dental x-rays before. The evidence of the vaccine was enough, though-- maybe because I’d never been outside the US before I had the vaccine.
No x-rays. My mother was happy, though-- she was sure I’d get lung cancer if I got the chest x-ray.
ETA: before I got the TB vaccine, I got the test for it-- I was officially TB-free when given the vaccine, and that would be noted in the same records. I got it on my arm. There was some discussion of where to give it to my brother, just 4, because apparently small children are (or were) given the test some place else. /ETA
I forgot to mention that they had to have the x-ray, because the PPD only indicates antibodies to TB, and BCG would create them.
The only time I ever dispensed a BCG vaccine was for, of all things, bladder cancer. It’s infused into the bladder and the urethra is clamped off for as long as possible. It stimulates immune responses, in ways that are still not fully understood.
You did, and I’m glad. Mine was a mega-hassle. I did finally get it on July 8th.
Except for regular COVID and flu boosters, all my vaccinations are now up to date. I started scheduling them the day after the 2024 elections and then every 3 weeks until I was done. Tdap, pneumococcal and shingles (2 shots 4 months apart). The MMR was the last one. Doc doesn’t recommend RSV quite yet, so not that one.
I think vaccines will continue to be available, but under this regime, there will be more hoops to jump through to get them, and they will stop updating them as much as possible. Gift link:
The new cancellations dismayed scientists, many of whom regard mRNA shots as the best option for protecting Americans in a pandemic.
“This is a bad day for science,” said Scott Hensley, an immunologist at the University of Pennsylvania who has been working to develop an mRNA vaccine against influenza.
It’s completely insane, but nothing surprises me with this crowd anymore.
Mine are too, INCLUDING COVID and flu-- got those back in Oct. Got TDaP; current on shingles.
Only vaccines I don’t have are a couple of remote ones not recommended because I’m not traveling to an area where they are common, and I don’t have RSV nor pneumococcal, because I have no breathing problems (seasonal allergies, but that’s it), so they are not recommended until I am 65. 6.5 years to go. And, I don’t have vaccines like Gardasil, that came too late for me, but I have normal pap smears, so far.
Interestingly, my doc recommended RSV last year when I turned 60 but said not to bother with TDAP (although I could if I wanted to do so). My sister (two years younger) had her titers measured and they were high and we probably got the same vaccines so I should be good there.
I did recently get Gardasil because I am out there dating and sexually active and there is data to indicate that it will still lower cancer rates. Insurance doesn’t cover it if you are over a certain age so I had to pay out of pocket. Three shots at $250 each.
My mother was happy, though-- she was sure I’d get lung cancer if I got the chest x-ray.