Pediatric Practice Not Requiring Varicella Vaccine

[zenjenn]

The varicella is REQUIRED for school here in AL.

There is a religious exemption form. Sign it you feel that strongly about it. State officials aren't going to raid your home to verify your religious practices or lack thereof. You can get politically active and try to change state law to formally allow ethical objections, but in the meantime if you feel strongly about it, it's your child, and it's just paperwork. Alternatively, a sympathetic doctor might be persuaded to sign a medical exemption form, although that's the more difficult route.

[hey teach]

I respect anyone's right to chose what they want and consider safe for their children.

That being said, I wish the chicken pox immunization had been available when my children were young.

My older children had the chicken pox before their brother was born, so he did not have them as a child.
Instead, he contracted this "childhood illness" when he was twenty years old. He was hospitalized for three weeks, two in isolation. There were multiple complications, the main one causing problems with his spleen. He lost a semester of college, which we had paid for and could not be reinbursed and suffered chronic fatigue for over a year afterward.

Yes, without a doubt had t been available, my children would have received this immunization.

[tammie2]

I stand by my original assessment.

My son now is spending his fall break with another case of the chicken pox(the last bout was 6 weeks ago). According to what I have read, it used to be very rare to have chicken pox more than once, now almost 20% of children get multiple cases.

It might be great for some, but it is definitely not a one size fits all vaccine and a silly shot to require.

I will say however that the AL system is strange anyway, we had to get special approval for different brand vaccines and live vs synthetic and 5 of something AL requires 3 of(due to severe reaction). We were in 2 other states with no problems, just very strange(and probably something that most people never notice).