Measles vaccination

I had measles as a child and was quite ill. They think my mother's early death, from a bad heart, could have been the legacy of a childhood illness. I have taught two children who lost their hearing following measles.

It is hard to know if longitudinal studies can show that increases in other conditins are certainly related to vaccines or environmental changes. Far more car emissions for example.

DD1 could not have measle jab as she was allergic to egg and at that time i was told they grew the culture on egg yolk. DD2 had the jab and that was enough to give to her sister!

That scar on upper arm is BCG - like Galen says. Don't they squirt that through with pressure?

all keep saying BCG , what the devil is that ???////

I am sure i will going down with something now ,, panic , panic

My scar is definitely smallpox - I remember the nurse dabbed some stuff on the arm, then scratched it twice with a needle. There were several cases in Brighton, where I was living at the time (aged 11) and they did mass vaccinations. A long queue formed. We all had to bare a left arm (unless we were left-handed) and the nurse went down the line. My brother was about a year old and my father was holding him. His was done on the ankle, as that was easily accessible without undressing him. We had a hell of a time keeping that dry.

BCG is anti TB . When I was at teacher training college we all had to have a TB test (a gadget held against the skin of the inner wrist which somehow did six tiny jabs in a circle) If the site came up red in the next few days, you had been exposed to TB and had gained immunity to it. If not you were immunised. I did not need one. Must have met it and developed antibodies at some time. We also had to have a chest Xray to check for signs of TB.

It could be either smallpox or BCG (for TB) vaccination. When we were babies, the smallpox one was done as a scratch in the upper arm and it was the same when I had another before I went to work in Africa. BCG also left a scab. I think J08 might be thinking of the Heaf test which was administered by pressure. That was to detect if you had been previously exposed to TB infection. When I was 13 in 1953, we were all lined up to have the Heaf test. We were also taken by bus to the local hospital where we stripped down to our vests and had chest x-rays. After all that palaver, we had the BCG which took ages to heal. That's one reason why TB became much less prevalent.

Snap, Anno

Isn't smallpox a single pimple?

Oh yes. The Heaf Test. My uncle had TB and we all had to have that. Yes, that's the, sort of patch, of little scars isn't it? It showed you had already come in contact with TB and had resistance. I think! (was a bit confused at the time, more so now!)

Nonu -

My husband's smallpox vaccination scar was enormous - about an inch and a half across and all pitted. On the other arm he had the scar from a boil, about the same size. Not both acquired at the same time.

Totally confused now. this is the scar I am thinking of

Oh dear , I am on the point of expiry ,
Thank you for allowing me my Prawn cocktail , and the chance to watch "The Judge " + Ice Road Truckers .

I love you all .

Nonu are you all right? Why are you eating a prawn cocktail?

Why not?
I love them...

EM ?? Because I like them !!! Don"t you ???

looks ok to me

I'm sure it's fine, but Nonu's posts are becoming increasingly irrelevant and off the wall and I am concerned about her. Also, prawn cocktail can look quite pretty, although certainly not remotely appetising in that picture j08, but it is a taste abomination.

Not to us, absent!

Taste is subjective isn't it?

You are NOT concerned about Nonu! It's just an excuse for more of the same.

j08; I have to disagree in that absent is concerned and must point out that I was thinking the very same thing having tried to make some sort of sense of something that Nonu said on [I think] another thread.

When any member starts posting totally irrelevant and disjointed remarks, surely we must all be concerned.

I'm only puzzled. "Expiry"?

Weird.

j08 [woodenspoon]

Just read an interesting passage in Billiw Wright's book Four Seasons North, which I think relevant to the discussion about community responsibility:

"The binding strength, the totality, of community requires a commonality, a shared base that makes the acknowledgement of 'other', the survival of 'other', as necessary, as sacred, as one's own."