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My child was invited to a chickenpox party. Would it be better for my child to get the chickenpox this way? Why do we vaccinate against a mild disease like chickenpox? The idea of “pox parties” is generally tied to the perception of chickenpox as a harmless illness. Before the varicella vaccine became available, however, chickenpox infections required 10,000 hospitalizations and caused more than 100 deaths each year in the United States. Exposing a child to wild chickenpox puts him at risk for a severe case of the disease. Even uncomplicated cases of chickenpox cause children to miss a week or more of school, with a caregiver missing work to care for the sick child.[1] Natural infection also means a risk of infecting others: while successful vaccination protects a child against chickenpox without this risk, children who are infected with chickenpox naturally are contagious. They can spread the disease to other people—not just other children, but also adults, who have a hi…

Can you get a disease from the vaccine that’s supposed to prevent it? And why do some vaccines have live pathogens but others have killed pathogens? Vaccines that are made with killed versions of pathogens—or with only a part of the pathogen—are not able to cause illness. When a person receives these vaccines, it is impossible for him or her to become ill with the disease. Live, attenuated (or weakened) vaccines are theoretically capable of causing illness: because they can still replicate (though not well), mutation is possible, which can result in a virulent form of the pathogen. However, they are designed with this in mind, and attenuated to minimize this possibility. Reversion to virulent form is a problem with some forms of the oral polio vaccine (OPV), which is why only the inactivated form (IPV) is now used in the United States. It is important to note that attenuated vaccines can cause serious problems for individuals with weakened immune systems, such as cance…

How do vaccines work? Do they work against viruses and bacteria? Vaccines work to prime your immune system against future “attacks” by a particular disease. There are vaccines against both viral and bacterial pathogens, or disease-causing agents. When a pathogen enters your body, your immune system generates antibodies to try to fight it off. Depending on the strength of your immune response and how effectively the antibodies fight off the pathogen, you may or may not get sick. If you do fall ill, however, some of the antibodies that are created will remain in your body playing watchdog after you’re no longer sick. If you’re exposed to the same pathogen in the future, the antibodies will ”recognize” it and fight it off. Vaccines work because of this function of the immune system. They’re made from a killed, weakened, or partial version of a pathogen. When you get a vaccine, whatever version of the pathogen it contains isn’t strong or plentiful enough to make you sic…