Governor KY, Bevin, sentences his 9 children to shingles by rejecting the chickenpox vaccine

When I was a child, there was no vaccine against chicken pox. Getting chickenpox – with the required oatmeal – was considered a rite of pbadage for childhood. It was not uncommon for uninfected children to attend children. The thought was: "To finish with that."

But I would really like that there was a vaccine.

After my 30 years, I had shingles. The reason is that chickenpox, which is a type of herpes virus, establishes permanent residence in an inactive form inside nerve cells. (As one of my former teachers said: "Unlike love, herpes is forever.")

I was not sick, stressed, or immunocompromised, but it does not matter for chickenpox (more properly called the chickenpox and shingles virus). From time to time, for reasons that are not really understood, the virus can "wake up". And when that happens, it can be very unpleasant. I had only mild rashes on my back, but shingles can be extremely painful, especially in the elderly, and can even cause blindness or hearing loss in rare cases.

Chickenpox is wrongly considered a harmless disease. According to a case report published in 2018, chickenpox hospitalized 13,000 Americans and killed 150 each year before widespread vaccination. But even if it was a harmless infection, would not we want to vaccinate our children to avoid the pain of shingles in their last years?

Kentucky Governor Matt Bevin deliberately exposes his nine children to chickenpox

Apparently, it did not matter to the governor of Kentucky, Matt Bevin, who admitted exposing his nine children to chicken pox. According to Louisville Courier-Journal"They had chickenpox on purpose because we found a neighbor who had it and I went to make sure that every one of my children was exposed to it, and they had it, they had it as a child. days, and they all went well. "

What about when they are older? The CDC estimates that just under one in three will develop shingles during its lifetime. This means that, statistically, Bevin has sentenced three of his children to an outbreak of shingles. And there is no limit to the number of times that shingles can break out, so maybe they will have an outbreak more than once.

Bevin's decision is incredibly obtuse. Thirty years ago, a "chickenpox festival" was a great idea. But the chickenpox vaccine has been available on the market since 1995 so there is no excuse – other than pure stupidity – for not vaccinating against this virus. The scientific ignorance of so many elected officials of our country is simply staggering.