Mumps

Mumps can cause deafness and infertility!

The death rate from mumps is low, usu­al­ly only about 1 in 10,000 cas­es. How­ev­er, mumps is still a seri­ous dis­ease. Before the devel­op­ment of the mumps vac­cine, the mumps was one of the biggest prob­lems in mil­i­tary med­i­cine. In a man, mumps can cause severe, painful swelling of the testes. Some­times, the mumps leaves the man unable to father chil­dren.

The mumps can also cause deaf­ness in one or both ears. The MMR vac­cine does not cause autism. But measles, mumps, and rubel­la can cause deaf­ness.

 

Here’s a basic descrip­tion of what mumps is like:

For­tu­nate­ly, we have an effec­tive vac­cine against mumps. The mumps vac­cine is a “live” vac­cine. As such, it has nev­er con­tained the mer­cury-con­tain­ing preser­v­a­tive thimeros­al. The mumps vac­cine is gen­er­al­ly giv­en in com­bi­na­tion with the vac­cine for measles and the vac­cine for rubel­la. There is no rea­son to give these vac­cines sep­a­rate­ly. Giv­ing the vac­cines as sep­a­rate injec­tions sim­ply means more injec­tions for the child and more chance that one of the vac­cines will be missed.

Because the mumps vac­cine is a “live” vac­cine, it can­not be giv­en to some peo­ple, includ­ing chil­dren with a sup­pressed immune sys­tem. Those indi­vid­u­als depend on the herd immu­ni­ty that results from prac­ti­cal­ly every­one else being vac­ci­nat­ed. Once measles has been wiped out through vac­ci­na­tion, we will no longer need to vac­ci­nate any­one against it.