Chickenpox: Update on the boy with complications

Chickenpox Scarring

Remember the boy who suffered from the severe case of Chickenpox?  The good news is that it did not turn out to be meningitis, but the Chickenpox did leave him with a very bad scar to remind him of the entire ordeal.

He had spent one week at KK Hospital where various tests were done to determine the severity of the infection.  The pox just in front of the ear had gotten infected, so he had to be put on antibiotics and they had to perform ultrasound imaging to see the extent of the infection which had caused him not to be able to turn his neck.

After one week at KK, he was discharged but still had to be followed up by the paediatrician and had to be continued on antibiotics.  This picture is taken recently, one month after the initial Chickenpox infection and I have just certified that he was able to return to school.

I had another Chickenpox case recently where a distraught mom  recounted how she had left her child with the in-laws while she was overseas and during the time, her in-laws had another grandchild who had chickenpox and purposely exposed her child to the affected kid.  Subsequently, her child had chickenpox which left her with some scarring!

Please remember that though Chickenpox is a mild disease most of the time, it can still cause serious infection.  So please don't endorse the idea of Chickenpox parties and subject your child to the disease thinking that it is a way of getting them immne naturally to Chickenpox.  You will never forgive yourself if your child landed in hospital because of severe complications.  A better and far safer method is to give your child the Chickenpox vaccine and do also consider giving your child a second dose of the vaccine if you want to confer an higher level of protection.

MMR Vaccine does not cause Autism

The Measles, Mumps and Rubella (MMR) vaccine which was introduced in the 70's has resulted in the dramatic decrease in what used to be the very common childhood diseases of Measles, Mumps and Rubella. I even remember having Measles and Mumps as a child myself, but nowadays you don't see kids with these conditions in the clinic.

Over the past decade, there has been concerns about a possible link between the MMR vaccine and Autism. This was the result of a paper published in 1998 in the British Journal "The Lancet" It has since been shown that the whole thing was a sham. Here is the excerpt from Wikipaedia:


Claims of a connection between the vaccine and autism were raised in a 1998 paper in the respected British medical journal The Lancet.[3] It was later discovered that Andrew Wakefield, the paper's lead author, had received major funding from British trial lawyers seeking evidence against vaccine manufacturers.[4] Ten of the paper's twelve coauthors retracted its interpretation of an association between MMR vaccine and autism.[5] It was also discovered that Wakefield had previously filed for a patent on a rival vaccine using technology that lacked scientific credibility, and that Wakefield knew but did not publish test results that contradicted his theory by showing that no measles virus was found in the children tested.[6] In 2009, The Sunday Times reported that Wakefield had manipulated patient data and misreported results in his 1998 paper, creating the appearance of a link with autism.[7] A special court convened in the United States to review claims under the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program ruled on February 12, 2009 that parents of autistic children are not entitled to compensation in their contention that certain vaccines caused autism in their children.[8][9] The Lancet fully retracted the 1998 paper on February 2, 2010.[10]

Following the 1998 publication, there has been many large epidemiological studies conducted to look into the safety of the MMR vaccine. All of these studies concluded that the MMR vaccine was safe. I recently read one of the papers published by the Cochrane Collaboration in 2008. This paper reviewed all the previous studies conducted on the safety of the MMR vaccine and concluded that there was no link between MMR and Autism. The following the summary of the paper:



I hope this short post will give parents a better understanding of issues behind the MMR/Autism link. I think there is very good evidence to show that the MMR vaccine is safe and benefits far outweigh the risk. At this point in time, there is no reason to believe that giving the MMR vaccine will cause the child to develop Autism.

Karri Family Clinic is now on Facebook!

One of our patients pointed out to me that it would be very convenient if they could read my updates on facebook too. So I have now created the Karri Family Clinic Facebook page and invite everyone to join as a fan!

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