Chicken Pox and Unimmunized Children

Unimmunized children may face increased risk for chickenpox.

The Los Angeles Times (1/5, Maugh) reports, "Vaccines are becoming victims of their own success," say researchers at the Kaiser Permanente's Institute for Health Research, who are working on a series of studies to find out just how the vaccine refusal trend is affecting public health. Similar to their 2009 finding on whooping cough, investigators noted that the vaccine to protect children from the varicella zoster virus "is one parents are most likely to skip, because they believe the disease is the least serious preventable childhood illness."
However, unimmunized children "have a ninefold greater chance of contracting" chickenpox, HealthDay (1/4, Edelson) reported. What's more, a "chickenpox infection can linger in the body for decades, eventually causing the skin condition shingles and increasing the risk for stroke."