Mumps Vaccine and Illness Statistics, and Treatment Options
With three confirmed cases in a nearby town, mumps is a hot topic among moms this week in my area. Rather than be sucked into emotional arguments, I decided to take that energy and funnel it into something more productive.
Today we are going to be looking at statistics about how common mumps is, how effective the vaccine is, and whether mumps is something we need to be worrying about in the first place.
We looked at pertussis a few months ago, and the response was great, so I’m going to be looking into more vaccines over the course of 2016.
What is mumps?
Mumps is a virus that usually presents with fever, body aches, headaches, and swollen glands. Symptoms start between 12 and 25 days after infection and typically a complete recovery is made within 2-3 weeks. Mumps is a contagious virus spread through saliva or mucus, much like the common cold.
Many people do not know that they have mumps, and a lab test is needed to confirm because not everyone presents with symptoms (source: CDC) 20-30% of people diagnosed show no signs or symptoms of the disease (source).
What are the complications associated with mumps?
Complications from mumps can include swelling of the brain, swelling of the tissue covering the brain and spinal chord, and swelling of the testicles, swelling of the ovaries, and deafness. (source: CDC)
Clearly, swelling of critical parts of our body and deafness is cause for concern and something that we want to avoid. But how often does this occur? In the recent outbreaks of mumps in 2006, 2009, and 2010 (approx 10,000 reported cases total [source]) there were no deaths and no deafness as result of the mumps virus. (source: CDC)
How effective is the mumps vaccine?
Mumps is vaccinated for as part of the MMR (measles, mumps, rubella) combination vaccine. On the current vaccine schedule it is given at age 12-15 months, 4-6 years, and college age (if immunity is now shown on lab tests).
There is controversy around this, including a major lawsuit filed against Merek about misrepresenting the effectiveness of the mumps vaccine (source).
But disregarding the controversy, the vaccine is estimated 88% effective after the first two doses (source: CDC), which means that more than 1 in 10 people fully vaccinated do not show protection against the disease.
Many outbreaks have shown to be primarily among vaccinated individuals – with 67.7% of cases in recent outbreaks in the Neatherlands occurring in people who were fully vaccinated (source).
What risks are associated with the mumps vaccine?
The mumps vaccine is part of the MMR combination vaccine. This is one of the more controversial vaccines, but it’s the measles portion of it that usually is the topic of the controversy (article).
In any case, looking at the ingredients in the vaccine itself is recommended. The vaccine contains live viruses, human and animal DNA, and antibiotics.
From the package insert from Merek (source), the MMRII vaccine contains:
- Measles Virus (live)
- Chick Embryo Culture
- Mumps Virus (2 strains, one live)
- Rubella (live)
- Human Diploid Lung Fibroblasts Culture (3 month gestation fetus, Caucasian, female)
- Medium 199 culture (buffered salt solution, amino acids, fetal bovine serum)
- Sucrose, phosphate, glutamate (MSG- acts as a stabilizer in this case), recumbant human albumin (human blood product), neomycin (antibiotic, cause of some allergic reactions)
- Sorbitol (stabalizer, naturally found in berries)
- Hydrolyzed gelatin stabilizer (pork product, stabilizer)
- Sodium phosphate (a salt)
What treatments are available for mumps?
Conventionally, there are no medical treatments for mumps and complete recover is usually completed within 2 weeks of presenting with symptoms. In general, children and adults are considered to be no longer contagious one week after diagnosis. (source)
Rest, over the counter pain relievers, and cool or warm compresses to ease the discomfort of swollen glands are recommended. (source)
Holistic treatment options include:
- Indian aloe topically to soothe swollen glands
- Ginger tea is antiviral and antiinflammatory
My overall conclusion
(sources linked in above sections)
Mumps is an uncomfortable condition, but very rarely causes serious complications, as we have see – there have been no serious complications in over 10K cases in the recent outbreaks.
In addition, we see that the vaccine against mumps is not very effective, with most of the people who test positive for mumps in recent outbreaks being fully vaccinated against it.
The ingredients in the mumps vaccine that cause me concern are the blood products, human DNA, antibiotic, and live viruses that are known to shed.
Long-term studies on young children being injected with human blood products or live viruses have not been done. If the risks for complications from potentially catching mumps were greater, they might outweigh the potential risks from the vaccine. But at this time, we choose not to vaccinate for mumps.
I am not completely anti-vaccine, and I always believe that a parent has to make the decisions for their own family based on their unique circumstances.
I hope that this has helped make it a little easier to be confident in your decision, no matter what you choose.
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Just a note. The company that produces the MMR is actually Merck and Company, not Merek.
Thanks! Typo
Love this article! I hope you will choose to breakdown each vaccine like this. It’s very helpful!
I’m so glad you find it helpful! I want to do one for each vaccine, it’s going to take a while – these take a full day of writing and a couple of research to make sure they’re sourced well :)
Then people wonder why I don’t approve of vaccines in infants… just look at that list of “ingredients” Shocking!!!
I wonder if those that are pro vaccines actually know what they are putting in their kids bodies…..
It is shocking for you because you live in a society without major diseases, like polio, measles, pertusis. You know what was shocking for me? I was 4 years old and in mid 50’s living in an era traumatised by polio. My dad took me at the beach in the morning to catch some early sun rays (vitamind obssesion) and near by was a group of kids with polio and some nurses, walking on the beach with the same idea of early sun rays. Some kids left the cruches and crawled on the sand with twisted limbs, like crabs….that shocked me. And even though I was very young, my dad told me that after that morning I always took the medicine given to me without whining. I vaccinated all my kids and never looked back. And yeah, I forgot my teacher in grade 6, always crabby, because she got polio as a teen and had to give up her dreams of becoming an actress and became an english teacher walking with cruches and a fellow student put in a special class because was deaf after mumps or measles I do not remember. You can be against vaccines, but you have to keep in mind you live without them because 99% of the other kids did them. What if you lived in a society without vaccines and 100% of the kids have no immunity?
Nearly all the polio cases since 1980 in the US were from the vaccine itself, and the remaining cases were imported from foreign countries. Yes, the less than 1% of people who contact polio who suffer from paralytic effects is very sad, but it should not cause us to blindly take whatever medicine is served to us. Since polio is transmitted from feces-mouth contact, the transmission was largely stopped with the development of indoor plumbing and sanitation. We need to weigh the pros and cons of everything, based on current statistics and current knowledge about the vaccine, not based on emotional arguments.
Dear Cara, I think some of my decisions are emotional, however my observation is that people who oppose the vaccination of their children are based on the fact that 99% of kids are vaccinated and mostly immune. The fact that a small percentage of vaccinated people still have the disease is irrelevant when 99% of non vaccinated people do the disease when exposed. A few years ago, I received a later from day care that in my daughter class there where a few cases of chickenpox, so us the parents should be aware and prepared. By June, I thought my little one was the lucky one who did not get. Sure enough, July 1 (Canada Day) she woke up with the specific rash and we started 3 agonizing weeks of camomile lotion, gloves and tears. The daycare informed me that she was among the last 3 who did not catch chickenpox byJune. In the end 100 % of daycare kids went through chickenpox. So, yes, no vaccinated people, in a close environment, the little germs got to everybody. So make a soul search, with or without emotion. Do you think a young woman who wants kids and is pregnant should try fate and make a vacation in Brazil? What chances are for her to get the Zika viruses? What are the chances she gets Zika but the kid is healthy? Would you take the risk? Or advise somebody else to take the risk? Because after a lifetime I can tell you statistics are a b…. PS. I am against unnecessary vaccines- like flu vaccine, the newly invented bird flu, swine flu, scare people away flu. I am against vaccines full of heavy metals. However the one you describe in your article have only live organism, no metals and are protective against a very contagious and damaging disease. I applaude your initiative to keep us informed. I just gave my 2 pennies
Hey Elena! I am a family nurse practitioner that was born in 1950 & remember the polio outbreaks. I had 2 vaccine injured sons from the DPT vaccine in the 1970’s b4 they changed the pertussis that was harming kids. My last 2 sons were never vaccinated. My 4th son became a firefighter who was required to be vaccinated to work in hospitals & had a horrible reaction to the MMR vaccine within 24 hours of injection.The oldest that had the first DPT injury went to Afghanistan & b4 deployment was given the smallpox vaccine, developed smallpox, had to be quarantined, & was facing a 50% mortality. There are some family’s out there that just can’t metabolically handle these adjuvants. Interestingly, mine is one of them. Future personalized medicine will b able to detect metabolic aberrations to prevent these serious effects. I understand everyone’s passion. I too am adamantly protective of peoples right to choose vaccination or not!
I don’t think this is a full exploration of this vaccine. My family has a genetic condition wherein we have the MMR vaccine repeatedly but never develop antibodies. I have some family that never develop antibodies, against anything, and their life is severely limited because of this. But…it would be even worse if they are exposed to illnesses many of these vaccines can protect against. I think the importance of this vaccine is for rubella. It is my understanding that is german measles which is fairly innocuous in the person who gets it unless they are pregnant and then causes microcephaly much like zika is now. I believe that in countries without polio vaccines, the statistics are much higher than what you’ve quoted. The problem is we, in a developed country, can say “oh polio is passed feces to mouth” and we all recoil thinking “who the heck eats feces?” but in 3rd world countries where the vaccine is not available they usually have limited water and they poop, wash, clean poopy clothes, and drink the same water so its easily passed. I do think its impt for each family/individual to make decisions on their own but when discussing a vaccine with several components, unless one can separate them out for shots, I think all should be discussed.
I agree, and yes, you can get the shots in their individual components. I will write on rubella soon (I would get it if I didn’t have antibiodies, but I have immunity already), these take a long time to write and I do want to look at each disease individually rather than all in one article.