The varicella zoster virus, which causes shingles, as seen through a colored transmission electron micrograph.Heather Davies/Getty Images The varicella zoster virus, which causes shingles, as seen through a colored transmission electron micrograph.
I wondered why only 10 percent of my over-60 peers have done likewise, and when I started researching the reasons for a post on the subject, I learned that often it's not so easy to protect oneself.
My friends' experiences with shingles had led me to ask for the vaccine, for instance. But neither doctors nor the manufacturer nor public health agencies have done a particularly effective job of alerting the vulnerable population that this shot is available and effective. That's largely because the manufacturer, Merck, has been unable to provide a reliable supply of the vaccine (brand name Zostavax), first introduced in 2006, for long stretches of time. I just happened to hit the doctor's office between the months-long shortages.
It also helped that my doctor is a family practitioner. The vaccine has to be kept frozen. Family practitioners also immunize children, and because certain pediatric vaccines are also stored frozen, my doctor had a freezer in her office. Internists and other doctors often don't. So the stars aligned.
But many readers haven't been so fortunate in their pursuit of the shingles vaccine, and they have offered a litany of questions and complaints. So let's return to the subject of protecting ourselves against the nasty varicella zoster virus, which causes chickenpox and then lies dormant in the nervous system until it reactivates in adulthood.
Scientists can't yet tell us why that happens, or why some people never get shingles and others get it repeatedly. But they do know that each of us has a one-in-three chance, on average, of getting shingles in our lifetimes.
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http://newoldage.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/01/31/readers-questions-the-shingles-vaccine
