…I thought the title said that before vaccines, validation was seriously trendy.

a pretty brave thing to do in those times!

Super cool article!

I was sent to a chickenpox party in the short period of time when people still had a choice between that and vaccination in the US and I'm perfectly fine with my mom's actions. I feel like women will be demonized for following traditional health practices or embracing new ideas either way, which is why bodily autonomy is so important to me.

The main reason we vaccinate against it is not because it's deadly (about 100 people per year used to die of it in the US out of ~4 million yearly cases and the majority of those were severely sick people) but because of the expense of parents taking time off work to care for their children. Can't have people using their FMLA leave if they're lucky enough to have it, that costs money!

In the UK, they generally don't vaccinate against it because of the high cost of doing so in the first place coupled with suspicion that it will increase cases of shingles due to waning immunity from not being regularly exposed to poxy kids... But it's all good, Americans can just throw shingles shots at everyone every five years or less once you reach 55. It's better this way don't you see? Science!