VACCINE
first, that if you didn’t get your childhood vaccinations, there are adult versions that you should get, “assuming that the adult hasn’t had the disease in question since then.”
Surprisingly, not every child receives the full course of routine childhood immunizations. Some children don’t receive them for religious or cultural reasons, for example, and children who are home-schooled may not receive the shots that children entering school are required to have.
Then, Iser says, there are “newcomers to this country who may not have gotten (immunizations) as well.”
But even adults who received their full course of immunizations as kids will need a few more shots, including booster shots for the ones they received as kids, throughout their lives. For example, an adult who received the tetanus- diphtheria-pertussis (whooping cough) shot as a kid should receive at least one dose of the adult version of the shot as an adult, as well as a tetanus-diphtheria booster every 10 years, the CDC says.
That adults even have a vaccination schedule “could be news to people,” Iser says. But it’s probably already routine for people who are being treated on an ongoing basis for such conditions as lung or heart disease, diabetes, kidney disease or conditions that compromise the immune system.
“We make sure that on a regular basis we keep an eye on them,” says Dr. Matthew Carlson, an associate professor at Touro University Nevada College of Osteopathic Medicine. “If we see them, it’s actually pretty easy to say, ‘Hey, we’re coming up on this and you haven’t had it.’ ”
“Then, another group that gets pretty tight surveillance is pregnant women, because we want to make sure they’re getting their flu shots and then, also, the (vaccine against) whooping cough,” Carlson says.