Actually, yeah, you're right, it was high school. I was mistaken. I was just looking at my immunization record, and I got Hep B Vaccination in 1999. For some reason I thought it was something I got right before med school, but I guess not. It's a three-part vaccination (boosters at 1 and 6 months after the initial shot) and they like to test serology to confirm, but don't require that anymore.

There is no Hep C vaccine. I'd like to make that very clear.

Hep A is the food-borne one, for which you can get vaccinated.

Hep B is sexually transmitted as well as being transmissible by blood (it's the most potent blood-transmissible virus, I believe, of HBV, HCV and HIV).

Hep C is sexually transmitted and blood-borne, was the virus that was at the center of the Red Cross tainted-blood scandal, and we cannot vaccinate for it.

The hep B vaccine is the 3 shots we got in high school/junior high. They implemented it for all grade 5's after my year (last of the bunch to get it later than grade 5). I would know because I have to update my shots every year. They even tested my antibodies to see if I have enough. Hep C isn't immunized/treated for unless you get it. Same as hep A. And actually Al, it wasn't a vaccine per say. If we got into contact with hep A again, we would have to get the shot again...I think. Not sure...

Wiki doesn't help much, because both Hep B and C are candidates for vaccination. And both can be passed on as a STD. I think it was C if Par says we were to early for B. I know I got shots for A (some contaminated superstore food).

I do, when I was getting the shot I was sitting beside this conceited dude. He was flirting with the nurse and was sitting around topless. Yeah not something you really want to remember but it stuck in the head somehow.

I totally don't remember this.

It was Hep something, and it was in 3 parts. It was the STD passable Hep.

Wasn't Hep B the three part shot we got in grades 10, 11 and 12?

You didn't get a Hep B vaccination. That's a relatively new program. (So's chicken pox, actually. We didn't get that either.)

so... Mumps...

"Mumps

Mumps is a disease that causes fever, headache and swollen glands around the jaw. Sometimes mumps causes inflammation of the spinal cord and covering of the brain (meningitis) but usually this does not cause permanent damage. In rare cases a child’s brain becomes severely inflamed (encephalitis). Mumps can also cause deafness. About one out of four men who get mumps have painfully swollen testicles that may lead to sterility in rare cases. For one out of 10 women who get mumps, the ovaries will be infected and painful."

Immunizations start next week on campus.


and random question:
were we too early for the grade 5 Hep-B immunization? Did we get it in grade 8? I can't honestly remember if I got immunized for it...

yes! it works!

This is the glacial retreat of the last ice age over Alberta. Cool, eh?