[maxlybbert]

I'll admit that I don't make all of my decisions scientifically. I had chicken pox, all of my siblings and cousins had chicken pox, and I personally don't know anyone who had a bad enough case to be hospitalized.

If 100 people die out of 10000 that are hospitalized, the danger of death from people who have an unusually bad infection is only 1%, meaning the risk for the general public is significantly less.

But I'll admit my grandparents lived in a time where they knew large numbers of people suffered through measles, mumps or reubela. If they had the same "I lived through it" attitude I have, those diseases would be much more common today.

But, still, I have a hard time telling my kids that they have to get this specific vaccine so they can avoid the horrors of spending a week or two covering themselves with calamine lotion, with a small risk of something worse happening.

[maxlybbert]

OK, here are the numbers from the CDC ( http://www.cdc.gov/chickenpox/vaccination.html ): 4 million cases annually, 10,600 (0.265%) required hospitalization, and 100 to 150 (0.0025% to 0.0037% of the 4 million cases) deaths.

Certainly going from 100-150 deaths a year to fewer than 10 is a significant improvement, and the 90-140 people who survive each year who wouldn't are grateful (or would be, if they knew what the alternative was). But we are talking about a very small risk.