There's a new vaccination schedule

This month Steven Soderbergh's new film, "Unsane," hits the big screen, but it was shot on a small one: an iPhone. And, says the director of "Ocean's Eleven," it's what he'll use for shooting films from now on!

Someone else has changed their shots, too: the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices. Effective February 2018, there are changes to the administration of the herpes zoster (shingles) and measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccines for adults.

The schedule has been approved by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the American College of Physicians, the American Academy of Family Physicians, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American College of Nurse-Midwives.

The shingles vaccine: If you are 50 plus, get two doses of the recombinant zoster vaccine (Shingrix) two to six months apart, even if you've had shingles or got the live zoster vaccine (Zostavax). But you should wait at least two months after receiving Zostavax to get Shingrix. And if you are 60 plus, you can get either vaccine, but Shingrix is preferred.

The MMR: If you were born in 1957 or earlier, you should get one dose of the vaccine if you have had fewer than two doses of mumps-containing vaccine and are at increased risk during a mumps outbreak. If you get two doses of the MMR vaccine, you're about nine times less likely to get mumps than unvaccinated people who have the same exposure to mumps virus.

 

(c) 2018 Michael Roizen, M.D. and Mehmet Oz, M.D.

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