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This article is from the Childhood Vaccinations FAQ, by Lynn Gazis-Sax lynng@alsirat.com with numerous contributions by others.

3c.6 What is mumps, and what are the risks of the disease?

Mumps is a viral disease which is less contagious than measles or
chicken pox. It causes swollen salivary glands. The most common
complication is swelling of the testes (in about 20 percent of males
post puberty) and, less commonly, ovaries. Rarely, it can lead to
sterility. Other complications are meningitis (less common than in
measles) and acute pancreatitits. (A much longer list of complications
can be found in the Merck Manual.)

 

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• prev: 3c.2. There is some risk of anaphylaxis. This risk is low; from the time that VAERS was instituted in 1990 till the publication of Update: Vaccine Side Effects, Adverse Reactions, Contraindications, and Precautions by ACIP in 1996, >70 million doses of MMR vaccine had been distributed in the US, and only 33 cases of anaphylactic reactions had been reported to VAERS. It has been traditionally believed that this risk is mainly for people allergic to eggs or neomycin. However, recent studies indicate that anaphylactic reactions are not associated with egg allergies, but with some other component of the vaccine. There have been some case reports, in the US and Japan, of anaphylactic reactions to the MMR vaccine in people with an anaphylactic sensitivity to gelatin.
• Index
• next: 3c.7 How common was mumps before routine vaccination, and how common is it now?

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