[flutters]

Strange.

I've never had mups and can't think of anyone who has.

[sageb1]

I had them. :(

[lysie]

Yikes, if true.

[firewalk]

I had mumps when I was very young. It was horrible.

[Awestruck]

I had mumps before the MMR vaccine was required in children.. I got it on my 8th birthday and it's not pleasant.. unfortunately my father caught it too! Not a good thing in adult males because it can hamper their ability to have children.. might explain why I'm an only child...

anyhow.. I'm suprised at this outbreak because I thought the vaccine was required everywhere in the US before children could even enter school

[digger48]

I've never had mups and can't think of anyone who has.

I haven't had mups, either.

[Velveeta]

I had 'em. 1966

[DBrow]

For somme reason the people involved either got no vaccination (required to get into school now) or got a bad batch.

Hmmm, what group of ppl would not have had the shots mandatory in the USA?

[tiredoflaundry]

I had them as a kid........... awful.

[markman46]

i had them when I was a kid, not a lot of fun

[Husker24]

What are the symptoms?

[calex59]

I had the mumps, whooping cough, measels, chicken pox etc. I grew up when not only didn't they require anything but small pox vacinations they simply didn't have vacines for these diseases. Be glad if you grew up when you could be vacinated! Polio vacine, salk, came along about the time I got into high school and that was a god send because many children contracted it every year in the summer.

[andysandmikesmom]

I had the mumps on just one side of my face, when I was 16..it was horrible...I heard if you get a childhood disease, when you are past childhood, the disease is more severe...dont know if that is really true, or if that is a myth, but in my case, I was in excrutiating pain...it was quite awful...I was that age, long before they had the mumps vaccine..I am just an oldie I guess...

[auggy]

I had the mump. Right side only. When I was a kid a loooong time ago.

[Velveeta]

"We're trying to figure out why is it happening, why is it happening in Iowa and why is it happening right now. We don't know," she said.

CDC spokeswoman Lola Russell said the federal agency has no answers yet. But Quinlisk said one theory is that the infection was brought over from England _ perhaps by a college student _ because the strain seen in Iowa has been identified by the CDC as the same one that has caused tens of thousands of cases of the mumps in a major outbreak in Britain over the past two years.

"It may have been a college student, since we did see the first activities on college campuses, but we can't prove that,"
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/31/AR2006033101016.html

[The Great RJ]

I can't imagine why this outbreak has occured as Iowa schools (at least when my kids were growing up there) REQUIRED proof of MMR vaccination in order to attend school. My wife worked as a school nurse in Iowa and was constantly checking immunization records.

[detsaoT]

That's funny, I don't recall Iowa being a border state... But, like Virginia, I suppose that's what it has become.

Thanks, Washington.