I don’t know whether to get the H1N1 vaccine, and I don’t know whether to get it for The Baby.
Yesterday I went to the GP to get some blood tests (Hi, ridiculously low iron levels! How are we doing now?) and a flu shot (which they ran out of, so I ended up getting it at the drugstore anyway). The lovely GP also put me on the list for the pig flu vaccine because The Baby is just shy of 6 months. I was really excited about this because I’ve been wanting that sucker since May.
Now, Wizard is completely and utterly against Baby getting vaccinated for H1N1, even though he is pro-vaccine otherwise. And he is a scientist person, so while he isn’t a medical doctor he is good with medical journals and such. As am I, because if you can read Derrida you sure as hell can read medical statistics. Anyway, he doesn’t think any of us should take the vaccine because, in his view, it hasn’t been tested extensively enough. I am of a mind that it is just a flu shot, so who cares?
That is, until my mom’s GP told her that he wasn’t taking it and didn’t want her getting the shot, either. And he is generally pro-vaccine as well. He says it needs more testing, especially for kids.
Now I don’t know what to do. What are you guys doing? Are you taking it? Getting it for your kids?
ETA: Not that y’all don’t know this, but I work at a university and Baby is in daycare. Exposure. We has it.
I’m with the good GP. The Spawn isn’t getting it. He’s 15 months old, but I’m not making a beta-tester of my child. And if we grown-ups need to get it, the surgery will call us in. Things are a bit more organised (and less paranoid) in the UK.
I’m hearing a LOT of “don’t do it” from folks who are normally pro-vaccine. I also noticed that on our morning programs the doctors are encouraging people to get the shot, but when asked if they’re getting it for their own kids, they hedge and stammer and generally say “I’m going to wait and see.”
Not gettin’ it. For the same reasons. I do a lot of work with the health district here and not one person I’ve spoken to is getting it, either.
The FDA only requires that a vaccine creates antibodies in 40% of people for it to be accepted. And out of those people, only 70% of them achieve an antibody level believed to be of any benefit. So it’ll help less than 3 out of 10 people. But the CDC is expecting side effects similar to the mass vacc in the 70s.
Mmm…from my general polling around the internets and facebook, I’m hearing a lot of “I’m not, and neither is my kid.” And this is from people who’ve followed the full US vaccine schedule.
Your statistics are scary and convincing, by the way.
“if you can read Derrida you sure as hell can read medical statistics. ” Oh Lord, too true. Shudder at memories of grad school. Hang in there.
Anyway, none of us are and never will, ever ever ever, but we’re generally vax-leery. But, if I were more pro-vax, I still wouldn’t get the swine flu vax for me or my kids. “They” say it’s the same junk as the regular flu vax, but pretty much everyone and their mother that I know of, have heard of, or seen on the news — including docs and nurses — are not getting it for themselves or their kids. Plus, the whole “we’re running out of vaccines so we’re going to go ahead and put mercury in a few batches” thing is freaky.
Hmmm… I was planning on getting it… because I’m at a university and of the 171 kids who have “flu-like” symptoms, 2/3rds have tested positive for H1N1. (Total student population of about 5,000, for comparision’s sake.) However, they’ve now asked staff (and I count as staff) to let the students have priority. I guess that’s just as well from this post!
Oh, how I hate that I want it. Which is weird, because I don’t take medicine unless I need it and am leery even of mylicon.
What I want, I guess, is to not have to worry about it. But it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen.
I wonder if that counts if you’re “young” staff, though. I think our plan right now is to hold off getting it for the baby unless absolutely necessary. I’m still pulling toward it for myself, but from Keely’s comment on the 3-in-10 effectiveness rate, there’s probably no point. :(
Ok–totally late to this discussion, but I figured I’d pour in my cents!
I got the mist about 3 weeks ago. Totally fine, no side effects, nothing totally strange. My husband is a PhD student at a University and we live in an area of the country that has had a great deal of cases of this. Our little Mister is almost 8 months old, but the shot itself is still hard to come by. Our ped office runs out the second they get it in, it seems. So, when we can, I will be getting it for him as well.
The mentioned husband is a student of Biology and is very much in tune with the “Science World”. He has made me feel that this is very safe–as far as testing is concerned, it’s made the same way the seasonal flu shot is, so really…how wrong can you get it?
I would say that if the husband didn’t attend a University with so many cases of swine flu, I would probably be less concerned because my son goes to an in-home daycare with one other child. However, the old man chilling with all these sneezy, germy undergrads and riding public transportation on a daily basis. I don’t think my insane Purelling is enough to guard against that.