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It is amazing to me, the number of people who fear vaccinations more than they do some deadly disease. I have known many people who will not take the regular annual shots for anticipated seasonal influenza. There were many years in which I did not take them, not because I feared the shots but simply that I did not fear the influenza. Until the winter of 1990-91, when it made a believer of me.
I have never feared needles unless it is one that is to prick the end of my finger...brrrr. After that round with the flu, which resulted in a bad case of pneumonia in both lungs and hospitalization, I have never missed an annual flu shot and also received a pneumonia vaccine that year and have taken two boosters for it.
I have heard people complain that they took the shot and the very next week (or just a few days) they had the flu. Well, what they should understand is that it takes about two weeks for the vaccination to become effective. And I've heard others say they had the flu anyway that winter. Well I guess that is possible, I've read some pretty reliable sources which state that you might still get the virus but it would likely be milder than it would have been if you had not been vaccinated. Plus, some times they give you the type vaccine which they anticipate will be most prevalent tha year, and lo, some other type pops up. So they are not always fool proof.
Now, this so-called swine flu, is somewhat different to that of others. It is more rampant in younger people than older and more young people die with it than older people. My personal opinion is that this is simply because children are in school and exposure is greater than for most older people. I don't know why that should be different than for any other type, but it would seem that perhaps, it may not stay airborne as much as the others and you have to come in closer contact to get it??? But never the less, I will be vaccinated when/if the vaccine becomes available here for us.
I read today that about 20% of the families in Vashon Island, Washington are not
having their children vaccinated. And, the Ocean Charter School at Marina del Rey, California, 40% of the kindergarten children received exemptions from the vaccine. To me, this is frightening. I would be trying to get my child at the head of the line for it, if I had a kindergarten aged child.
Michael Specter, author of Denialism, says we can all believe in irrational things, and that many people act on those irrational things. I don't know if he is right or wrong about that, but I do believe many parents ideas concerning vaccinations sometimes approach the status of being irrational.
I have heard some complain of one thing or another, such as some doctor or nurse making a mistake and even sometimes hear of some problem with the pharmaceutical company, and maybe some died because of it. But consider this, how many of these type things have you known of? One out of tens of millions of cases? Then how many people do you know of who died from the flu? One out of one thousand? Ten thousand?. The odds are many thousands of times greater that your child might die from the swine flu, than from the vaccine. I know one thing for sure, I would grieve uncontrollably if I refused to have a child vaccinated and then, it died from the virus. I don't know if I could handle that or not. My wife and I raised three darling daughters which I love more than my own life. If we had lost one of them over a wrong call of mine...I don't know.
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