I've received notices from both the elementary school and the middle school, letting me know that if I so choose, my children can receive the H1N1 vaccine. For free. At school. I've also been made aware, thanks to the very same forms, that if a child is under the age of 10, they will need to receive a second shot at least 21 days later. This was news to me; I had no idea. As I mentioned to my Twitter pal @StewartMoore as he delivered our local morning news: I thought it was "one and done". Anyway, that's neither here nor there. What I'm really interested in is this: Are you having your children vaccinated against H1N1? Why, or why not? If your affirmative answer is something along the lines of "because they're in the age-range of the risk group", that's not enough information. All "children" are classified as a risk group. What is it about that classification that made you want to comply? And if your negative answer is "because the vaccine is eeeeevil, and full of bees, and formulated in the bowels of Xenu", well, back that up with actual science, please.
Vote in the poll below, and then explain (if you feel like it), in the comments.
While I'm not a fan of vaccinating for the sake of vaccinating, I've decided to go with this one. There were basically two convincing arguments - the first is that it *works* apparently they hit the pharmacological jackpot on the one for H1N1, and it does exactly what it's supposed to do. I know flu mutates easily, but this one kills this virus.
ReplyDeleteThe second was the idea that we could be putting others at risk - those with more serious health problems. Apparently I'm a selfish b*tch, because this thought never occurred to me.
Test comment because Alix said she couldn't!
ReplyDeleteDamn, don't know why my comment didn't show up. Anyhow.
ReplyDeleteWe'll vaccinate.... if we can ever find a place that has actually has any vaccine.
The reasons? Two main ones. My kids have a new cousin, and I'd hate to have them get sick and infect him. The other reason...
Last year we had sequential chicken pox for all three kids, with both AC and Perry getting pneumonia as well. Perry was down -out of school- for three weeks, though one of those weeks was vacation, and it took him at least an other two to actually recover. AC pretty much the same, though she ended up "only" missing a full week of school. It was pretty horrible, we had one ER visit, bad hives with a potential amoxy allergy -it was Perry's first abx-, and a ruined fall break! And this is with very healthy kids. The consequences, as well, of having middle-school/gymnastics intense AC at home for about 2 weeks were dire as well... it's very different when a 4 year old gets sick and is out of playgroup and 2 morning a week pre-school, and maybe their Kindermusic class for two weeks. For a 11 year old, it was pretty bad.
So I've learned my lesson about not vaxxing my kids for vaccine preventable diseases. I'd not done cpox for various reasons but boy did I bitterly regret it!