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Doc puts her family's arms where her mouth is
By adamg on Wed, 10/07/2009 - 8:55am
Dr. Gwenn tries to dampen rising hysteria over swine-flu shots:
... Sometimes as parents we have to stop over thinking a situation and do what we have to in order to keep our children safe. I believe this is one of those situations. Instead of questioning data and acting out of fear, we need to start trusting the doctors and scientists working hard to keep our communities safe. After all, they have families and children, too.
My entire family is getting H1N1 this year. I believe in this vaccine and its safety. Please consider doing the same for your kids ...
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Comments
New frontiers in evolution
I'm glad that the TV terror-mongers are waxing hysterical about the H1N1 vaccine. There's not enough to go around. If America's gullible morons would be so kind as to sit it out, there should be enough for the rest of us.
This statement doesn't quite make sense
Here's what seemed to be the mixed message in Dr. Gwenn's post:
For the many people who don't get themselves and/or their kids vaccinated for the standard-brand seasonal flu, this isn't going to change their minds. If H1N1 is "less intense than the seasonal flu," then why is it being treated as being more significant and deadly than other strains? There seem to be a lot of word games going on here.
Like Bay Area residents quietly expectant of the "big one," I've been aware that we're statistically due for a potentially catastrophic flu outbreak and shudder at the possibility of a 1918 replay.
But I'm also increasingly apprehensive about injecting too many vaccines into our bodies. And over the past 10 years it so happens that the two times I got the flu (one "regular" and one truly disgusting Exorcist-audition stomach variety) were years I got the shot, which I'm told means I caught a strain not included in the vaccine mix.
So....I'm still looking for advice I trust.
Just don't be stupid
How many vaccines is "too many"? It's not like your body suddenly says "whoa, buddy, I'm still trying to process the MMR you gave me at the age of 8!".
Your immune system works by exposure to different harmful bacteria and virii that we encounter all the time. If it's seen it once before, it's ready to fight the next time it sees it. The vaccines are just a way of giving these diseases to your body ahead of an actual infection and in a form that can't infect you. The immune system reacts and preps for the next time...and then you don't get that virus.
The problem with the flu is that it's still *really* good at changing its profile to avoid capture by the immune system. You may be prepped for version 1.1a of the flu, but if you end up running into 1.1c, then you're likely still going to get sick...BUT then you're protected for 1.1a AND 1.1c. Too bad within a year it'll have moved on to 1.1w and 1.2 even. The moves may be small, but enough to avoid having a stable vaccine, like for mumps, measles, rubella, polio, etc.
You have gotten the advice you can trust: get the vaccine, it'll protect you against what we predict to be the largest strain for the following year. You have just gotten unlucky twice and lucky the other years that you didn't get the shot and didn't get the flu. Sounds like a wash to me on your luck.
If you are worried about "the big one" (which will mean that not only does it change its ability to not be recognized by the immune system, but it also changes its ability to cause damage once it's in), then get the shots. The fewer people the different flu versions has to go in and out of each year, then the less chances it has to mutate as it duplicates within each of us while we're sick.
As far as why H1N1 gets a lot of play, I believe it goes to how it appeared seemingly out of nowhere (likely pig to human transfer). It wasn't on our flu scientists' radar until it started killing people in Mexico and then it was discovered that it was a few different virulent forms put together. That takes some effort in the virus world and so, here you had a heavily mutated form that caught us off guard and had killing potential. That's going to always set off some red flags. Add that to the fact that it came during a pretty quiet news cycle, and you've got the super over-reaction from the media that continues to haunt us (Bill Maher says we live in the Panic Age...for just that reason). We still want to treat it with kid rubber gloves though, because it has already shown the propensity to radically alter its genetic makeup to add in the parts necessary to jump to humans. That makes it a little more unstable, and gives a higher probability than the slower mutating seasonal flu, that the next time it mutates heavily it might figure out a nasty way to kill more of us before our immune systems can handle it and becomes that "big one". So it does warrant a bit of attention (albeit not quite as much as it gets in my mind).
My entire family is getting
Wow, that's a pretty negative outlook, Doc! ;-)
my reaction exactly
------:o)
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who and the what now?
"Sometimes as parents we
"Sometimes as parents we have to stop over thinking a situation and do what we have to in order to keep our children safe."
... which, if she's correct about the safety of the vaccine, is an easy choice to get it. However, if you assume that she's wrong and that the largely untested vaccine is more dangerous than H1N1, then it's an easy choice not to.
Thanks for the advice, Dr. Gwenn, but also forgive my skepticism, as there are doctors on both sides of the issue and I don't know which ones are more knowledgeable about this stuff.
Fact seems to be that it's a gamble either way and people aren't in agreement about the odds, so people are just going to pick the horse they believe in and some will win and others will lose.
The Ever-Patronizing Dr. Gwenn
no, we need to question data so that we can see what the reasoning is. Spare me the "just trust the experts" - the "experts" in my community happen to be poor with the data and bloody incompetent and think having a couch in a classroom spreads flu (despite having NO data to support their contentions). Experts have to EXPLAIN how their reasoning proceeds from the information at hand in a lay-friendly way. "Trust me" is a piss poor substitute for educating the public about the risks.
That said, my entire family is getting the vaccine - not because "the experts" say so, but because the data indicate that it is the safe, prudent course to take.
Credability of authority.
I am sorry that Drs think we should just do everything thay say. dealing with doctors is like dealing with a car mechanic. It could be this, it could be that. Try this and let us know how that works. I would rather trust diet and exercise than the government or health care industry. Doctors have lost all credability since some vaccinations have caused mor harm than good.
Name one.
Name. ONE.
Thanks for challenging the anti-vaxers
Kaz -- thanks for the "put up" comment. Much needed. Especially in places like inside 128. At least it's not as bad (yet) as places like Colorado Springs.
Anyways, some good reading:
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/?p=512
Also all sorts of stuff under:
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/medicine/antivac...
Easy enough
The first rotovirus vaccines were withdrawn from the market due to a high incidence of death from, essentially, young children having their intestines fold into themselves. In other words, they were associated with some really ugly painful deaths.
There are vaccines that have caused real and serious problems. This is not in question. That doesn't mean that every vaccine is suspect, however. It also does not mean that widespread mandatory vaccination for a mild disease such as chicken pox is a good use of our public health dollars, even if the vaccine is safe and effective. Public health is complicated that way.
As for this "new and untested" flu vaccine, the anti vax crowd is spewing a bunch of bull. Flu vaccines have been around a long, long time and they are all tested according to a very well established protocol. H1N1 vaccines are not substantially different from any other flu vaccines, except they probably aren't Halal/Kosher.
More harm than good?
Rotashield was given to something like a million kids and worked in all but about 100 patients who ended up with intussusception (some cases of which may not have been caused by the vaccine). Only 2 deaths occurred and about 60 surgeries. In a study after the initial reports, the intussusception rate was 20x higher than children not vaccinated, but considering 100's of THOUSANDS of kids in other parts of the world die to rotavirus every year, the curative rate would have far outweighed the slightly higher risk of treatable intussusception.
The claim was that there is a vaccine that has done more harm than good. I don't count a million protected children with 100 complications in the US as more harm than good. While it may have been "more harm than allowable", that was not the claim made by the previous anon. Given the death rate due to rotavirus in the rest of the world, I believe it's even less easy to make that case at all.