To say no to covid vaccine for DS?

What about other people?

The immunocompromised child he sits next to in class? The pregnant woman on the bus? The single parent on the supermarket checkout?

This!
Surely asthma and flu is a really dangerous combination.
If your child has asthma I think it's irresponsible not to get them the flu vaccine.

The BCG vaccine isn’t part of the routine vaccine schedule anymore. The MenACWY and Td/IPV vaccines are strongly recommended though.

Hopefully you've had him vaccinated for TB as that can kill. Or maybe you think he's not at risk.

More prosaic and only anecdotal but I have a child who has become severely needle phobic and it all started with COVID jabs age 11. He is tough as anything with pain but absolutely terrified of needles now, and as a result he has not had all his Y8/9 jabs. His last jab was 2 years ago and he still wakes up with nightmares about it.

Maybe it would have happened anyway, who knows? But sticking needles in 10 year olds isn't something we do a lot. There is probably a good reason we usually vaccinate when they are too little to really object, and then not again until Y8. A 10 year old who you "can't get near" for a mouth swab sounds unusually reactive and might find it quite distressing. The snowball effect we had from a couple of COVID jabs then Y8/9 series of vaccinations really took us by surprise.

Of course I'm biased because of our experience.

If until this thread you've never heard of something that affects many, many people with Asthma then perhaps your blanket statements about Asthma aren't helpful? 🫠

@Genevieva are you serious?

Asthma is a respiratory disease and for many if not most suffers respiratory infections are the biggest trigger

If your sons asthma is caused by respiratory infections please get the flu jab.

I'm a medical scientist. The flu jab cannot cause tonsillitis. Flu however can cause severe complications in asthmatics even if it's never happened before.

Yes, there is a very small chance of vaccine injury (as with all vaccines). But just one Covid infection increases your risk of heart attack and stroke; causes brainstem inflammation and every infection brings a risk of LongCovid which can be extremely debilitating.

https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/flu-vaccination-who-should-have-it-this-winter-and-why/the-flu-vaccination-who-should-have-it-and-why-winter-2023-to-2024.

Although not all asthmatics are on steroid inhalers or tablets, all but the most mild will be, and it is clearly recommended that asthmatics have the flu vaccine. It's not justa UK thing, it's a global recommendation.

Flu can give pneumonia as well (viral pneumonia is definitely a thing, and getting flu can also lead to a secondary bacterial pneumonia).

Asthma is characterised by airway hypersensitivity/irritability/spasm - any respiratory infection can give this even in people without asthma.

I definitely would.

I know - I meant to add that. It got a bit long and complicated and it’s late. I have work tomorrow morning. I leave the house at 6.45am. Night night.

I can see how it might be an issue if someone had pneumonia, but that is a bacterial lung infection not a seasonal virus.

Pneumonia isn't necessarily caused by bacteria, it can be caused by viruses and fungi too. If you have asthma and contract a viral respiratory infection, you have an increased risk of developing a secondary infection in the lungs. This is because, unlike in a person without asthma, the lungs are already inflamed. So when you add a respiratory infection on top it leaves the lungs more vulnerable to pathogens and complications.

Can you think of any reason why your son would be offered a free Covid vaccine if it wasn’t in his best interests? The government and general public really don’t love paying for stuff for the hell of it! I would trust the scientific experts who have assessed the pros and cons in great detail, using what’s now years of data.

She’s almost certainly had low exposure, such that she wasn’t symptomatic. By now, you’d have to have lived in a sealed container or on a remote island not to have had contact with it. Respiratory virus contraction is always a bit of a mystery. During the height of the pandemic my sister had two colleagues who shared an office in a busy A&E. Both consultants. The fit, healthy chap got really ill with covid. The overweight one with diabetes (therefore more vulnerable) didn’t catch it at all.

There is no evidence of any increase in cancer risk associated with Covid vaccines. People unfortunately get diagnosed with cancer every day, but you can’t just assume that the cause was something you did a week (or whatever) earlier. Everyone with cancer did something a week before their diagnosis that didn’t cause their cancer.

Well in my experience asthma is predominantly an allergic response to an allergen. Until this thread I’ve quite literally never had any experience of it being linked to colds and I’ve never been told that having asthma would make anyone in my family more at fork during the flu season. I can see how it might be an issue if someone had pneumonia, but that is a bacterial lung infection not a seasonal virus. So it’s interesting to hear alternative perspectives that differ from my own, but it’s certainly not a given that flu vaccines are essential for people with asthma.

TLDR...

We happily had Covid jabs as adults when they were vaccinating the population at large. That was a choice we made as adults with any impact good or bad squarely on our shoulders.

But I'm not happy to vaccinate my children with something where long term outcomes are unknown. It's not fair to do that to them. There's simply too much confusion / misinformation and not enough scientific research (purely due to lack of time) for us to feel happy about that.

Weirdly, my daughter is the one where a bad case of Covid could be a significant problem, yet she is the only one of the family not to have (as far as we know) had it yet.

That's not what you said, though.

Well for us it is very much allergen related and nothing to do with winter colds, flu or covid. The OP would know if her son’s asthma is triggered by seasonal colds or covid.

I cannot comprehend how you can say this when you know for the vast majority of asthma this is not true

I am really sorry for your diagnosis but really, really it's not linked at all

That isn't what the inquest concluded though, is it?

"Cork City Coroner Philip Comyn told the family of Roy Butler, from O'Reilly Road in Waterford, that the cause of death was a spontaneous intracerebral hemorrhage.

"In the verdict, Mr Comyn made recommendations surrounding the need to inform the general public of the need to report adverse reactions of vaccines, and who to report those reactions to"

"Setting out his reasons as to why he recorded a narrative verdict, he said on the balance of probabilities he could not conclude it was caused by the vaccine"

www.rte.ie/news/munster/2024/1010/1474653-roy-butler/

Too embarrassed to mention it

In which case your management plan will be different from ours.