Not to give my child Flu jab

[Binjob118]

My son is 6 and has been offered the nasal flu jab at school. He has had it the last 2 years and had no problems, but I now feel reluctant to give it to him. Does a healthy child really need this? I have to admit this change in my thinking has come about since the COVID vaccine rollout and the many vaccine injuries that seem to be being ignored by the MSM.

I refused the flu jab for my son this year and I never have before. I’ve lost trust in pharmaceutical companies since covid. I have not been right since my covid jab and the way it was being pushed on everyone including children was weird it’s made me question everything. The money made was too big

Mine had it with no issues. My take on vaccines was also affected both by JCVI messaging and government's. When I saw we were willing to let a novel virus rip through UK kids to provide some attempt at immunity for adults, rather than vaccinate, I looked at where else we were doing that and got my youngest the chickenpox vaccine.

They can and do. When I was at school flu ripped through my school, several classmates ended up in hospital.

It also isn't simply about whether or not someone dies that feeds into these decisions. A kid doesn't have the vaccine, doesn't die but they're very unwell and parent takes them to the GP or hospital to get checked over. Flu passes to the GP/hospital staff and possibly other vunerable patients on the ward or in the waiting room. Suddenly we have a staffing crisis. The GP and hospital have to cancel appointments, wards don't have staffing levels needed and people are in danger.

When the flu ripped through my school 50% of the class were off on the same day. That's 50% of the class that had a parent that couldn't go into work. Whats the impact on those workplaces when lots of staff can't go in for a week because their kids are off ill, or even longer when they catch it themselves? Once again they could be staff in essential services such as nurses, paramedics but for any business (especially small ones with few staff) this can spell disaster. The teachers get it from the students, and year groups are sent home. Even more parents unable to work even if kids unaffected because there isn't enough teachers.

This is why several workplaces are reimbursing staff costs of flu jabs. Costs the company maybe an hour of that persons wage, in exchange they hopefully don't get flu and have to take a week off sick that could cost the company much more money or even force them to close due to staffing levels.

My 15 year old was hospitalised with the flu when he was a baby. Before they started routinely giving children the vaccine at school I used to beg for the gp surgery to give my dc the flu jab. They weren't in the vulnerable category but I never want to see any of my dc get flu again. It was awful and I genuinely thought he was going to die.

It also isn't simply about whether or not someone dies that feeds into these decisions. A kid doesn't have the vaccine, doesn't die but they're very unwell and parent takes them to the GP or hospital to get checked over. Flu passes to the GP/hospital staff and possibly other vunerable patients on the ward or in the waiting room. Suddenly we have a staffing crisis. The GP and hospital have to cancel appointments, wards don't have staffing levels needed and people are in danger.

Quite - and then your "healthy child", who may well be at very low risk of flu itself, is going to be impacted when they repeatedly can't get an appointment for their chronic asthma, or there isn't an ICU bed when they need an emergency appendectomy @Milarky

What an incredibly ignorant and inaccurate comment.

I am not anti vax, but I don't give the flu jab to my own kids.

There's risks in everything, you just need to balance and decide what is best for you and your family.

No we won’t be getting our dc vaccinated against flu. We don’t have an annual flu jab so why would we give it to our kids just because it’s free?
I don’t believe a healthy child is anymore at risk of flu than a healthy adult.

I’m curious how many non eligible adults get their flu vaccine.

I'm not anti vax but I am anti flu vax.

As the make up of it changes each year based on a group of peoples best guess as to what strains will be prevalent that year, I see it as untested and experimental every year so I don't give it to my child.

I see the risk of them getting flu as minimal. If they do, yes it's bloody awful. I've had it twice in my life (almost 4 decades) so I'm comfortable with my choice to risk it for my child.

I am highly educated, and a health care professional. It is absolutely an informed choice. I don't watch or read anti vax spiel I use medical sources to base my choices on.

YANBU to make the choice that you think is right for your child.

If you have an elderly relative ensure that they have the jab would be my advice if you want them protected. The GPs surgeries make every effort to ensure that they are informed and offered it.

Hospital staff do get flu, they also get norovirus. Those two viruses alone hit our health board hard every winter.

Yanbu. I give it to my DC but I don’t think flu is an important vaccine to miss. Measles, Polio, Diptheria, Rubella etc that’s the vaccines you want to be certain you’ve given them. I also paid extra to get the chicken pox jab for my children (if you want to know why, ask yourself if you’d rather have one extra vaccine, or blisters on the inisde of your eyelids and vagina).

The flu vaccine for children is just a nasal spray so I’m happy for my children to have it, but having had a vaccine injury myself from an incompetent pharmacist I now only take the minimum vaccines necessary. Which for me includes covid vaccines but not flu. And I NEVER get jabs at a pharmacy anymore.

All my children have had the flu vaccine before with no issues. Last year for some reason , I didn't get around to getting my three year old his flu vaccine (other children got theirs in school) and at Christmas he ended up being admitted to hospital really ill with the flu. This year he will be getting the vaccine as I do not want him getting as sick as he was. It was horrific to see him so poorly.

I’m sorry you aren’t able to read statistics. Deaths of young children from flu are second only to the very elderly, and the rates are definitely higher than those of other adults. The stats have been given in detail even on this thread.

DH and I are in our early 50s and have had flu jabs every year for the past 6 years or so. His employer offers them as a way of reducing staff absence in the winter, and I get mine from a pharmacy each year.

mine have never had it but are vaccinated in general

Some absolutely ridiculous reasons to not have it in this thread and that’s just the first page!
confirmation that mumsnet has many many nutters

My kids get it.

I had the flu in September there and it was awful.

Why does everyone still trot out the 'it is to protect the elderly' explanation
Must it always be our fault - just like during the pandemic?

I had my flu jab 2 days ago - to protect myself.

Younger people and children are less likely to suffer and die from flu - they do not 'need' the flu jab unless they are vulnerable.
They and their parents have a choice.

Sigh.

No that’s not true. Young children are the group after the elderly most likely to be admitted to hospital with flu. And not just vulnerable ones.

Why does everyone still trot out the 'it is to protect the elderly' explanation
Must it always be our fault - just like during the pandemic?

Because it is quite literally one of the reasons why the flu vaccine was introduced for young children. Not the only reason, but one of them. Sample of government text here. https://ukhsa.blog.gov.uk/2020/11/02/the-importance-of-vaccinating-children-against-flu/

This is why everyone freaked out about children and covid as it was assumed children would be 'super spreaders' as they are with flu. Blaming the kids not the elderly for the spread of covid is my recollection of the early days of covid (and school closures).

Why kids ever needed a covid jab is a different question - UK at least followed the science a tiny bit on that one. At least the flu jab does protect children themselves as well as others from something that can be fatal to them.

Gotta love the NHS, they ask the question 'How effective is the flu vaccine?' on their website - and then because they know full well it's often not very effective as they can't predict the strain and so they have no idea really how effective it will be they don't actually answer the question. They just meaninglessly put that it gives the 'best' protection.

From gov.uk this is how ineffective the jab can be -
Public Health England (PHE) has today (Wednesday, 18 July 2018) published data on the effectiveness of the flu vaccine in the 2017 to 2018 season. The data show that overall, flu vaccine was 15% effective in all age groups.

I think op, the difference is that the flu vaccine has been around a lot longer and will therefore have been more thoroughly studied as a result. That doesn't mean the covid vaccine isn't safe (it's more recent but also had a lot of the barriers removed such as funding and staffing etc that other vaccines have to overcome, in order to allow scientists to create it quickly still in line with rigorous testing. )

Your son has had it twice so to me that's a sign that it doesn't negatively affect him.

I'm generally very pro vaccine but I think ultimately at its core people who are pro or anti vax both want the same thing which is the best for their kids and I respect that.

I think the covid experience has also maybe shown people that we don't maybe fully understand the ins and outs of vaccines and other treatments. But in my own opinion, I'm not a doctor, I'm not clinically trained or a scientist etc. So at some point I'm happy to have people who are educated and much more informed review and tell me that something is safe for myself and my child and I'm prepared to take that on good faith for the most part because while I could do a deep dive into my own research, they'd still be in a better position to fully understand the research and the context. Even down to being better able to identify the validity of peer review information. There are lots of peer reviews out there, and a lot of them are widely rejected by reputable figures in the medical community but I've no way to know who is or isn't.

To me it's also an opportunity to show care and investment in my community, to protect the elderly and inform, to ease the pressure that is crippling the NHS at the moment and protect our education system at a time when our teachers are also under pressure. Those are also important reasons why I would choose to vaccinate. I can fully understand being worried the first time a child has a new vaccine and how they might react to it, but if they've had it multiple times with no ill effects then I'd feel much more relaxed about it.

Effective in what respect though?

Stopping contraction of the flu at all? Minimising the symptoms of the flu when contracted? Stopping transmission between people? Shortening the lifespan of the illness in a person? What criteria are they using to class it's effectiveness?

This is the problem with medical stats being quoted and thrown out in this way in Internet forums. That 15% on your quote is actually completely meaningless and tells us nothing, but could be misinterpreted to put people off.

Mine have had the chicken pox vaccine too, though pre covid in our case.

Completely and utterly uninterested in denying them a beneficial vaccine because of a possible higher shingles risk to adults. Fuck that.

One of DH's colleagues had a previously healthy child die from flu a few years back (went from ill but ok to dead in less than 48 hrs) so i always give permission, however DS missed a couple of times as he was off that day and was all ok.