If you have an UNDER THREE please read this

[studentmummy]

When the vaccine is available it will not even be OFFERED to UNDER THREE's even though 0-4 year olds are the projected heaviest affected group for MORTALITY. As the mother of a two year old (among other siblings)I resent not having the CHOICE to have my child protected especially if death rates INCREASE. Even the very elderly will take priority over toddlers and babies as they have been allocated vaccine at the very end of the queue.
The government advice is that UNDER THREE'S STAY AT HOME for their own protection instead which is not a realistic option for working or stay at home mothers who will bceome PRISONERS IN THEIR OWN HOMES.
For clarification please read the following :Prof David Salisbury letter to primary care trusts dated 26 June 2009 and goveernment projections for swine flu under NHS choices website. I suggest if you feel as strongly as I do a letter to your MP that under three's are NOT EXPENDABLE but are human beings with full rights as our their mothers!

TotalChaos - I certainly hope that this is the case and not that they have been deemed pre-sentient human beings. 0-3 is a very wide group ranging from newborns to little professors! - perhaps the government could look at advocating breastfeeding up to say six months or one year and then offering the parents choice on vaccination for their toddlers but not making it obligatory.

On Butterbeer's grandmother in the cupboard point mine would gladly give up her vaccine for her grandchilren (as would I and very parent I know) perhaps this could be arranged?

I'm still not fretting, this is still early days of the epidemic. As others have pointed out the guidelines are changing constantly. As it's hardly taken grip at all (compared with how it's expected to) then the pattern that's currently emerging over who is most at risk will change I bet.

The WHO recommendations that someone linked to says in regard to their groups for consideration

"noting that countries need to determine their order of priority based on country-specific conditions"

SO - once the vaccine becomes available then actually it's up to each country to look at their own countries "stats" (II'm guessing) and see which groups come first in their country.

I wonder if the higher infection rates in the young population in the UK are "actual" or just because adults are (in general) more likely to just curl up on the sofa and feel shite for a few days without consulting doctor, whereas a parent will almost without fail seek medical advise?

Everyone - thanks for your responses - let's keep the debate open on this one.!
Can you all mention it in your mums groups and discuss it with your work colleagues and come back to me?
It's not that I don't trust the scientists but they may not be mothers and have the same priorities as us. Also it is not scientists who actually make the final decisions (scientists can only advise) but politicians and I don't trust them one bit!
My ultimate concern is that 0-4 year olds will be most affected but least protected and as a society we need to protect the most vulnerable.

Hello FAQinglovely - I see your thinking but
my figures are based on hospitalisations - over one hundred of whom are under 5 as opposed to virtually none in the over 65 age category and only three hundred representing the entire age group from 14-65.
Of course this may change, but as it stands and based on governments own projections under 5's are in the highest risk group.

Can someone please join in - think I'm talking to myself here?

and how many other mitigating factors - such as underlying health conditions which makes any flu/virus more dangerous for them?

I though the under 5s, elderly, people with breathing/lung problems were to take priority? I'm 17 weeks pregnant and am sorely tempted to just hibernate from now on especially as I work in retail, but 3yo Tom starts nursery next month, so can't really do that!

Hi BexieID - latest news (as of 5pm yesterday) is that under threes are to be left off the priority vaccinations list which includes all other children and lumped in with rest of general pop until the very end. We're trying to work out why?

Yes, my suggestion that 0-2 year olds may be shunted to the top of the 'everyone else' queue is at the moment predicated on conjecture only and not confirmed in writing. But your original suggestion that the vaccine "will not even be OFFERED to UNDER THREE's" is based on conjecture and actually contradicted in writing.

What we do have confirmed in writing is that "The decision on prioritisation will be taken on the basis of epidemiological evidence, vaccine supply and capacity of the NHS to implement the programme. This decision will be subject to further work over the summer period." So if the epidemiological evidence does, as you suggest, imply that 0-2s are at particular risk, then that will be factored into the decision on prioritisation, which hasn't been made yet.

Butterbeer, you seem very well informed but if I may say so a tad defensive?
One minute you claim that there is enough vaccine for everyone who wants it and the next that vaccinating my two year old would endanger your grandmother.
I never said that under threes would not be innoculated only that they should be prioritised with other children and as it currently stands they will not be.

I didn't say that vaccinating your two year old would endanger my grandmother; I said that deciding to vaccinate your two-year-old instead of my grandmother wasn't an issue of freedom of parental choice, which you'd said it was.

And you did, very specifically, say that under threes would not be inoculated. The first line of your OP reads "When the vaccine is available it will not even be OFFERED to UNDER THREE's even though 0-4 year olds are the projected heaviest affected group for MORTALITY."

You seem, if I may say so, very determined that your wish as a parent to get your child vaccinated immediately should automatically trump any expert opinion on the optimum prioritisation of vaccines. And you just can't run a major public health campaign that way. And you seem very selective about which bits of the Salisbury letter you believe; you don't, for example, appear to believe him when he says that the final decision on priority will be based on epidemiological evidence.

If you take his letter at face value, then if there is epidemiological evidence that 0-2 year olds are at greater risk than the population at large they will get priority in vaccinations when the actual decision on priority is made. And you seem very confident that there is such epidemiological evidence. So what's the problem? OK, if you think David Salisbury is a big fat liar then there is cause for concern, but then why should we believe anything else in the letter, including the draft priority list? And if you think he is telling the truth, then the new evidence on hospital admissions and mortality that's been amassed over the weeks since he wrote the letter will, as he said, be factored into the decision.

dd2 had the seasonal flu jab last winter, at 23 months. She had 'underlying health conditions' (her 5 yr old sister doesn't, and wasn't vaccinated, had flu, and recovered well).

I wouldn't want to vaccinate a healthy 2 yr old, but dd is 2.5 and still has a very narrow airway and an asthma preventer....from what I understand, she would be offered the vaccine under the 'at risk' criteria, no? Despite her age?

This is very confusing

And I'm not sure I'd take it, just wondernig what her options will be...

Yes, if she has underlying health conditions that meant she gets the flu vaccine normally then she'd be in the very top priority group (under the draft priority list) for being offered swine flu vaccine.

'V'

why do so many people not realise that the trade-off we have to make for having a free at point of access national health service is that we have to delegate clinical / economic decisions.

we cannot have a health service that gives everyone whatever medicine or vaccine they fancy whenever they fancy it.

if you want to go down that route you will have to get private healthcare (and even then there are restrictions and quite rightly so).

a HUGE amount of thinking by some of the best minds in WHO and our own country have gone into working out an order of priority that is in the best interests of the population in general why do so many people believe that isn't the case and that there's some kind of evil plan???

i'm not one for trusting naively everything i'm told but when the experts have worked out a list of priority you'd better be a bloody world expert if you think you know better!

(V was not a finger gesture but a failed copy and paste,just to clarify ,)

'If so and if you have anything to genuinely add to the debate I'd love to hear from you.'

much better - ooops

I did think it was unusually aggressive for you...

It'll all be fine, don't worry

fluffles I agree with you completely. I think a healthy amount of cynisism is good but I don't think that the government would deliberately endanger the under threes or consider them expendable if the evidence was showing that they were at the greatest risk. I know that there is the argument that incompentency could endanger them but I also believe you have to have a certain amount of trust in those who devote their lives to protecting the health of others.

Yes, I do have a baby. Yes, I am very worried that he will get swine flu and I will have to watch him suffering. Yes, I am very worried about possible complications but I am also aware that there are people who probably need that vaccine far more than us.

By the way, I hate the attitude that if the media reports the death of someone with underlying health issues that is somehow ok. So many people are living with underlying health issues that it is insensitive in the extreme.

fluquestion I know what you mean about the underlying health thing- I get that people want to know whether there is a signifcant risk to groups outside the ones we all know (ie pre-existing conditions) but there are ways of reporting it, I dont see it as coming actross as 'that's OK then' but several people now have said to me that they did and felt les valued so there must be something in it.

What I worry most here is a sense of panic. Each person has been allocated a dose of tamiflu wihich is fab, but the diagnostic system then suggests that anything ticking a couple of boxes is SF and needs tamiflu. I imagine there will be a large number who actually get it firther along the line, and the way the system was described by the Minister on QT last night, each person has a single identifier and one you've ahd your dose- it's gone.

There needs to be mroe info made available about when medication is actually indicated rather than having people think X+Y + SF (rather than any number of colds and viruses) + flu.

If a temperature cannot be cntrolled etc- isn't that when help should be saught?

Hang on a minute. I have a plan (not that it will count because I am one of those scientists that don't make decisions. and I probably wouldn't count either because I am a mother and a scientist - and clealy no scientists are mothers (oh and what about fathers that are scientists - do they not count?))

Why don't we vaccinate all the under 3's first. It is probably more likely to kill a 37Yo with COPD, but hey that doesn't matter because the 3yo's are vaccinated.

Lets vaccinate the 3yo's before the healthcare workers. After all, we don't need a healthcare system to look after all of the COPD suffers who contract swine flu and need INTENSIVE CARE. It also doesn't matter that the healthcare workers are MORE LIKELY to contract swine flu as a result OF THEIR JOB.

Maybe teh priority list isn't quite right (which is acknowledged by the fact that it is still a working draft). But most of the groups on the priority list have a reason to be higher priority than under 3's.

Under 3's WILL be vaccinated. But they are - for good reason lower down the priority list than you would like.

Guys, We seem to be getting off the track of things here - I'm clearly not saying that under threes should be given priority over those with underlying conditions or health care workers. It's just that I do not understand why they are not to be included with other children - it can't be that it is not safe for them as babies from six months with underlying conditions are to be offered it.
And I still haven't had a truly satisfactory explanation why under threes are to be treated differently. Can you think of one if they are just as likely to be exposed to the virus?

By the way are there any other mummies out there who would like their healthy child under three at least to be considered for vaccination? (so that they have the choice rather than just being arbitarily excluded) Feel a bit like I'm on my own out here at the moment and would welcome some support.

You mean "considered for vaccination ahead of pensioners and poultry workers"?

I'd like my healthy child under three to be considered for vaccination.

I don't want my healthy child under three to be arbitrarily excluded from the vaccination program.

But I'm happy for that vaccination to be scheduled according to a set of priorities drawn up by public health experts who know what they are talking about. And I'm happy that for that vaccination (and mine, and DH's) to be later than that of my 4yo.