'Govenment to offer swine flu vaccinations to under-5s' Would you have your DCs vaccinated?

[Sallypuss]

Saw this on the BBC website just now. Would you have your DCs vaccinated?

My first thought is no as I don't think we fully understand the side effects yet and it feels a bit of a knee jerk reaction by the government. My dd is 12 months old.

Apologies if this has been done to death on other threads....

Some info.

here

We will all have it, I am a midwife and have asthma, my two smallest Ds s are under 5 and will be offered it. I have been following the Fergus on Flu blog on BBC online, lots of really good discussion there.
It seems that healthy under 5s need more critical care support if they get ill with swine flu, so on balance I think them having it may reduce the risks of that happening to us.

My DS will be having it when offered. He is 12 months with no underlying health conditions. I believe that the benefits far outweigh the risks.

Also by having it, he will help protect others who won't be having the vaccine - for whatever reason.

My 4 year old had first 1/2 of swine flu jab this morning. Seems fine (bouncing on sofa). Daughter recently had bad reaction to new pneummococcal jab though so not complacent.

me and my 10 year old son both had and were fine apart from a sore arm, I have a 6 year old who can't get it, but will definitely be getting my 20 month old it, swine flu is bad just speak to anyone who has had it

I will absolutely definitely be giving my two children this vaccine. I've had it. Short term it's painful (your arm hurts a lot for a few days and you can feel a bit crap the next day) but this virus has mutated and Tamiflu doesn't work anymore in some cases and that will only increase. The reason children are being targeted is the demographics of serious hospitalisation are changing. More younger children are being overwhelmed by this infection and hospitalised and there are only a limited number of ventilators able to be put to use. Besides which, while a 6 year old might recover fine, in a 3 year old with an immature immune system, a mutated virus could be deadly.

In terms of the mercury question, if you eat a tuna sandwich, fish fingers and then a swordfish steak in same week you've just exceeded the level of mercury in the jab.

Which is excreted anyway and turns into ethyl mercury in the body so it can be excreted more quickly.

I'm worried about the squalene thing. Isn't that what caused gulf war syndrome? That's the only thing thqt concerns me - I'd be happy with a normal flu jab without squalene.

Gulf War Syndrome was never actually proved to exist and was a collection of vague, if debilitating symptoms which quite often present in traumatised or physically injured people.

Also we are not talking here about people getting 40 shots within a week to cover them against all eventualities. We are talking about one injection at a very low dose.

I do think people are being quite alarmist here without having the actual facts

Each to his own of course but I would rather take a sensible step towards protecting my children than take the risk that an untreatable virus will strike my children.

thanks WMMC, I hope you didn't think I was being 'alarmist', I was just epxressing a concern without having any facts or knowledge myself.

Anyway didn't you already have SF? (twice?!)

Hi Juillet - well actually the second time it was clinically confirmed with swabs so yes I did - but was told to have the jab anyway to get broad spectrum protection. I wasn't particularly saying you were being alarmist but people bandy around things like 'well what about squalene/gulf war syndrome/mercury' without understanding much about such things (like what the chemical effect of such things is on the body).

I've read all the books on both sides of the argument. And on a risk analysis, you will always find that the vax outweighs the risk of reaction - because in general terms you are still more likely to die or be damaged by the disease!

Yes you might have a short term reaction to any vaccine but there are few long term reactions. So you take your choice really, have a crap couple of days or risk your child getting the full blown disease (and having had it I would say you would be daft to take that risk). And before you answer, bear in mind that influenza generally is not what kills you, but secondary infections do - so you are exposed not only to the risk of swine flu but to the risk that you will then go on to die of pneumonia or a heart attack.

I am deeply worried by the changes reported in the virus recently. I do think it's going to get worse not better. That may be considered alarmist but, going on the evidence, the comparative risk of the vaccine is down on last week because thousands more doses have been administered without serious side effects and one of the key treatment drugs has been rendered ineffective by the virus mutating.

Thanks for explaining why you have chosen to have it. I'm actually feeling rather alarmed myself now since you mentioned mutation and so on, it's all getting worse and all that. If that's not alarmist I don't know what is! I wasn't trying to alarm other people!

Can you point me at something about this mutating business please, as I now feel so worried I might have to go and read somehting.

I think my ds probably will have it (he's almost 2).

Yes, it can be milder than normal flu but in some cases, which are not necessarily predictable by patient medical history, it can become very serious very quickly.

Apparently the reason is that this type of flu binds to the lungs much lower down than ordinary flu and so causes deeper and more serious chest infection.

Those who are at risk are not the elderly and infirm necessarily, this kind of flu kills more young, healthy people.

As for the time in which the vaccine has been developed and tested... it's actually had more time than the seasonal flu vaccine as far as I can tell, and millions of people get that every year.

There is a lot of scaremongering going around about this vaccine and although I'll make sure I know about all side effects before I make my final decision, I think it's probably a good idea.

My ds was very ill and could hardly breathe (infection and collapsed lung) just after he was born and I don't want to see him like that again.

Teresa Forcades, Spanish Doctor and benedictine monj talks about swine flu

This is extrememly interesting, and I watched all of it from beginning to end. I nearly cancelled my children's apts for vaccination as I agree with every word she says.. HOWEVER, she doesn't mention anything about waves. Flu pandemics always hit in waves, and the following waves are more severe...

so... difficult decision, but I think I'm going to vaccinate.

Erm any advice for me.

Intially not to keen on having jab for 3.5 ds and he's due his preboosters but we're going to stay with inlaws abroad over christmas and I'm worried if he gets it there won't be fast access to Tamiflu or if things get really bad, ambulance. So I think I'd now like the vaccine for him.

He's due boosters on thursday and I've been given an appointment for the swine flu vaccine the following Thursday - are these too close togehter because if so I'm wondering whether I should go for the swine flu vaccine and have the boosters late Jan as I'm sure that the thing he's most likely to catch between now and feb is swine flu.

Any ideas?

What's the nun's point - cant watch it all at the moment. What is the conspiracy theory supposed to be?

I am thinking I will get my dc vaccinated, even though I would prefer the non-thiomersal one and I think it is wrong that you can't pay for this one, because I do think pandemic flu is a real potential risk to them. As opposed to things like measles, mumps, yellow fever etc. What I mean by that is that, I never really feared those diseases as the theoretical risk of them a getting it and b being seriously hurt by them in this day and age seemed fairly remote. Wheras I think, in fact know, that there is a fairly likely chance they might get flu this year. I had confirmed swine flu in July and, whilst it was unpleasant, I got through it. It did however knock me for six for a good few months and i did get a fairly bad secondary chest infection (which I never normally get, fit and healthy, no asthma etc) which took awhile to get rid off (2 antibiotics). Still don't really feel 100% since. I would rather my young children didn't go through this as, presumably, my immune system could hack it much better as I have had flu many times.

Not sure but I am leaning to vaccinating. My mother (diabetic) had the GSK one a wwek ago, no side effect.

The nun's point in a nutshell is that this is not such a big deal as we've been lead to believe, that the definition of a pandemic has recently been amended to apply to less serious set of flu conditions, that with people being diagnosed over the phone and so on there is over-diagnosis of swine flu going on.

She also makes some pretty inferences about Baxter. They combined the avian flu virus with the swine flu virus. One is highly contagious but has a low morbidity rate, the other the reverse, so it would have been potentially very pointless and dangerously experimental to combine them. WHY was this done? It was done, that much is document. So she's right there. SHe says it was only discovery by chance. But they could have been planning to attenuate the virus to have a vaccine ready in the event of those two viruses combining to make a new virus. I don't think it proves that they were planning to start a deadly pandemic!!!!!!

I agree with her that there is hysteria about swine flu. BUT... I think she is in dnager of being equally over-reactive to Baxter's motives.

She also made points about governments all blindly following the recommendations of WHO. She doesn't seem to trust the WHO either.

What I think though is that the governments/WHO are perhaps thinking that the first wave is mild, lets vaccinate as many of the population as possible in preparation for a more severe second wave.

Interestingly though (hmmm, to me anyway, I did biology) in 1918, during the first world war, the sickest people were sent to crowded field hospitals, so unlike in a non-war society, it was the sickest people who ware on the move. Usually, the sickest are bed-ridden, and those with a milder strain carry on travelling and working, so a milder strain is favoured if you like. During the first world war though, a more severe strain of the flu was favoured.

There probably will be a second wave of this flu, but WILL it be any more severe?? I don't know why it would be a LOT more severe than the first wave? I would love somebody to come along and explain this to me.

ps, on the point of squalene.... the spanish doctor does mention gulf war syndrome and links it in to a component used in the baxter flu vaccine, but again she doesn't mention that those soldiers were getting forty injections in one week.

I think what she says is true, but there are definitely very relevant things that she doesn't say.

Thanks Maggie, that helps.

Someone at school was saying that there is large scale panic in Cyprus at the moment, all schools shut, people dying etc etc

sounds a bit different to what we've got going on here.

Dont they get worse because they continually mutate and the ones that aren't wiped out by the immune system are the ones that don't get wiped out by the majority of immune systems are the ones that are perpetuated and therefore most harmful? (also did molecular biology but much knowledge erased in intervening years)

Having worked in labs it doesn't seem beyond the pale to me that people that work in this area would try and anticipate and plan ahead for possibilities like flu strains combining, mutating closer together whatever (dont think they actually combine do they?) and do do that they would have to try it in the lab to test the efficacy of a vaccine. I guess there are financial considerations but still, I suppose ideally I would like to see nationalised services creating the vaccines - seems a bit wrong that the pharma companies create them and then sell them to the highest bidding government.

I personally think that these kinds of pandemics might have been aided by the development of the biotech industry in the last 30 odd years or so which is based massively on the manipulation of naturally occuring viruses, chopping them up, replacing genes, adding in new ones etc - many potentially life saving applications but possibly a downside too - again having worked in labs you wonder how many messed around with virus particles are bought out on the back of peoples coats etc.

giveitago - the human baby can apparently withstand something like 600 vax in a week (I have no idea how they worked this out sorry). But so long as he does not have an elevated temperature from the other vax or is unwell he can probably go ahead and add one more. Your doctor will confirm that though depending on the exact combination.

Juillet - The Tamiflu resistant strain is in Wales and Scotland - see all the major newspapers and BBC websites. The death and hospitalisation figures are available on the DoH website. I don't want to scare you, or anyone. And it might be that the rises are a blip but with the wave patterns of influenzas generally, I am personally a bit nervous about waiting for the DCs appt to come through. Though DH says he's not having it because he has a 'sterling immune system which will cope' .

Its MUTATED arrgh. It's funny that, nobody wants the vaccine because they are rightly concerned about the PATHETIC amount of testing, and the other concerns. So what happens, OOOH lets kick out some fear to get people rolling up thier sleeves.

If its mutated the vaccine will be WORTHLESS as its not the same strain.

another in the news thread here
"The Health Protection Agency has reviewed blood tests which showed higher levels of infection among children than originally thought.

In hotspot areas, such as London and the West Midlands, a third of school-aged children may have had the virus, but only one in 10 or less got ill.

Across the UK, the figure is probably about a fifth, the HPA said.

The findings reinforce the fact the pandemic is a mild strain of flu"

questioneverything - actually that's not true - the vaccine is broad spectrum because it contains a range of 'features' of the disease, so it will give protection against a range of 'strains' of the disease. Much like measles has many variants but the vax will protect against them all (or at least for the first ten years or so after development, nothing is completely 100%).

It's great if kids are getting subclinically infected, shaking it off and moving on. But then they can also get measles very lightly, rubella, even mild meningitis and it be put down to 'just a bit off colour' if they get over it quickly enough. However, does that mean they will never get these things again. Well no. The immune system is more complex than that. And not all immunity lasts for ever.

Ah I'm not going to try and convert you all. It's your choice and rightly so. It may well be a mild disease (The secondary lung infection was a lot worse than the flu itself and had I not had mild heart issues I doubt I'd have gone to the doctors) but I don't know what the situation is if you later change your mind if the disease suddenly does become more serious.