anybody else in 2 minds about swine flu jab?

[jlo1234]

i asked my doctor if he recommends me getting the swine flu jab, and he wasnt very convincing. he said its reccomended by the government but he doesnt know much about it himself so he would leave it up to the patient.

a friend said that she had had hers, shes a nurse who works in intensive care unit and said she thinks i should definatly have it because there has been a few pregnant women in there with swine flu and they are really ill with it.

the only thing that is holding me back is the fact that the vaccine is so new and hasnt been round for long enough for us to know if and what the long term side affects might be.

i feel like a guinnee pig and its putting me off, but then again i dont know what is the lesser of 2 evils, risk getting swine flu and putting both me and baby in danger or have the jab and risk side affects that havent been found yet.

i feel like im far enough along in my pregnancy for it to not cause much harm to the baby, (im nearly 33 weeks) but im just not sure what to do! it also confuses me that pregnant women cant have the seasonal flu vaccine but we can have the swine flu one?

has anybody actually had it, if so what made u decide u wanted it and did u regret it?
or has anybody else heard something to make them definatly not want it?

Mommymeggie

Now I realise why you are so misinformed.....You read thimerosal-news.com AND mercola.com! Do you honestly believe everything you read on the internet?

If you can't post reliable sources from a reputable newspaper or medical journal then don't bother posting.

And maybe I am a complete snob but as I am currently doing a degree in nutritional sciences, i can tell you that I would NEVER quote the daily mail in any of my scientific papers. For a much more informed/balanced stance on the exact same story people should read the following article from the Telegraph:

www.telegraph.co.uk/health/swine-flu/6038460/Doctors-told-to-watch-for-Guillain -Barre-syndrome-during-Swine-flu-vaccination-programme.html

Stop the scaremongering and get your facts straight!!

I'm not pregnant, but am expected to give vaccine to this group! Yikes! So glad to see how well-informed you all are!

Also just wanted to throw the cat-among-the-pigeons again - this media-hyped pandemic needs brought back into perspective. Swine-flu is on the increase apparently, yet very few people are actually being checked for it. Fancy a week off work, phone your GP with the symptoms and he'll tell you not to go in and record it as swine flu.

Yes it has killed a number of people, the vast majority with underlying conditions. Yes, it may be worse if you're pregnant, but who's to say you will catch it anyway?

As for the vaccine, bottom line is we don't yet know of any side-effects...

Totally feel for any pregnant woman just now, seems you're damned if you do, and damned if you don't.

Good luck with your decision, and it is true what GP's, MW's and Nurse are saying - IT'S A PERSONAL CHOICE!

Jlo.. great thread and very good debate from both sides of the argument... watching with interest!

Omg Babyboom, you seriously have no argument! How can you quote the Telegraph and say the Dailymail isn't a valid point???? You say quote newspapers. I've read twice on another site about what the Dailymail had to write. I'm not quoting from Maxim magazine for goodness sakes. As for the other sources, did you even read it? For starters I'm not writing a research paper so I don't have time to hit the library and quote sources from books to your liking. Most of the world gets valuable information from the internet. I've found what I needed and thats good enough for me and whoever reads what I posted, they can make up their own decision. Good luck with your studies which btw was an elective at our college.

Mommimeggie -- considering your level of intelligence and research capabilities it must have been a third-tier community college.

And incidentally I should probably have mentioned before that my father is an Immunologist at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York and my father-in-law is a Professor of Medicine at the University of Geneva with previous tenure at Harvard. Both have recommended the vaccine to me and I have to say I trust their judgment AND my private consultant's much more than an ignorant poster like you on mumsnet.

Okay now my husband is reading over my shoulder and laughing at how stupid this conversation is becoming. Definitely putting this thread to rest.

Babyboom with all those credentials you should be more than aware that medical journals are full of bias, that certain documents don't have a hope of being published as they will piss off advertisers, that medical journals are dependent on advertisers (ie the pharmaceuticals), that there are many flaws in peer review, that studies can be badly designed or designed with intentional result skewing flaws, that many studies don't get published because they showed results the authors/sponsors didn't want and, well, you get the picture.

Much as I dislike the values of the Daily Mail, I have been pleasantly surprised by their reporting of vaccine issues. They have been the only mainstream paper to consistently refuse a Vaccine=Good+Disease=Bad-Critical Thinking=Vaccine Reactions Never Happen attutide. Melanie Philips wrote some excellent, intelligent stuff on MMR. Of course she got slated for it as anybody who questions vaccine safety is, of course, a nut or a conspiract theorist dontcha know.

I remember her being told to put a sock in it by quite a lot of folk who seemed to think because they had some background in science they had the right to stifle honest debate.

Here's an interesting linky link with a couple of news reports about children having reactions to swine flu vaccines.

The menu on the right gives a whole bunch of videos from a guy who checks out stories from foreign countries by translating them on google. He obviously is obsessed has a healthy interest in these things. Seriously though it is actually quite interesting what he's done as he is logging stories of adverse reations from Europe and they are a bit eye opening. Quite a few from Scandinavia. (His commentary is kind of good value to.)

Ahem, babyboom didn't you post a link to an article from Newsweek (which was full of misinformation) about the wrong vaccine earlier? I would delve a little deeper into my own sources before dismissing anybody else's if I were you.

'We are living in a very sad world if we start to believe that the governments are colluding with the pharmaceutical companies'

I am afraid we are living in this world. Have you not heard of the blood scandal where thousands of haemophiliacs contracted aids and hep c from infected factor 8? The government KNEW the products were infected and mostly from the USA but did nothing about it as it was too expensive/too politically sensitive. Those affected have been given a paltry amount of compensation and althoguh this is not well publicised, they are suing the government.

Pharma companies will continue to make mistakes every now again you cannot possibly be naive enough to think there will not be vaccines or medication that will cause serious harm in the future.

lumpasmelly yep I was supporting you and trying to highlight the wishwashiness of the the conspiracy theorists.

wow this has turned into a lively debate!

I would have to agree with babyboom that we have to be careful with the sources we use to substantiate our arguments. Some (not all) of the sources being referred to on this thread stand on shaky ground. If we believe everything posted on google then there is no point in having this discussion!

beachcomber interesting point on the daily mail and it's coverage of vaccine issues. I just tend to avoid it as the headlines seem so sensationalistic and alarming but I guess it has to sell newspapers one way or another.

I'm with midnightsun and lumpasmelly on the conspiracy theorists. I just can't live my life in such a pessimistic light.

Twinmum I can't believe your post was ignored... good point well made! What is your profession if you don't mind me asking?

I am not a conspiracy theorist just a concerned mum trying to make the best choice I think this thread has descended into a bit of mudslinging about people's intelligence and education.

I am not fully anti-vaccine but I am against rushed mass vaccinations when we don't know the full extent of the threat from either swine flu or the vaccine.

I work with a number of large lobbying organisations and have been shocked and stunned by the things the government will do to save a quick buck and to cover their own backs at the expense of thousands of people.

I think to place all of your faith in something that noone can have a full understanding of is very dangerous that is all and you can quote journals which are in part funded by governments and pharma companies all you want.

Why do people think that anyone who questions vaccine safety is a conspiracy theorist?

What exactly is the term meant to mean anyway and do people not see how rude and offensive it is?

Using that sort of language is just sloppy thinking. It is an intellectual shortcut the likes of which the Daily Mail use funnily enough.

It is a sensationalist term which doesn't really have any meaning and certainly has no place in honest, well thought out debate.

It is a from of personal attack which makes the user look a bit ridiculous frankly and suggests that they haven't actually bothered to find out properly what this whole controversy is about.

There is a bigger picture here which isn't purely about public health and which most certainly isn't about health on an individual level most of the time. The issues surrounding vaccination are social, political, economical and financial in addition to being about health and science.

If that weren't the case then something a lot more would be being done to detect what makes certain individuals likely to have adverse reactions and to screen them out of the system.

We currently have a 'one size fits all' vaccination policy with a shamefully inadequate system for post marketing surveilliance whilst we know that current safety testing does not have the scope to pick up rarer events that will show up in a wider population.

Using ones critical thinking abilities and being able to see that this system is flawed is not being a 'conspiracy theorist'.

BTW I totally agree with Twinmum's excellent point about how the dangers of swine flu in the general population seem to be being greatly exaggerated.

Even if for the sake of argument we say that the vaccine is as safe as it is possible for a vaccine will be, some people will react badly to it. If they didn't actually need the vaccine because the disease was not a great risk for them then that is scandalous.

If the risk benefit ratio of this, or any, vaccine is being misinterpreted or misreported then that entirely changes matters in terms of acceptable safety expectations.

There is a lot at stake here and the public has the right to transparent, impartial,comprehensive information upon which to base its decisions.

"Autism is a coincidence, GBS is a coincidence, MS is a coincidence, lupus is a coincidence, asthma is a coincidence, seizures are a coincidence and on and on and on. Even death is written off as a coincidence FGS."

How does this not sound slightly conspiracy theorist? Are we now going to blame every last ailment on vaccines?

As I posted in the 'Vaccinations' section; the 14 year-old in the US who developed GBS following swine flu vaccine did so "within hours", according to the source that Beach linked to. If this is true then is it very unlikely to be a consequence of the vaccination, as the syndrome takes several days or even weeks to develop.

I have read the thread with interest as I too am suffering from the dilema.

I went from the position of "there is no way I will have it" to thinking that it is likely I will. I have two yound DC and a history of asthma in my family.

I have not read the press on this (or a least not obsessively). I am trying to make my own mind on this.

The fact that is tipping the balance for me is really quite simple. Every 30/50 years or so there is a huge flu pandemic that kills millions of people. The governments and WHO clearly think this is it. They have tried to develop a vaccine to save lives. Not for profit. Is the vaccine rushed and untested: yes. Do I feel like a guinea pig? Yes. Putting everything in context though, will I have it? Probably

I find this is one of the hardest decisions to make and whichever decision I make, I can only hope that it was the right one but that is what happens when you have to juggle to unknown risks (having flu and ill effects versus untested vaccine). There is no perfect solution in these circumstances

I would like to thank you all though, pro or against as it is useful to have an insight in what other people feel before making one's own decision.

Does the vaccine have the product in it to accelerate the effectiveness?

Well like I said when one goes to the bother of actually reading about these things there is quite a lot of interesting and robust science which links all of the above auto immune conditions to the, relatively crude medications which stimulate and interfere with the immune system, which vaccines are. An immune system about which relatively little is known, especially in young children.

How exactly is citing 5 auto immune conditions 'blaming every last ailment on vaccines' FGS?

If I thought every ailment could be blamed on vaccination then that would make me a nutter. But I don't think that, and have never said that. How about commenting on what I do say rather than on what you think people like myself think.

Sorry to be a bit snippy, nothing personal, but it does get a little tedious.

The latest (one of many) big (published in a medical journal) study which links asthma to earlier DTP vaccination was reported in the mainstream media and on parenting forums. Hardly the stuff of conspiracy.

Well unless you think sites like this are also looking out for the black helicopters

Ah well Musukebba I guess it was just a coincidence then.

looks dangerous to me beachcomber not sure about the look of that baby reading the paper.

Totally agree I think that being put in the box of "slight nutter" and "conspiracy theorist" as an argument to a well informed post is a bit ridiculous, surely questioning something questionable is what we need to be doing when it comes to the health of our families.

Beachcomber - that is a very intriguing study -- I'm definitely going to look into it.

My husband just sent me this Swine Flu link from the New Scientist with lots of intersting information.

Sorry if it has been posted before!

www.newscientist.com/special/swine-flu

Oh look here's a report of GBS following H1N1 vaccination in France which must be one of them there coincidences too.

In French but easy to get the gist of

Yes it's very easy to see there are absolutely no case details in that report. What there is is a very reasoned commentary by the journalist talking to a microbiologist who explaines that many infections have a far stronger association with GBS, and these need to be ruled out before ascribing a link to vaccination.

Blimey, this thread gets really boring.

Vaccination is one of the medical professions biggest successes.

If you are against vaccines for any reason, keep it to yourself, you are in the vast uneducated minority! Stop preaching your minority paranoia and scaremongering to everyone else!

I know of a case of GBS of someone who came home from a holiday in Asia.

Feckin millions of people in Asia without GBS, but buggered if im going there , cant possibly be a coincidence!!!!

This thread is really annoying and full of random references that neither prove nor disprove anything

The titel of this post is

anybody else in 2 minds about swine flu jab?

The handful of people posting so vehemently against this vaccine or vaccination in general are clearly not really 'in two minds' about it at all so don't really belong in the discussion.

I'd advise anyone who really is in two minds and wants objective balance to read the longer Mumsnet swine flu poll thread (somebody linked to it further back) because it is much more thorough, factual, pertinent to the topic and without any of this "I am actually clever and educated and will prove it by daring to challenge the government and drugs companies, oh no they can't trick me" guff.