Your statistics are old. There have been 114 pediatric deaths since April.

Http://www.Cdc. Gov/h1n1flu/updates/us/

ETA: sorry I wasn’t trying to knock you. But stats like this increase exponentially; I was just trying to demonstrate that for people. Just imagine what they’ll be next month. . .
PS – it is biologically impossible to get the flu (swine or seasonal) from the flu shot. Unless your body has a magical way of synthesizing influenza virus DNA.

I’m getting vax’d and so will my kid. Why? Because even though we’re healthy, I happen to hope that people who are too sick to be vaccinated don’t die. How does the fact that we don’t hear about the deaths every year justify not getting vax’d? It happens every year, hello, that’s why it’s not news. But does that mean it’s okay to be privvy to a death you could’ve helped to prevent? Yeah, most people that die from it are immunocompromised – they’re not your kids – but they’re SOMEONE’S kids. A death is a death. Just cause you don’t hear about it doesn’t make it okay to be apathetic and complicit in another’s death.

++++

No vaccine is 100% effective. Vaccines are not meant to provide individual protection. The are meant to provide HERD immunity. Since herd immunity is based on the statistical probability of 2 susceptible individuals interacting sufficient to cause disease transfer, it stands to reason that even lessening symptoms and shortening the duration of contagion also serves this purpose – by again decreasing the statistical probability that a contagious and susceptible individuals would interact. When enough people are vaccinated (and a sufficient percentage immune) that statistical probability is zero, and the disease is wiped out because it can no longer find susceptible hosts before it dies on it’s own within the original host.

Thank you for posting this. Hopefully this opens a lot of eyes so parents stop thinking every little cough puts their child on death’s door step.

Yeah, I’ve read about this, there’s no chance in hell I’m vaccinating my son with this junk.

Like ive been saying for the past year its a flu. Flues come around every year but everytime it has a new name people freak out.

I mean hundreds of thousands of people died around the world last year from the flu. . . Did we hear about it?

**I never said i didnt care i was simply saying the amount of media hype on this flu is insane. Yes people have died and its horrible but people die every year from the flu and its not this big a deal in the news which in my opinion is actually kind of sad. . . . When old and sick people are the only ones dying of the flu it seems like the media doesnt care but when young people start dying of the same its “news”. . .

Desmeran- They do not protect 100% but they do protect people.

If they match the strain the odds of effectiveness go up.

If they are off in the strain they think is coming around effectiveness goes down.

They do help people who need them when it comes right down to it.

How effective is the flu shot?
In studies of the seasonal flu shot, when the “match” between vaccine viruses and circulating viruses is close, the vaccine has been shown to prevent influenza in about 70%-90% of healthy persons younger than age 65 years.

Among elderly persons living outside chronic-care facilities (such as nursing homes) and those persons with long-term (chronic) medical conditions (such as asthma, diabetes, or heart disease), the flu shot has been shown to be between 30% and 70% effective in preventing hospitalization for pneumonia and influenza.

Among elderly nursing home residents, the flu shot has been shown to be most effective in preventing severe illness, secondary complications, and deaths related to the flu. In this population, the shot has been shown to be between 50% and 60% effective in preventing hospitalization or pneumonia and 80% effective in preventing death from the flu.

Http://www.Cdc. Gov/FLU/about/qa/flushot.htm

I know people who have gotten the shot and it has made them sick. .

So I think I will take my chances and pass on getting the vacine.

Yes I don’t see the necessity for healthy children.

Mine aren’t getting seasonal flu or swine flu shots.

We adults aren’t getting them either.

Flu shots always used to be for the elderly and those with certain health problems and now they have convinced healthy people they need them too. . . Pretty crazy. . .

flu shots are historically not terribly effective and i don’t have a strong opinion either way on whether people should get them.

however, jackie has a really nice answer in that vaccinations are not really about just keeping oneself healthy. with virtually any vaccination the odds of getting the disease are low, but if nobody got vaccinated, those odds would go up for all of us. the more people who are vaccinated, the less likely the disease is to transmit to anyone, including people who are high risk. which is why my three healthy kids always get a flu shot to help protect my high risk child and people like her.

*do you have a link for that last edit? i have not seen that claim and couldn’t bring it up with a quick google search, though i know a traditional flu shot prevents flu in many adults, and lessens its impact in some cases where there was not an exact match in terms of which strain of flu it was targeted towards (and sometimes doesn’t work at all if the strains were completely different).

Paranoia! Ugh! I work in health care (xray tech student) and at clinicals I work in the xray department at a hospital and on an average day we do at least 30 chest xrays on children, young children! One lady brought her son in because she said he didn’t breath normally when LAUGHING! She said she thought it was a pneumonia! So we had to expose him to UNNECESSARY RADIATION! Of all of the xrays that I ahve done in the last 3 weeks only 2 have actually had pneumonia! NOT associated with swine flu.

People are freaking out, and hte paranoia is making the swine flu bigger then it is.

Flu Vaccines Are Approved and Urged for Most: The Food and Drug Administration approved Vaccines For the next flu …