Swine Flu: Will Your Kids Get the H1N1 Vaccine?

After doing research on our own, and since we are not in a high risk health group are not taking the H1N1 vaccination.
Too new to know of any side effects. We too, are taking vitamin D 5000 to 10,000 IC daily and daily vitamins to build up our immune systems. See Dr. Mercola's information for more information and make an informed decision for you and your family.

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I have never understood the reasoning behind not getting vaccinated. I mean, if the odds of getting a disease are greatly reduced, side effects are a lot easier to deal with than death. Diseases that were once nearly eradicated are now returning because of parents that choose not to vaccinate their children.

Just remember, when you make that choice, not only are you choosing for your child, but you are making that choice for every person your child comes in contact with, since most diseases are spread person to person. I know that I would feel terrible if someone else's child died because of a disease my child gave to them because of a decision I made. Sometimes you have to think beyond your own family and think of the world around you.

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Yes, my 7 year old got the flu mist. He's not high risk so why did we get it? Because our pediatrians, whom we trust completely, recommended it. Skepticism is understandable but I know this team of great docs would never administer anything to their little patients that they doubted for a second! (If I felt differently I'd get a 2nd opinion or switch to another pediatric practice.)

Sort of on the topic of promoting important children/health issues, I got to see Laura Bush speak last night in Baltimore! She is a fantastic speaker, especially on children's/women's/health/education issues, and answered many difficult questions (without any advance notice). I felt like I was at a press conference - it was very exciting and inspirational. You would have loved it!!

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So far nobody has died from the vaccine, but about one hundred otherwise healthy children, with no underlying medical conditions, have died from H1N1. Thanks to bad advise like yours, hundreds more will die. Please take a class in statistics before you give any more bad advise.

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We are in good health, so we will embrace the opportunity to build our immunity by being exposed to the flu and riding it out. Actually, I think we already had it. But if someone in my family was high risk (e.g., asthmatic), I might get the vaccine.

I think it's getting late in the day; haven't the majority of Americans been exposed by now? Personally, it strikes me as unethical to push people to get a vaccine when there is a good chance they are already immune. It's one thing to weigh the toxicity of the vaccine against the illness; another to just poison everyone in case a few people are vulnerable.

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As a woman with fibromyalgia I respond very poorly to mercury. I have had to think carefully about every vaccine I took in. And since my children are partly my genetics, I have done the same with them. I decided against H1N1 and paid a price, I suppose, because I got it. I had to go on inhalers for the first time in my life to help myself through the cough. It took me two weeks off work to even start feeling normal (and another week of early bedtime and naps mid day to get rid of the fatigue). During that entire time I isolated myself from my children and husband to minimize the risk to them. They were on a break from their modified year round school schedule so I knew they would not be bringing anything to school. I also kept them home and away from public places so that in case they were carriers, they did not pass it on to anyone else. Now I'm fine and they never got it, not from me or from the people in their class (once school resumed) or in our neighbourhood who also got the flu. I feel pretty confident that they have the immunity required to withstand being subjected to it in their daily lives. We all take vitamin D and rub oregano oil on our feet nightly which both my traditional physicial and naturopath suggested as an alternative precautionary method.
Its an individual choice though I will say that people should respect the symptoms and if their child gets a headache and body aches or starts coughing, and especially a fever, they should be kept home until it passes . Same goes for adults - don't pass it on to co workers in your quest to rush back to work after illness or to push through feeling blah. That's really how its spread.

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I don't think we are being pushed to get this vaccine, encouraged, maybe, but I don't feel forced to get it. I would vaccinate our family, only problem is, the vaccine is very limited where I live and the health dept is only offering it to the high risk groups. My 3-year old daughter falls into this group, but because she is otherwise healthy, she would only be allowed to get the nasal mist. I have no problems with a preservative-free, dead virus, being injected; but I do not like the thought of a live virus being placed in my daughter's nose. She has a runny nose right now anyway, and I just don't know how that would work.

When people say the vaccine was "not tested enough", it makes me laugh. Here we are, trying as soon as possible to prevent people from dying, and some people want to spend more time testing a vaccine that has already been tested as safe and so far has had no negative effects. How long should we keep testing this vaccine? A month? Six months? A year or more? Long enough for the virus to spread and unnecessarily take the lives of thousands of people? The seasonal flu vaccine changes every year because the strain of the virus changes every year. People don't think or complain about that vaccine not being tested long enough. I don't get it.

All the pediatricians at my kids' doctor's office recommend the vaccine to all kids if we can get it. And all of the pediatricians say they are going to vaccinate their own kids. Doctors are the people we should be listening to right now.

I've spoken about this before, but when my daughter was 2 years old, she had the flu, caught a secondary infection and almost died. She was fine one minute and barely breathing the next. This is what almost always happens. Kids get the flu, seem to do be doing okay, maybe even seem to recover, and then end up getting a secondary infection because of the flu virus weakening their immune system. My three older kids got what we think may have been the swine flu last month, but they were also on antibiotics because of strep throat, and although the virus still ran it's course, I think the antibiotics prevented them from a secondary bacterial infection. My youngest, not on antibiotics, got the same flu, got better, then started running a fever a couple days later. Concerned, I took her in, and she had a ear/sinus infection starting. Luckily I caught it before things got too bad. A friend of my daughter's also got this virus, got a little better, and then relapsed with pneumonia. This is the pattern the flu takes on.

My kids eat their fruits and veggies, get exercise, wash their hands and take vitamins. Humans are supposed to get sick now and then, and if it would happen to be during flu season, I would rather them get the vaccine than watch one of my children almost die again. Just the thought of someone else going what I went through makes me want to get all kids vaccinated immediately. Count your blessings, parents. If you think it can't happen to your kids, you are wrong.

And some people are up in arms with the CDC recommending this vaccine. These same people would be upset if the CDC would not have warned us or would not have encouraged the vaccine. I don't think people should over-think this. Get the vaccine-H1N1 and seasonal flu-if you can. As someone who nearly lost a child from the flu, I feel a strong obligation to be an advocate for such vaccines. Just my two cents.

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Well I certainly respect your right to do as you choose but I cannot disagree with you more. I think that there is a vain movement in the country regarding vaccines wherein individuals think that because of the plethora of information (much of it bad) floating around in cyberspace, that they now know all of the facts. Vain ,I say because it is simply that. Just because information is on some "expert" web site doesn't make it legitimate or accurate. They all have disclaimers stating that you should not self medicate nor make personal medical decisions based on their site content. As with anything, you have to judge the factual information as you get it and weigh that against your own personal situation or beliefs as you and I both have done. But, you also have to be practical and you personally have to be wary of the power of your electronic pen.
Both of my daughters (and my husband, the caretaker) have had H1N1 and they have also had the vaccine (one of them accidently got it twice) which, unfortunately, came too late because they were already exposed. And people, don't start saying that you can get the flu from the injected vaccine- you cannot. A dead virus cannot give you the disease. The live Flu-Mist is another controversial subject regarding transmissability that I am not going into at the moment. Right now I am concerned about journalistic honesty and bias.
I, who am high risk from diabetes, cannot get this vaccine for the life of me try as I might. I had to fight to get my annual flu shot, too. I am on waiting lists but nobody knows what to tell me, even my local health department who now has a secret list. I feel like calling the television stations. Secrecy is beyond belief. We hear daily of how many people do not want this vaccine so where is it all going? Why is there a private clinic in Texas selling 12,000 doses to anyone willing to pay? Why are they selling it at all. The government paid for the actual vaccine and stated that nobody can charge for the actual vaccine, only administration fees, so how did this all get so messed up? That is now under investigation but technically he didn't do anything illegal just unethical.
After getting pneumonia that nearly put me in the hospital last year, and this from a common cold, I remain leary of any flu like viruses. The fact remains that there are healthy people and children, including a 4 month old healthy baby in California this week, who have died from this illness. Dead. Irrevocably dead. Asthmatics and lung patients are the worst hit group because this disease replicates deep in the lungs unlike other flu viruses that replicate in the nose and throat. The simple and basic fact remains that NO ONE can predict who will react badly to this disease and who will not so it is ultimately a game of Russian roulette, isn't it? Just how lucky do you feel? Though personally I live in a world with lots of other people and those people, not luck, can make me sick just like your son. It wasn't luck, it was exposure to another ill person.
I really do not understand the irrational fear regarding flu vaccines. My entire family has had them for years and guess what? We never get the flu and no autism either. Never. My 81 year old father has had them since he was in the military over 40 years ago and he is still as healthy as a horse so don't tell me that these are harmful because I just haven't seen it among my own family or friends. Misinformation is harmful and that is my biggest concern here along with a journalist slanting things away from neutral. That is shameful because there is an automatic level of trust placed in the authority of that journalist by the readers and poor decisions can and are based on journalistic content daily. But the journalist is unlikely to ever see the rammifications of their words and less likely to ever be held responsible. Only neutral facts should be written about this subject because of a sense of responsiblility to the readers and the personal health decisions that they will make because of the writing. You have slanted this post so that it says "here I am, pregnant, with many children and if I don't feel the need to do this, neither should you but, then, that is only my personal opinion.Now you go and make your own decision, don't let me influence you now, Honey." Some niave person out there will be made a bit braver by that attitude and may choose a certain path, in this case not to get vaccinated, because of your words but you are not walking in their shoes and you have no right to disseminate such slanted opinions. You can ask the final question as to what others are doing but you should keep your own personal opinion to yourself. The intent of the post was to ask others for their opinions not yourself yet it turned out to be much more a personal opinion post than anything else, didn't it? Just what would you do if you found out that this aforementioned person suffered or died because of your words I have to wonder. Can you live with that? If you can, then what kind of a person does that make you?

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I just hope everyone who doesn't get their kids vaccinated has the decency to keep their sick kids away from other people. There are a lot of us who can't get the vaccine yet because we aren't in the highest risk groups. But that doesn't mean we want to be sitting in a restaurant next to you and your coughing sniffling kid. Yeah that was me next to you last week, whoever you were. And your kid was old enough to use the buffet himself and spread his germs to everyone. That restaurant had lots of kids and seniors. Please think about others and stay home.

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Both my young teenagers have asthma and were vaccinated with the H1N1 shot. While I was there, the health dept. gave me the nasal flumist. All of us had no ill effects. In fact, if you do feel bad for a day or two after the vaccine, that is a good sign that your body is having the appropriate immune response.

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my family is a lot like the original story. one of our 4 children has asthma and he is the only one i would consider getting the vaccine. oddly enough i am an rn who cares for children on ventilators, so i an very aware of the respiratory consequences.
however, due to the fact that many medications are recalled after years of fda study, followed usually by law suits by injured patients. i am always anxious about using "new and improved" medication.
on a side note. i also encouraged my daughter not to recieve the new "cervical cancer" vaccine. it only prevents a small percent of the causes of cervical cancer, ontil this group of young women has gone through their whole reproductive life. (meaning ontil the reach menopause) i will not have confidence in the vaccine.

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I come from a country where it is not common place to give flu shots to healthy people. However I just posted on truuconfessions.com about how I am getting a little bit caught up in the hysteria. Not that there is anything I can do about it since there are hardly any shots available where I live now.

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