Anti-vaccination comments are explicitly not welcome and will be deleted

[ailbhe]

I had to take Emer for her preschool boosters today. It was horrific. She didn't want to do it. I carried her; she got down to walk a couple of times but each time tried to run away. She actually deliberately hit me, on purpose, not because she was flailing or didn't know what she was doing, but because I was going to hurt her and she needed to defend herself. I carried her to the surgery (only about 500 yards, if that) on my back, and had to drag her from the waiting room to the nurse's office; she was actually kicking and screaming. I couldn't get her jacket off so I had to tip her over my knee and pull down her tights to expose her thighs. I then had to hold her legs still for the injections, and I couldn't - one was ok but the second one in the other leg was too difficult and she ended up with an inch-long needle-scratch before the nurse got the needle in.

I haven't abused her like that since she was an infant and I had to force a mask-like thing over her face and have her inhale foreign substances, or since she was an infant and I had to force her to swallow antibiotics which she gagged up and I had to force her to reswallow them. The inhaler and the antibiotics were for the same illness. That was a fun time.

I am shattered by the experience. I cannot imagine the damage this has done to her trust in me and can only hope we can get over it somehow.

She knew I planned to hurt her, she tried to escape, and I tracked her down.

If I didn't believe we have a basic social duty to get the children vaccinated I don't think I could have done it.

Diphtheria, tetanus, polio (Rob's paternal grandmother had polio), whooping cough (I had whooping cough), Hib (pneumonia and meningitis - my mother's sister died of meningitis, my sister almost died of pneumonia from an infection she caught from her unvaccinate-able child), measles (I had measles), mumps, rubella (I had rubella).

I am going to eat mini-marshmallows until I feel better.

Comments

[ai731.livejournal.com]

I *think* it's because flu virus mutates so rapidly that heard immunity isn't really possible. This is also why there's a new flu vaccination every year - for that year's "most likely to be most popular" breed of flu viruses.

[ailbhe]

But wouldn't a school full of vaccinated children mean the unvaccinated ones were less likely to get flu too, for example?

[ai731.livejournal.com]

I wrote an answer, and then deleted it before posting because it got into discussing the relative merits of vaccination, which you explicitly asked us not to do.

[ailbhe]

Discussing the merits isn't quite the same as anti-vaccination, I think. At least, not to me. I gather the answer is at least "not necessarily" - is that because of the efficacy of tailored-to-a-strain vaccinations, or something else?

[ai731.livejournal.com]

*nod* "Not necesarily." It's more to do with how very contageous flu is, especailly in social settings (I assume you're aware that some viruses are more contageous than others, having to do with not only method of contageon - saliva vs. blood for instance, but also with how many virus particules are in each ml of said fluid) and so vaccinating the school children is very good at protecting the vaccinated children (and incidentally their direct care-givers) but confers little herd immunity because of the non-vaccinated ones getting coughed on in shops, on the bus, at home, etc.

But I've only researched it briefly, myself. We decided to get the H5N1 vaccination last year for the (minimal) herd immunity factor, because the higher mortality rate seemed to warrant doing "anything we could". So far we haven't had the regular annual flu shot (it is available / recommended for everyone in this part of Canada) but I might start getting mine because of going to visit my father in the nursing home.

[ailbhe]

I see. I'm not sure whether I'd get my children vaccinated against regular flu if it were offered, then (since it's not, I don't need to think about it much). Maybe Emer, because she has A Bit Of A Chest in general. But it sounds like it'd be worth it if they were going to be seeing certain of their relations.

In general, I figure my own children would get most of these Normal Childhood Diseases and be ok afterwards, and that goes for Normal Flu, too. They're well-nourished well-cared-for healthy children with lots of material advantages. Well, except Astrid, who is still small enough that flu would be terrifying, and also too small to be vaccinated really.

[clarahippy.livejournal.com]

Yep, plus its to do with how dangerous flu is to the normal population I think. There isn't really a need to protect *most* people from flu because its just a bit (LOT!) rotten if you catch it. The flu jabs for vunerable populations tend to protect them quite effectively.