When they were giving out free H1N1 shots/vaccines on campus, I asked my mom about it since she works in a low income clinic that sees a lot of shit. Her response was not to get one since they were rushed into getting one out there, so there was very little time to actually test the vaccine. Certain vaccines are fine, but if there ever was going to be a problem, new ones like H1N1, that were barely tested are the ones that will have issues. Swine flu won't kill you unless you are a complete moron, and let it dehydrate you to death, or just ancient dust old.
I don't get flu shots but I don't buy into the hysteria about vaccines, either. I don't get the shots because, like Ed O, I figger I'm tough enough to take it, and what doesn't kill me makes me stronger. On the other hand, the swine flu really wasn't much fun, and I'm not sure how many more years I have before I'm no longer tough enough to take it. And I'm single, so when I'm sick I'm not infecting others. Other than the rats that come to chew my corpse when it turns out I'm not as tough as I thought. barfo
Military requires you to get both. I've done so. My wife's pregnant. She got both, too. My niece was infected with whooping cough for a 2-month hospital stay b/c she wasn't old enough to get her shots (she was 3 months, iirc) and some idiot homeschool mom who believed the "autism" bullcrap didn't want her kids to have shots. Not one of those "Whacky Christian Prayer Warriors", but a mom who believed the New Wives' Tale about this garbage.
We took a happy medium approach to vaccinating our boy. We simply broke up the amount of vaccines our child received at once. Instead of getting six shots at once, we'd give him two every two to three weeks. Our boy still was vaccinated, but his body wasn't overwhelmed. They give them all at once to make life easier for the parent. We don't mind taking a few more trips every year to the pediatrician.
Not a bad idea. My older boy is terrified of shots, though. I think overall he's better off just going through the trauma once.
My son is only 19 mos old, so it's a lot easier. However, he's starting to gain long-term memory so when we take him to the pediatrician you can tell he gets a little stressed.
In 1998, Andrew Wakefield, a gastroenterologist at London's Royal Free Hospital, published a study in the prestigious medical journal Lancet that linked the triple Measles, Mumps and Rubella (MMR) vaccine with autism and bowel disorders in children. The study - and Wakefield's subsequent public statements that parents should refuse the vaccines - sparked a public health panic that led vaccination rates in Britain to plunge . . Wakefield's study has since been discredited, and the MMR vaccine deemed to be safe http://news.yahoo.com/s/time/08599195765600
