Your take on immunizations and are u concerned about contracting desease at work?

Nurses General Nursing

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Specializes in ER,Neurology, Endocrinology, Pulmonology.

Hello everyone. Here i come again with a question :rolleyes:

I lived in NY state for almost 9 years. I have a 3 year old and we did all the immunizations, according to AAP.

From conversations with my family, who lives overseas, I discovered that in my home country immunizations are not done until the child is at least 5 months old, but the immunizations are given all the way through school. They include TB and small pox on top and the rest. The only vaccination they do not do is mumps.

I started doing research on vaccinations in US and for a second I questioned the purpose of vaccinating an infant so small - like preemies and newborns. I also talked to some parents who don't immunize at all.

Recently, I entered nursing school and got a job at a hospital. Titers/immuizations were mandatory.

After working in the hospital and coming in contact with everything, I am truly glad that I received my immunizations, because it has been 3 months and I haven't even had a cold, considering how many people I work with and how many isolation patients I have to deal with.

ALmost every mainstream american physician I met believes in immuizations.

How do u feel about it?

I work Public Health and am a firm believer in immunizations. For example, we had a case here a few months ago of a 1 month old infant dying of pertussis. She was too young for her DTaP and we have not completely identified where she was exposed.

Specializes in Medical and general practice now LTC.

I am also a believer of vaccinations, and Here in the UK we start vaccinations at 8 weeks old with 3 doses Act HIB DTPa, Men C and polio at 4 week intervals with MMR at 12 months etc

I feel very strongly about immunizations and am horrified when healthy people without contraindications refuse these.

It is so important for those of us who can be immunized be so, because then, those who may not be immunized, e.g. the very sick, the immunocompromized etc, receive some protection as much of society is immunized.

And with flu vaccine; it may not prevent flu in the older population, but it definately cuts down the rate of hospitalization for complications in this age group (and thus the stresses on the health care systems).

There is so much misinformation about immunizations out there; I'm a veteran nurse - seen too many infants with pertussis or diphtheria; even watched a foal too young to be immunized die of tetorifice. Horrible.

The most common source of pertussis infection in a very young child is an adolescent or adult in the home with an undiagnosed case of pertussis. Adults do not 'whoop' (nor do very young infants) and may have very mild disease, but passed on to an infant, pertussis still kills.

Visit the http://www.cdc.gov/nip for the research based, recently updated information and then get immunized yourself and spread the word. It's part of being a professional nurse.

My ex-husbands family did not immunize their 5 children..his sister contracted polio when she was 5. Her right leg is smaller than her left , weak and she walks with a limp and always will. She is 39 yrs old now. She will always be angry with her parents and in my opinion, rightfully so...

When I triaged at ER we always asked about immunizations, probably 10% of kids never had them for mostly parental beliefs..ie "we don't believe in them" or "he never had to go to daycare so I will start his shots next yr when he starts school".

In my opinion, immunizations are just keeping your children safe from those unseen bad guys!! We had a pertussis outbreak last year several children died.

Erin:confused:

I am another firm believer in immunizations. Unfortunately the media has hyped completely unreliable studies which has made parents scared to immunize their children. I believe every child that can should be immunized. Whenever immunization rates decrease the incidence of those diseases increase. We had a nasty outbreak of whooping cough a few years ago, and that alone is enough to convince me of the benefits of immunization.

If I had a kid, I would make sure all of the immunizations were given. Isn't that a no brainer, and I thought all kids have to have them anyway, in order to keep any chance of a disease from going vector? Lol, I love the neat skin blemish tattoo i have on my left arm. Isn't that a small pox scar? I know kids born more recently don't have the scar there. Thade be hardest hit if small pox spread again :-(

Specializes in ICU, CM, Geriatrics, Management.

Never experienced a problem with any of them.

Also required by my nursing school (not flu shots).

Specializes in Nephrology, Cardiology, ER, ICU.

I think parents should be informed consumers. Mercury is used in the DPT immunizations and are known to be related to autism. I believe in immunizations and both of my sons (now 23 and 18) have been immunized. I don't however believe in the Hep B vaccine until adulthood and then only for high-risk people (like healthcare workers). I also don't believe in routine flu shots for people who are less than 65 years of age unless they have chronic illness.

Originally posted by traumaRUs

I think parents should be informed consumers. Mercury is used in the DPT immunizations and are known to be related to autism. I believe in immunizations and both of my sons (now 23 and 18) have been immunized. I don't however believe in the Hep B vaccine until adulthood and then only for high-risk people (like healthcare workers). I also don't believe in routine flu shots for people who are less than 65 years of age unless they have chronic illness.

Unfortunately children are too often potential Hep B victims. Children, like it or not, are becomming sexually active at an early age, are experimenting with drugs at an early age.

Even if a child does neither of the above, God forbid they still may come in contact with contaminated materials that are found everywhere today including schools and playgrounds. It is not uncommon today for children to stumble on contaminated sharps.

Even worse, though we all like to believe are children are safe from this, they could be exposed by a molester.

Hep B is virulent and everywhere. I do not understand your objection to using it for our vulnerable children.

Waiting for them to become adults can be too late.

I hope you are aware that health care workers are not the the only ones at high risk. Besides drug users an homosexuals, anyone who had multiple sexual partners without consistent use of condoms is also high risk.

Plumbers are at risk, (have you seen what they pull out of drains?) Police and fire and EMS personel are at risk.

My best friend died a slow death with hep B. She was not in a high risk profession. She never used illicit drugs. She was a faithful married woman. she died shortly before the vaccine came out.

Immunizations don't have mercury in them (you're thinking thimerisol, which is in such minute concentrations you probably get more mercury eating fish for dinner). There has been no known link to autism. The study that was done was a retrospective study which showed a coincidence (that autism symptoms start to show up the same time as the MMR vaccine is given, but that happens at that age anyways. It's like saying the kids all wore shoes, therefore shoes cause autism). It was complete bunk.

There have in fact been studies that showed absolutely no relationship between the MMR vaccine and autism. Click on this link and hit MMR on the left hand corner of the screen.

http://www.vaccinesafety.edu/

Add me to the list of believers in immunizations. I have 2 kids and both have had every shot required. My youngest also has asthma and he gets the flu shot every year.

I subscribe to several newsletters and its very interesting to me that in areas where the immunization levels are dropping, the rise in illnesses like measles, etc...is on the rise!

I hope I dont open up a whole can of worms here, but I also dont believe that the MMR vaccines cause autism either. My oldest is Autistic, and I knew from birth that something was off, well before he had an MMR shot. Until it is definitely proved to me medically that it causes it....sorry.....get your kids shots!:cool:

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