Fearing a Flu Vaccine and Wanting More of It

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Specializes in Too many to list.

There is a peculiar duality in the collective cultural mind just now, a kind of pandemic doublethink. Other doctors I know are all eagerly having their own children immunized. Many are answering frantic calls from people desperate for the vaccine. But at the same time, we are all coming up against parents who are determined to refuse that same vaccine.

...we give the H1N1 vaccine to children whose parents are almost tearfully afraid of the virus, and we try to win over those parents who are just as tearfully afraid of the vaccine. To them, we explain over and over that in fact this is not a brand-new vaccine-it is made with the same techniques as the seasonal influenza vaccine. Yes, it has been tested. Yes, it's safe. Yes, it's effective.

Read the rest here: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/10/health/10klas.html

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It's a bizarre juxtaposition. I'm tired of it. Want it or not? Going, going, gone...

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Specializes in M/S/Tele, Home Health, Gen ICU.

Got mine (shot d/t asthma) and had the kids (10 and 6) take the mist last week. No side effects, except I fell asleep during a class the next day, but it could have just been really boring!! I'd prefer a little discomfort to being really sick or responsible for infecting someone in a high risk group. Those who don't vaccinate, rely on those of us who do and put those in high risk categories at greater risk.

Celia

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