Swine Flu: What's A Good Mother To Do?
by I’ve been good mother. I done what I can to keep my children safe. They eat mostly organic fruits and vegetables, and tuna only occasionally. They bike with their helmets and usually with me. School maybe only eight blocks away but I would never let them go alone. They wear shin guards and sunblock. They know our emergency earthquake plan and have memorized their out-of-state relatives’ phone numbers. They don’t have mercury fillings and I try to keep the x-rays down to a minimum.
When it was time to vaccinate, I did, but on a much slower schedule to reduce lingering risk. When they are sick, which is rare because I keep them healthy with regular doses of vitamin C, vitamin D, and a variety of my favorite chinese herbs, I tend to them with the focus of mother lion protecting her cubs. I try not to hover but they tell me they can hear my helicopter even in the dead of night when I insist on leaving their doors open just in case they need me.
But let me tell you, this swine flu thing has had me stumped. The news is replete with stories of healthy people who are dying, pregnant mothers who have suffered months in comas, children who suffer needlessly. Just vaccinate we are told and all will be well. Then of course the internet is filled with horror stories of the risks of vaccination. “The manufacturer has not done enough testing.” “The last swine flu vaccination actually killed people.” “It’s a conspiracy!” one email declared. “The government is in cahoots with the pharmaceutical companies in an effort to boost sales.” And by the way, you can’t call it swine flu anymore, its H1N1(the new designation advocated on behalf of the pork industry whose lobbyists worried the negative association would affect their sales: score another one for the conspiracy theorists).
The media has me in a tizzy. Do I vaccinate my children even though the serum has not been fully tested? Do I risk the chance that they will get this horrible disease? And then, I learn there isn’t even enough vaccination to go around. A recent article in the New York Times declared that good mothers vaccinate but limited supplies are rendering we good mothers failures because we can’t properly care for our little angels.
You can imagine my deep anxiety when not one but two of my children recently came home complaining of aches and pains. First, my son showed up one afternoon having skipped his cross country practice declaring he wasn’t “feeling too hot.” He had a fever of 103. I sent him to his room where he spent the next four days battling a high fever, a sore throat, a headache, and a mild cough. He returned to school on the fifth day, fever free but still coughing and weak. His illness reminded me of the flu the entire family had three years before. Horrible, but not life threatening.
A week later, my daughter complained of a sore throat and earache. She was also nauseous and suffered mild diarrhea. She too stayed home for four days. She never had a fever but was uncomfortable. In both cases, the doctor diagnosed H1N1. She told us that it was a waste of time to get a blood test. In 100% of the cases her office had sent to the CDC for testing in the past month, no matter the symptoms, the patients had Swine Flu. “If you are sick right now, you have it,” was our doctor’s conclusion.
Both my son and daughter survived the H1N1. They are weak and tired but they’ll live. The good news is my youngest son has not gotten sick - yet. Do I vaccinate him now? Do I wait to see if he will get it? What if something really bad happens? What if he is the one in a thousand? Tell me, what’s a good mother to do?
Alisha Whitfield's family had Swine Flu and she offers some great advice.
My new favorite “hypochondriac” Jenny blogs at Absolutely Bananas
Leave it to the Brits to write the funniest Swine Flu Blog
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Comments
What About Natural Immunities?
My family has never had a flu shot - and we won't get the H1N1 shot either.
I'm interested in why there is not more discussion about allowing our bodies to build up it's own immunities? Don't get me wrong, my kids have gotten all the required vaccinations, but I don't understand the flu shot theory. It is simply not a life threatening illness - in the vast majority of cases. Although my family very rarely gets sick, I also hold off on antibiotics whenever possible. Usually, if someone does get sick, we are very careful aboout staying home, sleeping, fluids, medicine (over the counter) and healthy food. Within a few days, the sickness is gone, and we usually do not get sick for the rest of the year. The natural immunities kick in and do their job.
As far as "exposure" - when someone in our family gets sick they stay home. Period. No "wait and see how bad it gets", we stay home and kick it before it gets bad. We also wash our hands with soap often. I have a lot of faith in the strength of our bodies natural immunties. If one of us were to get seriously ill, I would use every available resource medicine has to offer, don't get me wrong. Nonetheless, I have a great confidence that our chances of getting terribly ill are lower, and if we do become ill, our bodies will have a better natural defense to aid the power of medicine.
No Emily you can't. There
No Emily you can't. There have been enough medical/public health debacles over the past 50 years to make any thinking person be a little hesitant about jumping on the latest bandwagon. Whether or not someone gets the swine flu vaccine isn't going to affect you much or at all and it appears the entire thing might be a moot point in some areas anyway since there isn't enough vaccine to go around anyway.
Elena,
"If you bungle raising your children, nothing else much matters." Jackie Kennedy
Is It Bullying?
I suspect Emily is partially kidding, and views "bullying" about vaccinations as akin to parents "bullying" kids into wearing their seatbelts.
And I don't think there is real bullying going on here (though framing it as such does make for an interesting story) but rather intelligent people having an intense debate.
Read the links, be informed, don't be intimidated, and remember that that flu vaccinations can be a matter of life or death for the vulnerable. And, as @HeresAGem wrote, wash your hands often!
Shannon Des Roches Rosa
Squidalicious.com parenting first, autism second
CanISitWithYou.org real tales of schoolyard terror and triumph
BlogHer.com parenting our children with special needs
Ah, but you see, Elena, I
Ah, but you see, Elena, I can. No matter what another woman (or man) tells me on them there Internets, I can still do what I feel is fit and right to do. And so can you. And so can any other woman or man who engages in any other conversation. It's called Being a Grownup. Not only can I do it, but I can blog about it, argue about it, confer about it, and exchange information about it.
Did you just bully me? No. You just offered me your opinion, freely. And I can choose not to accept your suggestion or even your sidelong implication that I'm not a "thinking" person because my values and thought processes obviously differ in this regard and I will make my own judgments in that context.
Cheers! Emily
Yes, it's true
Yes, I'm kidding about bullying people. I don't think consenting adults on the Internet can "bully" one another. If you don't like what someone is saying, tune them out, walk away, or counter it. It's that easy.
Regarding the question of natural immunity, the immune response is natural, regardless of the trigger. Do you mean to ask about "natural" triggers of immunity? Because the principle of vaccination is the same, minus all that stuff about encephalitis, pneumonia, permanent deafness, paralysis, et al. I personally don't see where faith in the native immune response to wild-type pathogens has much to do with the realities of physiology or population-level responses to outbreaks.
Cheers! Emily
"I personally don't see
"I personally don't see where faith in the native immune response to wild-type pathogens has much to do with the realities of physiology or population-level responses to outbreaks."
Really? I personally think it has everything to do with this, and much more. I think it goes all the way down to the very root of preventative medicine. The native immune response it the ONLY immune response without a counter/negative effect. All medicines, while usually superior in what they are intended for, have an alternate negative impact on our bodies. I personally prefer to avoid this "side effect" whenever possible. Additionally, vaccinations, especially the flu vaccinations have a serious shortcoming when it comes to protecting the body from a new strain of the virus, which, by the way, manifests often. The body's natural immunities, if strong and active, can adapt qucikly to new viruses. If the body becomes reliant on an exterior immunity, the natural immunity becomes lazy and less effective.
Which brings me right back to my concern about the lack of discussion about natural immunities. Maybe if the greater poulation had more faith in the bodies natural strength and how to best utilize it, we wouldn't have the widespread panic attack response to a relatively mild seasonal flu virus.
Maybe the question isn't
"can we bully" because clearly you can. The question is should we?
My response is no, you shouldn't.
You apparently think you can and should and that the onus is on the reader to just ignore you. Which is fine, but do you really want people skipping your comments and posts? A rhetorical question that I'm just throwing out there.
Elena,
"If you bungle raising your children, nothing else much matters." Jackie Kennedy
Maybe the question was, as
Maybe the question was, as has been stated, not a serious one.
My response to, "Should we vaccinate?" is "Yes, we should, where reasonable." The thing is, in the case of vaccination, the choice is a real one. In the case of adults online "bullying" other adults...not so much. This isn't a playground or a workplace. You're free to go, engage, walk away, hang aloof, be satirical, or take notes for a novel.
And since there are no truly rhetorical questions, I'll answer yours. Yes, of course, I'm just fine with people ignoring me. Naturally, then they miss out on all the fabulous expert input I have to offer that sets the record straight and restores some sanity to the viral outbreaks that threaten the relevance of reading anything regarding science and medicine on the Web.
Didn't Jackie Onassis smoke and feed her children hamburgers and hotdogs every day?
Cheers! Emily
Well you know what Emily,
if the choice is between reading your fabulous expert input goes or skipping the online gleeful bullying, I guess that's a risk I'm willing to take. Sort of like taking that silly H1N1 shot.
Elena,
"If you bungle raising your children, nothing else much matters." Jackie Kennedy
So silly
isn't it, all this about a disease that only kills a relative few people? A hoot, that.
Cheers! Emily
Immune response does not work that way
"The native immune response it the ONLY immune response without a counter/negative effect. All medicines, while usually superior in what they are intended for, have an alternate negative impact on our bodies. I personally prefer to avoid this "side effect" whenever possible. Additionally, vaccinations, especially the flu vaccinations have a serious shortcoming when it comes to protecting the body from a new strain of the virus, which, by the way, manifests often. The body's natural immunities, if strong and active, can adapt qucikly to new viruses. If the body becomes reliant on an exterior immunity, the natural immunity becomes lazy and less effective."
There is not any physiological entity known as "exterior immunity" unless you're referring to your skin here. The "natural" immune response exerts a spectrum of negative effects, from allergies to death. The "natural" immune response is responsible for deaths from any number of infectious agents, including Ebola and the "Spanish" flu. It is the native immune response to these infections that is so strong that it actually destroys the body it's supposed to be defending (hence the deaths among the young with the Spanish flu), leading to massive hemorrhaging. The "native" immune response is notorious for its negative effects, including a roster of autoimmune disorders, some of which are triggered by viral infection, and many of which are disabling or fatal, not because of a pathogen but because of the body's own immune response.
Your immune system is not a muscle that you can work out ahead of time to ward off invaders. It relies on two cell classes, both of which produce memory cells to recall previously encountered antigens. Your immune system does not care whether it encountered those triggering antigens via a vaccine or via the actual pathogen in order to form the memory. Does. Not. Matter. And your immune system does not "adapt quickly to new viruses" after a good immunity workout. It either has an existing antibody structure in the variable regions to counter an antigen, or it does not and must run some trial and error tests. This is not faith. It is science.
Flu vaccines do not "have a serious shortcoming when it comes to protecting the body from a new strain of the virus, which, by the way, manifests often." They are designed a priori based on predictions of prevalent strains for the upcoming season. They do not have serious shortcomings in efficacy against "new viruses" (i.e., strains) that they are designed to target. They do not, of course, have much efficacy against strains that they are not designed to target. Given that the manufacturing process requires the decisionmaking several months before we actually know which strains will prevail, yes, sometimes the vaccine will target a strain that ends up being less prevalent. But you know what that means? There are several strains going around, and you could theoretically get them all unless you're vaccinated against at least some of them. For our family, that's not just theory--we've been hit by two separate strains in a single season before getting vaccines. Influenza virus is notoriously quick to evolve, and public health authorities operate within the current technological constraints to keep up with it. The effort is actually quite successful. For several years in a row now, my children have had their flu vax, and as children all around them missed a week or two weeks of school, my children (and their elderly grandparents, my at-risk asthmatic mother, and their infant cousins) remained unaffected.
And just for the record, for many people, their "natural immunities" are NOT "strong and active." They are suppressed because of underlying disorders or drug therapies. Vaccination isn't just about protecting you. It's also about protecting the community.
Cheers! Emily
Having a father who is
Having a father who is a pharmacist of 40+ years, I am simply going to say that the information you provide is simply inaccurate in many ways.
While I can understand supporting the benefits of vaccinations, your attack on the power of the body's natural immune system simply makes you sound silly. What I mean by "external immunities" is vaccinations... not the skin (???). You contradict yourself in so many ways I am dizzy. Your "science" is clearly no more than picking and choosing terminology off the internet. Any good scientist is able to acknowledge the benefits of both sides, while still making their point. You are clearly unable to do this.
I have simply tried to make the point that there is a large percentage of the population that does not need a vaccine, and can benefit from allowing their own immunities to strengthen naturally. I have clearly supported vaccination when neccessary. Your one-sided "bully" approach disqualifies you from having any credibility.
I'm not going to bicker minute points with you, as I have better things to do.
I simply hope that anyone else who reads this will consider their natural immunities and how to strengthen & best utilize them.
Scientific training is not hereditary
If it were, my children would have inherited from me my PhD and postdoctoral training, both in biomedical sciences. And I guess I myself would be a linguistics professor, thanks to my mother's expertise. But I'm not. I'm a biologist with the 8 years of post-baccalaureate eddymacation of my own to back it up.
What I state about the immune system is wholly accurate, and I've got the education and training and textbooks and decade of university teaching experience to demonstrate that. Vaccines are not considered "external immunity"; perhaps you mean to say exogenous triggers of immunity? The skin is the only thing I could think of that you might mean as something that might be considered an external form of immunity, given that it is our external, first-line, non-specific defense against invaders, both in terms of mechanical interference and antimicrobial activity.
I'm not sure how my "approach" could be anything but "one sided" as I am only one person and thus just have the one side to offer. Of course, I can see different "sides" of things, but I also know where the facts lie. I'm bringing scientific facts here, which I strive to do wherever I find inaccuracies or information that requires addressing. That's all. Once again, unless you or anyone else posting here is in some way a disadvantaged population that I am sadistically and willfully taking advantage of, this is not a situation of bullying. In my world of science and medicine, we call this a "discussion." Strangely, you're among a handful so far who've seen fit to attack me personally when I've made no personal attacks whatsoever, yet also who see fit to call me the bully. I welcome further discussion.
Cheers! Emily
Swine Flu Vaccination
I too am on the fence I would normally never get a flu vaccine eventhough I work in the medical field. I do believe in the body's ability to build a natural immunity to an illness, but I no longer have myself to think of I lost my first child through miscarriage, and when I finally got pregnant again I almost lost my son. He just turned 4 months this week and although I don't want to get the H1N1 vaccine I've realized its not about me anymore. So, tomorrow i'll stand in line like everyone else and hope nothing bad happens when I get vaccinated.
Wish me luck
The Saga Continues
All the good advice, the pros and cons, the hashing and haranguing, will do our family no good. We can't even get the vaccine around here for at least another month according to our doctor. This only means I have more time to consider and decide what is right for us. In the meantime, I came across this hilarious video you might want to share with your younger children. My new favorite mensch is Dr. Seibert.
http://inr.mediaseed.tv/CignaH1N1_37059/.
Stay healthy.
"The first problem for all of us, women and men, is not to learn but to unlearn." - Gloria Steinem
Lisen