A Mayo Clinic study shows that kids who got the flu shot–especially those with asthma– are 3 times as likely to require hospitalization as those who did not receive the shot.
All kids in the study had lab-confirmed influenza, but the ones who got the shot ended up at the hospital more. And not because they had better health insurance, either.
As you may know, the CDC now recommends that all children, up to age 18, receive the flu vaccine. Because, as a Harvard study showed last year, kids carry germs. Adults who live in a population more concentrated with kids are more likely to get sick.
Get the flu shot; don’t mind the mercury.
While everyone is waiting impatiently (or quite patiently, in my case) for the swine flu vaccine, there is something y’all should know: the seasonal flu vaccine isn’t all that effective. And for kids, it just might increase the chances that you get a bonus trip to the hospital.
For the flu season of 2007-2008, the flu vaccine was a bust. If you got the shot, you were just as likely to get the flu as those who opted out. The same Harris Poll that showed that data also showed that for the previous three winters,
People receiving flu vaccines were 33 percent, 43 percent and 24 percent less likely to get the flu than people who did not get flu shots.
Ouch. Back to the Mayo Clinic study. It was a relatively small sampling (263 kids aged 6 months to 18 years), looking to see whether asthmatics have a harder time with the shot. Though the results look pretty conclusive, researcher Dr. Avni Joshi said of the outcome:
While these findings do raise questions about the efficacy of the vaccine, they do not in fact implicate it as a cause of hospitalizations…
The concerns that vaccination maybe associated with asthma exacerbations have been disproved with multiple studies in the past, but the vaccine’s effectiveness has not been well-established.
Yeah. Though my kids definitely carry germs, I don’t think I’ll be lining them up for a dose of mercury flu shot anytime soon.
Image: ad-vantage on Flickr under a Creative Commons License.
Thanks for this article – It makes me feel good about our choices to modify our (whole family) vaccine schedules.
My 2 year old has been on a modified schedule and had never rec’d a flu shot – much to the chagrin of his doctors. My husband and I both stopped getting flu shots 3 years ago when we began our vaccine research during my pregnancy.
I appreciate all informaton on vaccine’s – especially those that reinforce our decisions.
Thanks.
Tim…if you’re still there after unsubscribing:
I didn’t advise people not to get the vaccine; I said I and my family would not be.
I also pointed out that it’s ineffective. Not to mention that almost all flu vaccines contain mercury, a known neurotoxin (which we come into contact with in many other ways, so we’re trying to minimize our exposure).
This blog is about a study. From the Mayo Clinic, no less. And a researcher there had to admit that “the vaccine’s effectiveness is not well-established.”
Call me when it has. For now, this is the choice for my family, and many other families who agree with the futility of the flu vaccine as it is currently administered.
Convincing people to avoid vaccines is poor advise. I am unsubscribing from this blog effective immediately.
Just think for a second about HOW MUCH MONEY is involved. Every time there is a problem with these vaccines the first thing someone in the medical community says is that it is unrelated. There are independent studies from colleges, independent firm and overseas studies which all point to the damage these things can do to our kids… but the good’ol US thinks that these are immaterial and that we should just keep on piling them on. They constantly ignore advice from the medical community, parents and even pediatricians in the pursuit of even more vaccines. The government just happily nods and makes more laws against our civil rights. I just do not understand how we cannot make changes in this area, and then it hit me: the money. They are making an obscene amount of money off of these things. We cannot change it unless all of us demand it together. That is the only way it is going to work this time, their is too much self interest at stake here.