Children in daycare are at high risk for contagious diseases; especially viral upper respiratory and gastrointestinal infections are the two most common illnesses that affect children enrolled in daycare. They not only share toys, books, and structures, but also germs. After school, I usually clean their hands right away in my car with alcohol hand sanitizers. It provides some protection but children likely have been exposed to all the germs during the day already. It is disturbing to see them get sick and being miserable, plus the headache to find backup child care. I always need to remind myself the couple “good” things from the frequent colds. First, there is some evidence indicating that the frequent colds children get from childcare may offer some protection against asthma and allergies in the future. Second, daycare kids will not be sick so much when they go to kindergarten.
It has been frustrating experience this year to get my kids vaccinated with either H1N1 (swine flu) or seasonal flu. The production of both vaccines has not met the expectation and demands. We have tried various places including: pediatrician’s office, local pharmacies, and local government. The answer has been consistent that you should call us back next week.
Although my kids are qualified for the priority status for receiving flu shots , there were no general season flu vaccines for them until the mid-November. CDC may need to take a more active role in monitoring vaccine production. Because both I and my husband had no problem to get adult flu shot before November and there was a lack of flu vaccine for young children. The supplies apparently were not coordinated and did not aim to help the priority populations.
The priority populations include:
• Pregnant women
• People care workers and emergency
• medical personnel
• 6 months to 24 years of age
• People have chronic health disorders or compromised immune systems.
Swine flu, also known as H1N1 type A influenza, is a human disease. The original virus was from pigs and it infected human who contacted with the ill pig and it was rare to transmit swine flu from person to person. The current swine flu is a mutated strain that allow it to spread from person to person. The H1N1 swine flu virus appeared in the U.S. last April and it has never gone away. The swine flu case surged as schools opened in the fall. Many schools were closed for the H1N1 epidemic. Up today, my children have not had H1N1 vaccine yet and we still need to check with pediatrician’s office periodically for the availability of this vaccine.
Flu vaccines are made from the flu virus grown in chicken eggs. Even the virus have been inactivated and killed, people with severe allergic reaction to eggs should not receive flu vaccines. Others who may have side-effects from flu shots are:
• Infants under 6 months of age.
• Anyone who is sick with a fever at the time of flu shot administrated.
• Anyone has had severe allergic reaction to vaccines.
• Guillain-Barre’ syndrome patients with an acute inflammatory demyelinating
polyneuropathy (AIDP), an autoimmune disorder that affects peripheral nervous system.
Do vaccines cause autism? It is an emotional question and the answer is dependent on who you speak to. For CDC and most of autism researchers, there is no clear scientific evidence suggesting that vaccines cause autism. However, a lot of parents with child diagnosed with Autism, are strongly convinced that the autism is side effects of vaccines. The vaccine component, thimerosal, has been suggested to cause autism by some autism advocates.
Being an Immunologist myself, it is evident that vaccines have saved millions of life. For example, poliomyelitis was eradicated from the world by the year of 2000 due to the successful polio vaccines. The polio vaccines have saved millions of people from suffering paralysis. In 1952, US alone, there was almost 58,000 cases of polio reported. Can you image how many polio patients in 47 years if there is no polio vaccines.
It has been frustrating experience this year to get my kids vaccinated with either H1N1 (swine flu) or seasonal flu. The production of both vaccines has not met the expectation and demands. We have tried various places including: pediatrician’s office, local pharmacies, and local government. The answer has been consistent that you should call us back next week.
Although my kids are qualified for the priority status for receiving flu shots , there were no general season flu vaccines for them until the mid-November. CDC may need to take a more active role in monitoring vaccine production. Because both I and my husband had no problem to get adult flu shot before November and there was a lack of flu vaccine for young children. The supplies apparently were not coordinated and did not aim to help the priority populations.
The priority populations include:
• Pregnant women
• People care workers and emergency
• medical personnel
• 6 months to 24 years of age
• People have chronic health disorders or compromised immune systems.
Swine flu, also known as H1N1 type A influenza, is a human disease. The original virus was from pigs and it infected human who contacted with the ill pig and it was rare to transmit swine flu from person to person. The current swine flu is a mutated strain that allow it to spread from person to person. The H1N1 swine flu virus appeared in the U.S. last April and it has never gone away. The swine flu case surged as schools opened in the fall. Many schools were closed for the H1N1 epidemic. Up today, my children have not had H1N1 vaccine yet and we still need to check with pediatrician’s office periodically for the availability of this vaccine.
Flu vaccines are made from the flu virus grown in chicken eggs. Even the virus have been inactivated and killed, people with severe allergic reaction to eggs should not receive flu vaccines. Others who may have side-effects from flu shots are:
• Infants under 6 months of age.
• Anyone who is sick with a fever at the time of flu shot administrated.
• Anyone has had severe allergic reaction to vaccines.
• Guillain-Barre’ syndrome patients with an acute inflammatory demyelinating
polyneuropathy (AIDP), an autoimmune disorder that affects peripheral nervous system.
Do vaccines cause autism? It is an emotional question and the answer is dependent on who you speak to. For CDC and most of autism researchers, there is no clear scientific evidence suggesting that vaccines cause autism. However, a lot of parents with child diagnosed with Autism, are strongly convinced that the autism is side effects of vaccines. The vaccine component, thimerosal, has been suggested to cause autism by some autism advocates.
Being an Immunologist myself, it is evident that vaccines have saved millions of life. For example, poliomyelitis was eradicated from the world by the year of 2000 due to the successful polio vaccines. The polio vaccines have saved millions of people from suffering paralysis. In 1952, US alone, there was almost 58,000 cases of polio reported. Can you image how many polio patients in 47 years if there is no polio vaccines.
Vaccines were designed for general populations and they do good more than harm to most recipients, however, due to individual different physical conditions and some underlying genetic factors or diseases, vaccines may cause side effects to ones who have compromised immune system.
I personally prefer my kids to be immunized for all the vaccines recommended by CDC, but with some cautions. First, to avoid excess swollen and inflammation, my children were given Tylenol thirty minutes before the injection. Second, we tried to avoid having multiple vaccines injected in one hospital visit, in other words, we had multiple administrations of multiple vaccines in different hospital visits. Third, although the aerosol flu vaccine (FluMist) is available, we prefer kids to have traditional flu shots. The flu shots are immunized with dead virus, in contrast, the aerosol flu vaccine is a wakened “live” virus vaccine. It was not safe for children under 24 months old and for who has asthma and recurrent wheezing. My twins are older than 2 years but I still prefer not to let them receive live virus to avoid possible trigger of flu itself.
I personally prefer my kids to be immunized for all the vaccines recommended by CDC, but with some cautions. First, to avoid excess swollen and inflammation, my children were given Tylenol thirty minutes before the injection. Second, we tried to avoid having multiple vaccines injected in one hospital visit, in other words, we had multiple administrations of multiple vaccines in different hospital visits. Third, although the aerosol flu vaccine (FluMist) is available, we prefer kids to have traditional flu shots. The flu shots are immunized with dead virus, in contrast, the aerosol flu vaccine is a wakened “live” virus vaccine. It was not safe for children under 24 months old and for who has asthma and recurrent wheezing. My twins are older than 2 years but I still prefer not to let them receive live virus to avoid possible trigger of flu itself.
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1 comments:
Awesome post - thank you so much for writing about your support of childhood vaccines!
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