Monday, November 2, 2009

I Was Wrong

Thanks to Aunt Kathryn's comment, I've spent most of the day reading Flu.gov (when I haven't been doing battle with my kids - is there a brattiness vaccine I can get them? Srsly! WTF?).

I was wrong. Squalene is not in the current swine flu vaccine. There are thimerosal-free vaccines available, if you are concerned about thimerosal. See this article on Flu Myths for more information.

I'm not sure how this is going to change things for us. I still don't think that H1N1 is going to be a big deal. The vaccine is still unavailable in our area. I'm still waiting-and-seeing. If I get a call from our doctor's office saying, "Hey, we've got the shot," and meanwhile there have been a dozen deaths in our town from H1N1, or they've closed the schools or something, I'll probably get it for myself and the kids. On the other hand, if I get a call saying, "We've got the shot," and none of the schools have closed and no one's died, it's going to be a harder decision.

I probably ought to call the doctor's office and see if they've got vaccine available. When we saw Dr. MWMH a couple of weeks ago, he said that they'd have the shots in a couple of weeks. I'm not sure how they're notifying patients.

All of this almost makes me wish for a mandatory vaccination program - it would be easier to decide what to do if someone else would decide for me!

I'm going to copy and paste this to the bottom of my last post about H1N1.

2 comments:

strwberrryjoy said...

In my post you replied to at the end I asked if there's a reason not to get it...please let me know...but after doing some more reading, I opted to get it this morning at my OB office at my appt...the only place in town that seems to have them so far! Some do contain the therm. You just have to check and see that if you don't want to have that, that you get one with out it. I plan on getting one for Claire as soon as I can as well. Even though she's still nursing and gets immunities from that, I know too many local people really sick from this right now. Plus we are flying to San Fran. this month...so I hope we can get it for her before being closed in a plane for 5 hours with someone who might be carrying it. My mom did have the original shot in the late 70s and had no ill-effects. They gave a good handout as well as the card with the lot number in case I have an "reactions" I'll know what batch I had. Fun fun!

tracey.becker1@gmail.com said...

I am so not into the flu scare. Maybe I'm extremely naive, but it is just one more issue that I am opting to not delve into. I honestly believe that yes, it IS dangerous for some people, but that it's not that much worse than the regular flu strains that pop up every winter. And since we never get a REGULAR flu shot? I'm thinking we're going to forgo the H1N1, too.