WHAT?? You want me to vax, why?

[Monarchgrrl]

Just a vent:
This would be hilarious if it weren't so infuriating! I had to switch doctors because mine moved. I don't have kids yet, not even pregnant yet. I only use doctors to refill a prescription I have to be on. So, I see her for the first time last week to meet her and have her call in my script. She tries to get me to get a Tetanus vax. I said, "No, I'm philosophically opposed to vaccines. Please mark it in my chart and don't offer any more, thanks". She then proceeds to tell me that "You might as well get the DTaP vax now, since you'll have to as soon as you get pregnant, otherwise there is a good chance your baby will die! You don't know how many babies I've seen die of Pertussis!"

REALLY??? As an Internist, you see a lot of babies die??? And even if I were to ever vax my future children (not happenin'), would getting that vax at the beginning of pregnancy mean that my newborn was then "protected" from getting Pertussis?? I rolled my eyes and said "No, I won't be getting it then either. Thanks, anyway. Now please call in my script. Thanks".

:

[Mommy2Austin]

Wow...that is a special one.

[gurumama]

Considering from 1999-2004 there were 91 deaths from pertussis in the United States for children under the age of 12, and hence an average of 15 deaths PER YEAR in all 50 states, your doctor must be, well, lying.

http://journals.lww.com/pidj/Abstrac...ors_for.6.aspx

[Mommy2Austin]

Originally Posted by gurumama

Considering from 1999-2004 there were 91 deaths from pertussis in the United States for children under the age of 12, and hence an average of 15 deaths PER YEAR in all 50 states, your doctor must be, well, lying.

http://journals.lww.com/pidj/Abstrac...ors_for.6.aspx

Or she has super human pertussis senses and goes to find each and every child that will die from it...like a messed up backwards super hero.

[Crafty]

Or she's done work with Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) and actually seen babies die of these diseases. It still does happen. Not here, often, thankfully, but elsewhere. I wouoldn't necessarily accuse someone of lying just because it fit into what I wanted to believe.

[emma1325]

Originally Posted by Crafty

Or she's done work with Medecins Sans Frontieres (Doctors Without Borders) and actually seen babies die of these diseases. It still does happen. Not here, often, thankfully, but elsewhere. I wouoldn't necessarily accuse someone of lying just because it fit into what I wanted to believe.

Well, since the pertussis vaccine is not known to prevent transmission (or impart immunity to a developing fetus,) the doctor implying that getting it in pregnancy would somehow protect her baby from dying is either 1) lying or 2) an idiot. Have your pick.

[Monarchgrrl]

When she said "You don't know how many babies I've seen die of Pertussis" I should have said, "Yes, I do. NONE!"

[readytobedone]

Originally Posted by Monarchgrrl

"You might as well get the DTaP vax now, since you'll have to as soon as you get pregnant, otherwise there is a good chance your baby will die! You don't know how many babies I've seen die of Pertussis!"

DD's doc said something like this once, not about pertussis, but meningitis. he said "do you know how many babies i've seen die of meningitis?" and i said, "one? maybe two max?" LOL.

[alllyssa]

he said "do you know how many babies i've seen die of meningitis?" and i said, "one? maybe two max?" LOL.

I'm "dying" to know what he then said.

[Marnica]

It's funny that every ped has seen babies die from the disease that their pet vax supposedly prevents...for my first ped it was the HIB vax so he had seen "many" babies die of menengitis

[carriebft]

I wouldn't be surprised with hib that a doctor had seen many deaths and cases because the vaccine has not been around all that long and the case load was high before its introduction. My doctor was teaching hospital during the transition with the introduction of the new hib vaccines and he said that the curriculum and the way the hands on experiences had to change once the hib vaccine came into play because hib was pretty much their major source of patients.

He gave me some interesting stuff on the transition and the differences between 'then and now' as far as doctors learning about meningitis and what they tend to see now as opposed to what was in the mid 80s into the mid 90s.

[peainthepod]

When I was still pregnant and interviewing doctors we had a GP try to convince us that he'd seen "multiple deaths" from chicken pox. I laughed in his face and left.

I'm sure the pharmaceutical companies and CDC and whomever else has a ve$ted interest in pushing vaccines provide literature to help doctors scare their patients' parents about vaccine-available diseases. "Do you know how many babies I've seen DIE of [pet disease]?" is the standard response. The correct answer is, "No. Why don't you tell me and we can see if it matches public health records?"

[mountainsun]

Originally Posted by readytobedone

DD's doc said something like this once, not about pertussis, but meningitis. he said "do you know how many babies i've seen die of meningitis?" and i said, "one? maybe two max?" LOL.

laughup

Priceless

[tammyswanson]

Pretty soon they'll be saying how many babies they see die from a common cold, the flu, etc. What about car accidents? Do they have a vaccine for that? They rarely mention the vaccine status or if the child had other health problems either.

Yeah, chicken pox is sooooo deadly! Never mind that not one kid i went to school with ever 'died' from it! And (GASP) my DH had measles as a kid! OH NO! He should be dead from that, right?

What about scarlet fever and small pox, those should be a big risk too, right? And typhoid? Ask them if they saw any babies dying from smallpox in the USA. If they say 'yes' to that one, then they ARE lying, the last person to get small pox in the WORLD was in 1977. I think the last one in the USA was in the 1940's.

[Romana]

Originally Posted by carriebft

I wouldn't be surprised with hib that a doctor had seen many deaths and cases because the vaccine has not been around all that long and the case load was high before its introduction. My doctor was teaching hospital during the transition with the introduction of the new hib vaccines and he said that the curriculum and the way the hands on experiences had to change once the hib vaccine came into play because hib was pretty much their major source of patients.

He gave me some interesting stuff on the transition and the differences between 'then and now' as far as doctors learning about meningitis and what they tend to see now as opposed to what was in the mid 80s into the mid 90s.

Hib cases are pretty much gone where vaccination has been done, but at this point NTHi (and to a lesser degree, Hia) have just filled the niche and the total number of cases is about the same as it was pre-Hib vaccine.

http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pin...ses&deaths.PDF

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17516405

In addition to the proportional increase in cases of non-type b Haemophilus influenzae disease in the post-H. influenzae type b vaccine era, the incidence of invasive H. influenzae disease was found to be approaching the rates of H. influenzae type b disease that were documented in the prevaccine period. Fifty-six percent of invasive disease now occurs in individuals aged >10 years.

[mom2tig99Nroo03]

Originally Posted by peainthepod

When I was still pregnant and interviewing doctors we had a GP try to convince us that he'd seen "multiple deaths" from chicken pox. I laughed in his face and left.

I'm sure the pharmaceutical companies and CDC and whomever else has a ve$ted interest in pushing vaccines provide literature to help doctors scare their patients' parents about vaccine-available diseases. "Do you know how many babies I've seen DIE of [pet disease]?" is the standard response. The correct answer is, "No. Why don't you tell me and we can see if it matches public health records?"

best.answer.ever. bolding mine.

Originally Posted by tammyswanson

Pretty soon they'll be saying how many babies they see die from a common cold, the flu, etc. What about car accidents? Do they have a vaccine for that?

don't forget the vax for prevention of hangnails, papercuts and having your eyelashes come out occasionally and fall in your eye... maybe that'll be a 3-in-1? /sarcasm

[Mommy2Austin]

Originally Posted by mom2tig99Nroo03

best.answer.ever. bolding mine.

don't forget the vax for prevention of hangnails, papercuts and having your eyelashes come out occasionally and fall in your eye... maybe that'll be a 3-in-1? /sarcasm

They'll call it NaPaLash. I might actually go out and get that one! Papercuts are nasty little buggers....

[mommysarah5]

interesting. When I had my youngest my oldest 2 were fully vaccinated with DTaP but I had stopped vaxxing at that point. everyone in the house got pertussis that year, except my newborn.

[milkybean]

Originally Posted by peainthepod

"Do you know how many babies I've seen DIE of [pet disease]?" is the standard response. The correct answer is, "No. Why don't you tell me and we can see if it matches public health records?"

Wheee, love that one!


Before I read yours, my thought was "wow, what on earth are you DOING to those sick children????" That comes to mind since I've read quite a bit that, for instance, with chicken pox, sick people get sicker when you start suppressing symptoms.

Originally Posted by mommysarah5

interesting. When I had my youngest my oldest 2 were fully vaccinated with DTaP but I had stopped vaxxing at that point. everyone in the house got pertussis that year, except my newborn.

Do the heads of vax-happy people tend to explode when you tell them that?

[1littlebit]

gee at least your doctors picked something pretty standard. mine told me about the all the men she knew who were sterile due to measles. and all the babies she saw die from rotavirus... and then followed with "but i guess since we have IV fluids not as many will die" *smiles and pats the strange little doctor on the head*