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Flu Vaccine/kids Dying From Recent Flu!!!!  

post #1 of 20
8/29/08 at 5:22pm
Thread Starter 
Hello! I Am Scared To Death W/ All I Am Reading With Kids Dying From Influenza/flu Recently....should I Get The Flu Shot For My 15 Month Old? This Is Scary!!! I Don't Vaccinate, And I Am Scared Of This News!!!
post #2 of 20
8/29/08 at 5:27pm
The news is designed to scare you. First I'd stop watching then I'd research the flu vaccine, the flu and ways to keep your child's immune system strong incase they do get the flu and also ways to treat flu so complications (what people die from) are less likely to happen.
post #3 of 20
8/29/08 at 6:13pm
I don't mean to be harsh, but if you are scared of the flu more so then the vaccine itself, you need to do more research. Flu doesn't kill, it's the complications that it can cause that kills i.e. pneumonia is a biggie. Mostly the only ones that fall victim to flu complications are the very old and very young. Out of all the things out there, flu isn't even my list as scary :
post #4 of 20
8/29/08 at 7:43pm
I suggest doing more research, too. Washing your hands frequently goes a long way for preventing illness. We do that, watch our diet carefully (healthy stuff, as much organic as possible, get rid of anything processed you're eating and sugar!), and exercise. We take a vitamin, too. We keep a few items on hand, like vitamin c, homeopathic cold and flu drops, things like that to take if any symptoms start to pop up. Echinacea is a great immune booster, and there are lots and lots of books out there of simple recipes you can make with foods and herbs that help your immune system function as well as it can. We've never had the flu and we don't get flu shots.

Quote:
The news is designed to scare you. First I'd stop watching
YES. Very much so. Every year they talk about how the flu is sooooo bad and OMG, isn't everyone going to die?!!? It is always blown out of proportion.
post #5 of 20
8/29/08 at 8:32pm
The flu can kill. Of course it can. Given the right circumstances, pretty much any virus can kill you. I just saw a TV show about how a woman died from herpes.

My mother's cause of death is listed as "pneumonia"

What does the death certificate not mention? That she was about 80lbs and wasting away from late-stage cancer. That she had not eaten for days, that she had had cancer for YEARS.

Yet she died from pneumonia.

Do you get what I'm saying? She would have died from the flu, too, if she'd gotten it.

We never hear about the conditions under which people die from the flu, chicken pox, measles, etc. We only hear that they died from it.
post #6 of 20
8/29/08 at 8:50pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by MilkTrance View Post
The flu can kill. Of course it can. Given the right circumstances, pretty much any virus can kill you. I just saw a TV show about how a woman died from herpes.

My mother's cause of death is listed as "pneumonia"

What does the death certificate not mention? That she was about 80lbs and wasting away from late-stage cancer. That she had not eaten for days, that she had had cancer for YEARS.

Yet she died from pneumonia.

Do you get what I'm saying? She would have died from the flu, too, if she'd gotten it.

We never hear about the conditions under which people die from the flu, chicken pox, measles, etc. We only hear that they died from it.

MilkTrance,
I am sorry about your mother, but thank you so much for sharing that. That is exactly why we have to look at statistics and numbers with a cautious eye. They say, "X number of people died from chicken pox", they don't say which ones took fever reducers instead of letting the fever help the body, which ones had compromised immune systems, which ones were given abx for infected sores, etc, etc. There are so many variables.
post #7 of 20
8/29/08 at 9:01pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by joellelee View Post
Hello! I Am Scared To Death W/ All I Am Reading With Kids Dying From Influenza/flu Recently....should I Get The Flu Shot For My 15 Month Old? This Is Scary!!! I Don't Vaccinate, And I Am Scared Of This News!!!
Where did you read about this?
post #8 of 20
8/29/08 at 10:21pm
Thread Starter 
In answer to some of your question....I have read this pretty much everywhere about the new flu bug....mags/papers/news media etc....a number of older kids have died, one was 8! I know the flu itself does not kill, but something like pneumonia does....guess thats what scares me....how does one prevent/treat pneumonia??? I give my DD who is 15 months old SA when she has colds, plus daily fish oil and coconut oil....Should I be giving her SA every day? I have heard it's not good to give SA everyday because if there is a day w/out it it could be a withdrawal thing/???
Also, she is not a good eater, so making sure she gets a balanced diet is tough, so i have been putting pediasure in w/ her milk...but, I dont like that it has a ton of sugar in it...it's sooo sweet that even she will not drink it alone, I have to mix it! Any suggestions? Thanx a bunch!!!
post #9 of 20
8/29/08 at 10:52pm
Hmm...I follow the news and haven't heard this. I did a search and I'm not coming up with anything, either. According to the CDC's site, last year wasn't particularly bad for flu, and the vaccines weren't very effective (wrong strains) either.

If you want a nutritional supplement, I'd ditch the Pediasure and try something like this, which is made of natural, mostly organic ingredients and doesn't contain sugar. I just saw that they recommend this particular product for ages 2+, but I know there are other brands out there.

No, I wouldn't give SA every day...just as needed with colds and such.
post #10 of 20
8/30/08 at 1:21am
Are you breastfeeding her? That is the single greatest thing you can do for a child's health.
post #11 of 20
8/30/08 at 2:21am
Please note too OP that it is the time of year to market the flu vax. No offense but $$ is $$ in the end. Scare the S**T out of people and they will come get their vax. We've had the flu in the past. My dd and I had it about 4 years ago. It sucked. She was about 4 1/2 and did better with it than me. We felt like crap for about 2 weeks, but no complications. Didn't even go to the doc... just suffered through...to which we got raised eyebrows by my doc. Even if you get it odds are you will be fine. Kids get sick. It is unavoidable. The CDC should probably come to terms with that.
post #12 of 20
8/30/08 at 9:50am
Thread Starter 
No, I could only brestfeed for 6 weeks and I only produced 2 oz at a time, so I had to supplement w/ formula....I was taking herbs to help, but I never became engorged and my milk never came in....very upsetting for me!
post #13 of 20
8/30/08 at 11:19am
Every year in late August, the media gears up and starts fearmongering about flu. Even the year that Chiron got in trouble for contamination of the flu vax for that year.

If you go to the MMWR, put out by the CDC, and look at total deaths due to influenza, it is fairly small. What is often reported in the media is the combined influenza/pneumonia numbers. When the media talks about total influenza deaths, they take the much larger influenza/pneumonia number and divide by 2.

If you go to http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/rr5707a1.htm, look at figure 2, almost all the way to the bottom of the document. Hospitalization rates have increased with vax rates in the 0-4 yo age group (remember 2004-2005 was the year with a shortage).

And remember that the strains of the virus in the flu vaccine are a "best guess" about which strains will be around for that year.
post #14 of 20
8/30/08 at 11:31am
Our family had a flu this year that really kicked our butts. While laying in bed moaning and in pain, I seriously wondered if maybe I was wrong about not getting the vaccine. It was horrible. It had my husband and me out of it for about 2 weeks. A week later, I saw on the news that this flu was going around and that it wasn't the virus that was in the flu shot! So, the shot wouldn't have helped anyway. My son got it and was miserable for 2 days. Two days! Same virus as the one that put us down for 2 weeks.

I try to feed us healthy things, organic vegetables, we avoid medicines in favor of more natural treatments like rest, water, natural expectorants, etc. I don't try to cool my kids fevers and we rarely bathe them during sick seasons, although they wash thier hands often enough. With my son, my dh and me getting the horrible flu, my other two didn't get it, even in the same house.

One thing you can do to help is to cut milk and orange juice when sick. Those two things can increase mucous production and make it harder to cough up mucous or drain a stuffy ear. We haven't had a single ear infection since cutting milk out of our diet. I used to get one every year and my children would get them about as often. It's been 3 years without a single ear infection and my son's tonsils decreased to about half thier size since cutting milk.

Lisa
post #15 of 20
8/31/08 at 5:56pm
... and honey, lemon (to cleanse the liver), probiotics, CLO and time outside (bundled up) also help...
post #16 of 20
8/31/08 at 10:50pm
Article on fearmongering the flu statistics:
http://insidevaccines.com/wordpress/...and-the-media/
post #17 of 20
9/1/08 at 5:39am
I thought the flu vaccine was no better than placebos in kids under age 2?
post #18 of 20
9/1/08 at 8:35am
Quote:
Originally Posted by MilkTrance View Post
... and honey, lemon (to cleanse the liver), probiotics, CLO and time outside (bundled up) also help...
Nice thinking. The easyway is not always the best way to erase the problem with one thing. Instead of bridging it with healthy things that would be good for the child in many otherway's.
post #19 of 20
9/1/08 at 2:40pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by pantufla View Post
I thought the flu vaccine was no better than placebos in kids under age 2?

yes - this is absolutely true...there is very little data on effectiveness in flu on young children...also, almost every post marketing study that has come out has shown that the flu vaccine has NO effect on death or hospitalization amoung the elderly. do research a bit more. 10 years ago - theraflu was all you needed to get through the flu.
post #20 of 20
9/2/08 at 12:44am
get rid of the pediasure right away and feed only real, whole foods- yogurt for probiotics, and no you don't have to give SA every day. I only give it during an illness. However, natural sources of vit C from the diet should be present on a daily basis. Not many 15 month olds eat a lot, that's normal. But the flu shot is not the answer-

http://www.infectioncontroltoday.com...l?cntwelcome=1

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/333/7574/912

and who knows if it's safe

http://www.fda.gov/cber/ltr/park092700.pdf
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