You've been reading my journal long enough to know how cautious I am re: vaccines, and medicine in general. (For those who don't read my journal, I do extensive research before deciding whether to get a vaccine or not, and my default position is "not"; my youngest child has had a single vaccine (started when he was 1 1/2 years old), my eldest child has had a single vaccine (when he was 4 1/2 years old), and that's it so far.)
But I've been doing a hell of a lot of research on the 2009 novel H1N1 strain, and the fact is, this is like nothing we've ever seen before. We can't predict the people it will kill, because it makes no sense; this virus seems to be *more* effective in young, healthy people. The average age for ending up in the ICU and/or dying is 32. We've NEVER seen that; the flus we're used to attack the very young and the very old, not healthy people in the prime of their lives. It can go from moderate symptoms to complete respiratory failure in less than 24 hours. Once again - we haven't seen that before. The kill rate is far higher than with standard flus, and the people it's killing aren't the people that a standard flu would kill. Almost half of those that have died have had no underlying risk factors.
I stay away from media reports about H1N1, because the media annoys me and they fuck things up all the time. The research I do is by combing Pubmed for the newest published research. (Thankfully, having a medical background makes it easier for me to understand what they're talking about, although sometimes I still have to go do a lot more research to understand a particular point.) Based on the published research, H1N1 is *not* just a standard flu, and being wary of it is not scare tactics. Most people who get H1N1 will recover just fine, but there's going to be plenty of people who won't, and those people are not the ones we'd expect to see.
I spent months in a "wait and see" decision regarding the H1N1 vaccination, but over the past few days I've decided that based on our risk factors, it's best for my family to get vaccinated. This flu is novel, and it's different from what we've faced before, and we don't yet understand why it affects who it affects, and why it's killing otherwise-healthy people.
Egg allergy or past negative reaction to a flu shot?
If I should catch H1N1 and die from it I'll let you know.
I have a system set up with my BFF fenix16. If I die for any reason, she's one of the people my husband contacts. And then she has the passwords to my LJs, so she can post a death announcement. I've asked my husband to place an obit in a local newspaper that has online obits, so it'll be easy to verify as not being a hoax.
I still don't think it will be a deadly pandemic.
In North America it won't be very bad, although the people that do die are going to be people who matter more in the grand scheme of things (young people as versus the elderly). But in developing nations it could have a serious impact.
"Egg allergy or past negative reaction to a flu shot?"
I don't know. Flu shots make me sick, then I end up getting the flu anyway so the shots are ineffective to me. I'd just waste money, get sick, then maybe get sick again. I just have to rely on fighting or getting over the flu.
"I have a system set up with my BFF fenix16. If I die for any reason, she's one of the people my husband contacts. And then she has the passwords to my LJs, so she can post a death announcement."
But I've been doing a hell of a lot of research on the 2009 novel H1N1 strain, and the fact is, this is like nothing we've ever seen before. We can't predict the people it will kill, because it makes no sense; this virus seems to be *more* effective in young, healthy people. The average age for ending up in the ICU and/or dying is 32. We've NEVER seen that; the flus we're used to attack the very young and the very old, not healthy people in the prime of their lives. It can go from moderate symptoms to complete respiratory failure in less than 24 hours. Once again - we haven't seen that before. The kill rate is far higher than with standard flus, and the people it's killing aren't the people that a standard flu would kill. Almost half of those that have died have had no underlying risk factors.
I stay away from media reports about H1N1, because the media annoys me and they fuck things up all the time. The research I do is by combing Pubmed for the newest published research. (Thankfully, having a medical background makes it easier for me to understand what they're talking about, although sometimes I still have to go do a lot more research to understand a particular point.) Based on the published research, H1N1 is *not* just a standard flu, and being wary of it is not scare tactics. Most people who get H1N1 will recover just fine, but there's going to be plenty of people who won't, and those people are not the ones we'd expect to see.
I spent months in a "wait and see" decision regarding the H1N1 vaccination, but over the past few days I've decided that based on our risk factors, it's best for my family to get vaccinated. This flu is novel, and it's different from what we've faced before, and we don't yet understand why it affects who it affects, and why it's killing otherwise-healthy people.
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I still don't think it will be a deadly pandemic.
Reply
Egg allergy or past negative reaction to a flu shot?
If I should catch H1N1 and die from it I'll let you know.
I have a system set up with my BFF fenix16. If I die for any reason, she's one of the people my husband contacts. And then she has the passwords to my LJs, so she can post a death announcement. I've asked my husband to place an obit in a local newspaper that has online obits, so it'll be easy to verify as not being a hoax.
I still don't think it will be a deadly pandemic.
In North America it won't be very bad, although the people that do die are going to be people who matter more in the grand scheme of things (young people as versus the elderly). But in developing nations it could have a serious impact.
Reply
I don't know. Flu shots make me sick, then I end up getting the flu anyway so the shots are ineffective to me. I'd just waste money, get sick, then maybe get sick again. I just have to rely on fighting or getting over the flu.
"I have a system set up with my BFF fenix16. If I die for any reason, she's one of the people my husband contacts. And then she has the passwords to my LJs, so she can post a death announcement."
When I die I will just have... disappeared.
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