8998 H1N1,AIDS,Gynecology

I was shocked to see how much we are judging each other about a vaccine. One poster even wrote that any parent who does not give the H1N1 vaccine to their child is a “horrible parent who doesn’t deserve to have children”. Really people? Why all the judgment? As parents, it is our right to make what decision we feel is best for our own children – not everyone else’s. The media is tossing out all of these scary numbers, making us think that H1N1 is going to target and kill our children – that we’ll be lucky if they don’t end up in ICU or even worse, dead. What they aren’t throwing out there are the percentages of the deaths, how many of those deaths were related to underlying causes and how minor the fatal threat from H1N1 is in comparison to other communicable diseases. For instance, did you know that in 13 days (April 26-May 6) 31 people died of H1N1. In those same 13 days, 63,066 died of tuberculosis. More than 60,000 people died and not one headline!
As for the percentages of deaths related to H1N1? According to a review of hospital admissions to ICU and deaths from H1N1 flu in 2009, seventy five percent of deaths from H1N1 swine flu have been seen in patients with one or more underlying health conditions.
The H1N1 death rate is 0.007% to 0.045%. Of that miniscule amount 75% of those deaths were related to underlying causes. Can you see how small the odds are of an otherwise normally healthy person dying of H1N1? You’re not seeing that plastered all over the news either.
Another comparison?
The H1N1 death rate is 0.007% to 0.045% Seasonal flu death rate? 0.1%. Yep. As small as that number is, you still have a higher chance of dying from the seasonal flu than you do H1N1. Again, no one is telling us this. And again, the vast majority of deaths related to the seasonal flu are also related to underlying health problems. Meaning these people already had health issues, the flu just exaggerated the symptoms, making it deadly.
And here is one more thing for you. Here are the symptoms of H1N1:
fatigue
fever
chills
coughing
sneezing
sore throat
muscle aches
some also have diarrhea or vomiting
Now here are the side effects from the H1N1 vaccine:
runny nose, nasal congestion or cough
headache
muscle aches
fever
wheezing
tiredness/weakness
chills
abdominal pain or occaisional vomiting or diarrhea
Not much difference, huh? As you can see, there are plenty of reasons for parents to decide to forgo the vaccine. My question to you is why can’t we set our judgment aside?