I've found some statistics online about parents who choose to not vaccinate their children and the effects that it has. Imagine your child with CF contracting these disease due to a child in their daycare, class, the mall, any public place thats parents decided to not vaccinate them.
"We are seeing in some states an increasing proportion of families who are choosing to delay or not immunize their children, and unfortunately, when this happens, we do see sporadic outbreaks of diseases like measles," says Neal Halsey, MD, a director of the Institute for Vaccine Safety at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore.
-Webmd.com
Each year during flu season, at least one in every 20 people in the U.S. will come down with influenza or flu. Some years, that number can be as high as one in every five. For most of us, getting the flu means several days of feeling pretty miserable. Headaches, body aches, fever, chills, fatigue, and exhaustion are all part of the disease running its course. But then most people recover on their own.
-Webmd.com
But there are some people -- primarily young children, older adults, and people with chronic health conditions -- that are at higher risk of seasonal flu-related complications. Annually, influenza-related illnesses are responsible for the hospitalization of 200,000 people and the death of 36,000 people.
-Webmd.com
((Lets read the above section again, and if your are a CF caregiver or patient, read it over REALLY WELL!))
The flu is caused by influenza viruses that are highly contagious. Fortunately there are ways to protect yourself against seasonal flu, and the primary way to prevent it is to get an annual vaccination.
Here a link to the CDC's website of reccomended vaccines, and times in your child's life when they should be administered.
http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/recs/schedules/downloads/child/2009/09_0-6yrs_schedule_pr.pdf
Hope this information helps CF caregivers and patients together to understand the importance of seasonal flu vaccines, and general CDC reccomended vaccines for children and adolescence.
Monday, November 2, 2009
Lovely November...The Even More Lovely SWINE FLU
HELLO FALL!
I can't believe it's already November! It's almost the holidays and I pray for a healthy holiday season for Carson. It's tough this year not only having to worry about the "regular" seasonal flu, but then we have the media shoving the swine flu facts down our throats! They make it a scare us, and demand that all get this new vaccine toe CDC has been working so "diligently" on. The swine flu versus the seasonal flu tends to effect the young population which is extremely scary for children, and especially children with Cystic fibrosis. Here's the facts:
- H1N1 swine flu has turned flu death statistics upside down, the CDC today confirmed. (October 29th,2009)
In a normal flu season, 90% of deaths are in elderly people. Since September, 90% of deaths have been in people under age 65 -- with almost a quarter of the deaths in young people under age 25.
"It is almost completely reversed. Nearly 90% of our fatalities are occurring in people under 65," CDC respiratory disease chief Anne Schuchat, MD, said at a news conference. "This illustrates this H1N1 virus is disproportionally affecting the young."
As might be expected from the death toll, most people hospitalized with severe H1N1 swine flu are young. Surveillance data from 27 states show that more than half of swine flu hospitalizations -- 53% -- are in people under age 25. Only 7% of people hospitalized with swine flu are elderly.
The H1N1 is respiratory flu, and with regards to vaccines, i've been hearing many stories from different parents in different situations.Hopefully these facts puts some perspective on the situation. Persoanlly I think parents of children battling CF need and could actually benifit from the seasonal flu, and the H1N1 vaccine! It should definitly be considered by ALL parents! Point being parents of CF children should consider not only H1N1, and the seasonal flu vaccine but all vaccines that doctors highly reccomend each year for children with impaired health. It's your childs health for god sakes! Vaccines should not be taken lightly, and with the media portraying all these rare one in a million side effects to the H1N1 its normal for parents to feel afraid, but we need to put our CF childrens health above that. Take what the media says with a grain of salt. God Bless
I can't believe it's already November! It's almost the holidays and I pray for a healthy holiday season for Carson. It's tough this year not only having to worry about the "regular" seasonal flu, but then we have the media shoving the swine flu facts down our throats! They make it a scare us, and demand that all get this new vaccine toe CDC has been working so "diligently" on. The swine flu versus the seasonal flu tends to effect the young population which is extremely scary for children, and especially children with Cystic fibrosis. Here's the facts:
- H1N1 swine flu has turned flu death statistics upside down, the CDC today confirmed. (October 29th,2009)
In a normal flu season, 90% of deaths are in elderly people. Since September, 90% of deaths have been in people under age 65 -- with almost a quarter of the deaths in young people under age 25.
"It is almost completely reversed. Nearly 90% of our fatalities are occurring in people under 65," CDC respiratory disease chief Anne Schuchat, MD, said at a news conference. "This illustrates this H1N1 virus is disproportionally affecting the young."
As might be expected from the death toll, most people hospitalized with severe H1N1 swine flu are young. Surveillance data from 27 states show that more than half of swine flu hospitalizations -- 53% -- are in people under age 25. Only 7% of people hospitalized with swine flu are elderly.
The H1N1 is respiratory flu, and with regards to vaccines, i've been hearing many stories from different parents in different situations.Hopefully these facts puts some perspective on the situation. Persoanlly I think parents of children battling CF need and could actually benifit from the seasonal flu, and the H1N1 vaccine! It should definitly be considered by ALL parents! Point being parents of CF children should consider not only H1N1, and the seasonal flu vaccine but all vaccines that doctors highly reccomend each year for children with impaired health. It's your childs health for god sakes! Vaccines should not be taken lightly, and with the media portraying all these rare one in a million side effects to the H1N1 its normal for parents to feel afraid, but we need to put our CF childrens health above that. Take what the media says with a grain of salt. God Bless
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
