Statistics On Vaccinating..

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.