A colleague had written:
It’s a scenario that strikes terror in most any parent: A perfectly healthy first-grader dies of flu in the ambulance outside his home. How could it happen?
In the most recent H1N1 flu death in Minnesota, the Hennepin County Medical Examiner’s office said that 6-year-old Nathanael Schilling of Corcoran died on Sept. 24 from an inflammation of the heart, a rare complication that can result from a flu infection.
He was a first-grader at St. John’s Lutheran School in Corcoran, according to his newspaper funeral notice.
It was the seventh death from H1N1 in Minnesota, and the second time this year that an otherwise healthy child died after becoming infected with the new flu strain.
Health officials say they still expect the new virus to be no more deadly than ordinary seasonal flu, which kills 36,000 Americans in an average year. What’s different this year is that children appear to be more vulnerable to the new strain than to seasonal flu.
The previous child fatality in Minnesota, which occurred in July, also involved an otherwise healthy child. That 2-year-old died because of a co-occurring bacterial infection — pneumococcus, which causes pneumonia, said Dr. Ruth Lynfield, Minnesota state epidemiologist.
Alone, it’s not usually dangerous in someone who is healthy. But the flu virus opens a door, allowing the non-threatening agent to overwhelm the body and become lethal. It’s the combination of the two that often kills otherwise healthy children and adults.
If symptoms worsen, act
“That’s why we tell people who get the flu that if they are getting better and then symptoms get worse with high fever and bad cough, they should seek care right away,” Lynfield said.
A recent study by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) found that of the 36 children who died from H1N1 from April to August, six had no chronic health conditions. But all of them had a co-occurring bacterial infection
To Which I responded:
My understanding is that children under 10 will receive no benefit from the vaccine. Almost everything is being shipped with Thimerosal b/c they need multiple dose vials (why can’t the docs just throw the vial out at the end of a day if they haven’t used all 10 doses?). How do they know what the shelf life of a vial with a needle hole in a rubber stopper is?
I know it’s a tough decision, but I wouldn’t. People are dying from the vaccine too.
Steve Markus
The Centre for Dentistry at Haddon
209 White Horse Pike
Haddon Heights, NJ 08035
856 546 0665
To Which another colleague wrote:
H1N1 has killed over 1000 in the US so far this year and hospitalized over 20,000. How many documented cases of the H1N1 vaccine causing a death are there? You say “people are dying from the vaccine”. I have not located a single case so far. Could you help me out?
Also, you state that children under 10 will receive no benefit from the vaccine. Where did you get this patently false information, and more importantly, why are you believing it? If you don’t want to get it for philosophical or ideological reasons, fine. But there is no need to spread pseudo-scientific falsehoods.
So here is the foundation of my beliefs:
See, it all depends on which side of the story you’re reading the results. My bias is anti-vaccination (see http://www.nvic.org/NVIC-Vaccine-News/July-2009/Swine-Flu-Vaccine-Should-Not-Be-Given-to-Children.aspx), ever since the first Swine Flu debacle in 76, I haven’t taken a flu shot, and believe that the md’s don’t do enough research about what they’re putting into their very succetible infant patients.
I get my information from articles like this: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/10/24/CBS-Reveals-that-Swine-Flu-Cases-Seriously-Overestimated.aspx
As the husband of a woman who has worked with autism as a special education teacher since 1973, I have always been very in tune with these issues.
What caused my latest concerns was something posted here in the summer by Bill Domb, a very trusted source of information, I’m sure you can’t deny. The geo-political/Big Pharma issue of this whole debacle was something I was concerned about since the outbreak in Mexico in the Spring. I thought I was watching too much Jack Bauer, and then Domb showed us all this: http://www.healthyworldstore.com/downloads/mexican_flu_2009-special_report_by_dr._leonard_horowitz.pdf Unfortunately, most of the real news goes unreported (again, depending upon which side of the issue you stand on).
In my eyes, I want my children to be very careful about what they allow modern medicine to do to my grandchildren. Here are 10 reasons not to let children get the flu vaccine: http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/10/06/Why-You-Should-NOT-Vaccinate-Your-Children-Against-the-Flu-This-Season.aspx . I guess the Obama’s must be getting some inside information, eh?
October 8, 2009
First Daughters Not Vaccinated Against H1N1
President Obama’s school age daughters have not been vaccinated against the H1N1 flu virus. White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs says the vaccine is not available to them based on their risk.
The Centers for Disease Control recommend that children ages 6 months through 18 years of age receive a vaccination against the H1N1 flu virus. At this time only children with chronic medical conditions are receiving the vaccination because their immune system is not strong enough to fight off the strain. The CDC also says a regular seasonal flu shot does not protect against the virus.
There are some who believe that this is a campaign to aid and abett the thinning of the herd, an adjuvant (speaking in vaccination terms) to Only the Strong Survive (not exactly the way Darwin perceived it).