Flu Shots in Children Help People of All Ages

[Sgent]

Source: NY Times

An unusual study done in 49 remote Hutterite farming colonies in western Canada has provided the surest proof yet that giving flu shots to schoolchildren protects a whole community from the disease.

Although previous studies have demonstrated what scientists call “herd immunity,” none have been so incontrovertible, because they were done in less isolated places with more sources of flu passing through. Also, only one other study, done 42 years ago, was able to immunize over 80 percent of a community’s children, as this one did. Success repeated in many separate communities with very high vaccination rates implies that the shots themselves — rather than luck, viral mutations, hand-washing or any other factor — were the crucial protective element.

The study, done by scientists from several Canadian universities and St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital in Tennessee, was paid for by the governments of Canada and the United States. It was published online Tuesday by the The Journal of the American Medical Association.

“This is quite a definitive study, and it took a Herculean effort,” said Dr. Carolyn B. Bridges, an expert in influenza epidemiology at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “My hat’s off to them.”

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/10/health/10flu.html?hp

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This article (on the front page of the NY Times) goes into detail how antivaxers are turning their children into Typhoid Marys.

[XemaSab]

1. Vaccines are teh eeevul plot by Blackwater and Dow Chemical to make are children

vote republican! :scared:

[Skittles]

2. it makes sense

while we can choose to stay away from adults with the flu, not everyone can stay away from children - they HAVE to be interacted with

[KoKo]

4. We must give our babies these Vaccines...*Untested for Long Term" so we can Survive!

...All the rest of us...with the health care costs that HCR will take care of while we test our Babies and Youngsters..

Amazing...isn't it?

[kestrel91316]

6. I got my first vaccinations 53 years ago. I've held up pretty well in the long term.

Exactly what long-term problems do you imagine that those evil vaccines cause? And more importantly, what peer-reviewed and published literature backs you up?

[Chemisse]

10. How many vaccines did you get?

Children born this year are required to have 44 immunizations by the age of 6.

http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/recs/schedules/downloads/child/2010/10_0-6yrs-schedule-pr.pdf

We don't think there will be long-term effects, but how can we know for sure?

[MineralMan]

3. I'm not surprised. All of the people I know who have young children

seem to have colds all the time. I'm sure the little urchins pass them around at pre-school and bring them home to share, right along with the cute coasters or whatever other things they cut out with their blunt scissors and glue together.

And GET OFF MY LAWN, YOU LITTLE BRATS! :rofl:

[kestrel91316]

7. When my niece and nephew were little, before they got that hygiene thing down pat,

I would get sick as a frickin' dog after every visit at Christmas. Once they got big enough to control the spread of their germs through appropriate behavior, lol, that stopped.

[MineralMan]

8. No kidding. On one side of my family, there are 10

grand nieces and nephews of mine who show up at the big Christmas gatherings. I do not remember a single year when there wasn't at least one sick one. One year, one of the urchins had norovirus. Everyone there, over 20 people got it over the holiday. Feh!

I now observe very strict decontamination procedures at those gatherings, and haven't been sick again at one. I love my little grand nieces and nephews dearly, but they sure pass around whatever illness is going around.

[kestrel91316]

5. I have caught bad stuff from so many little Typhoid Marys over the years,

I know make sure my clients leave the little germ factories at home when they bring Kitty in if they are sick with anything involving fever.

People think it's cool to take little kids with flu everywhere in town to spread crap all over, blissfully unaware that sick children need to be home in bed for their AND the community's benefit.

If the cat is legitimately sick and bringing the kid in is unavoidable, I don't mind. I realize people live in the Real World. But the sickest ones always come in when Kitty just needs the annual checkup, which is easily postponed. Sigh.

Oh, and people want to drag the cat in for an annual checkup when they themselves have the flu, too. Those are easy to screen out when they call for an appointment and sound like death warmed over. We tell them to STAY HOME.

[HuckleB]

9. K & R.