To Vaccinate or Not: The Great H1N1 Debate
by Joshua Tusin
I was thinking about the next topic to cover in this space and realized that I haven’t yet brought up the H1N1 vaccine and whether or not parents should choose to have their children immunized. It’s a decision I’ve personally struggled with and one, based on my conversations with other parents and teachers, that a lot of people are struggling with.
Then I cruised over to PhD in Parenting and found the post asking if parents who don’t get their children vaccinated are idiots. It was based on an exchange she had with Chad Skelton, who writes the Curious Dad blog at The Vancouver Sun, and had posted on this topic. To be fair, he’s really the one who opened up the ‘idiot’ can of worms.
Anyway, with the latest evidence suggesting that the short-term effects of the H1N1 vaccine are negligible and that the virus can wreck havoc on the body – even in mild cases – it’s easy to understand the position that parents should absolutely vaccinate their children.
But then there’s also the flip side, what about long-term effects? There are components of the H1N1 vaccine that have been taken out of childhood vaccines over concerns about their safety. And generally speaking, even though people are getting sick with H1N1, not that many are dying.
But of course that latter point isn’t all that satisfying when the possibility still exists. So we’re left back where we started: what are your thoughts on the H1N1 vaccine?
We’d love to know what you have to say in the comments below.
As I mentioned, I’ve personally struggled with this decision. My wife and I, after seemingly endless deliberation and firm positions on both sides of the argument, decided to vaccinate our son. He falls into the priority group so he got his needle stick last week. It was not easy for us. Surprisingly, it was easy for our son; he handled it better than he does his regular immunizations. In the end we have a certain peace of mind that we didn’t before, and we don’t regret the decision.
But I’m not sure we’re totally convinced it was a necessary course of action, to immunize our son.
What are your thoughts?
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