We are under pressure today – we have to decide whether the children should receive the H1N1 flu jab. The school have sent a letter home that we must return today marked with our intentions so they can go ahead with planning.
Does anyone know the ‘best’ answer? The risk of the illness turning serious or fatal is clearly greater for the very young and old, and for those with existing health conditions. But where does that leave the rest of us!
Personally I won’t bother – I have a deep mistrust of vaccines and the like that have been prepared in a hurry and the possible long-term consequences, and of governments telling me what is good for me, so I prefer to take my chances with the flu.
But it’s easy to make a choice for myself since it’s me who has to live with the consequences. It’s making the choice for someone else (i.e. our children) when things get tricky.
Reading through recent news and articles just muddies the waters – it seems that about 50% of people decide not to have the jab, which is little help, and that the danger risk from the flu is real but not necessarily any higher than ‘normal’ flu. Even doctor’s seem to have mixed views on the subject, happily injecting patients while not necesrarily themselves. This doesn’t fill me with confidence.
I get a ‘millennium bug’ feeling about the whole thing, where millions of pounds, dollars and euros has been spent to avoid a problem that barely exists in the first place (except for the very young, old and people with existing health issues).
So if anyone thinks they know the ‘right’ answer or can show evidence either way please let me know because at the moment tossing a coin in the air and calling ‘pile ou face’ (heads or tails) seems to be the best way of choosing!
Easy answer. 90% of British Doctors will not be having the jab, Neither will Mr & Mrs N.
Doctors in Britain are to be paid for the more jabs they do. To me the whole thing is just out of hand they are trying to frighten the population. When you are frightened you do not look at other things that the policians are up to.
I can understand parents who want to be safe rather than sorry. a practice nurse friend of Mrs N thought there was more risk from the jab rather than the flue.
The french who are known for their addiction to medication will mostly all have it. I would suspect. That comment is not meant in a nasty way but it is true in my opinion.
When our children were young we would probaly have done it. But with what we know now we would not. Not easy.
This article didn’t fill me with confidence…
What also concerns me is that full clinical trials of the drug have not been completed. It has been rushed out to prove that politicians really do care for us all, whilst at the same time not allowing other life saving drugs to be available.
They frighten everyone then say they are saving us all. Its nothing to do with welfare but politics.
I know exactly how your feel … and (according to France 2)at the end of the day they let your CHILDREN decide on D day when they want to take up the offer or not! That being said, so far none of my pupils have been very sick with it!
Bon courage.
Miss Brodie
Hi Miss Brodie,
Have any of your children had the jab yet? Seems from the news that little more than 10% of parents are saying yes for their children anyway.
Still, I’m always entertained to see the evening news where an increasingly desperate government try to convince us all how important and safe it is, knowing full well that many of us take the opportunity to go to the loo or make a cup of tea.
Like you, we received the papers last week asking us to decide if we wished our daughter to have the Swine Flu vaccination (we live in France also).
We thought long and hard about it – looking into the pros and cons as we saw them. When pushed to make a firm decision, my husband erred on the side of ‘no’ whilst I went towards the ‘yes’ side.
What finally decided us (to let her have the jab) was that many of her friends are children of local doctors/nurses and every one of them had had the jab already.
We took the view that if parents who were medical personnel were all (without exception in my daughter’s class) having their children vaccinated, that we would jump to that side of the fence.
That was our logic anyway…..
Jacqui
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That’s interesting, we’d heard that doctors and nurses weren’t having the jab themselves which is part of the reason why we said no, but that was ‘rumour and hearsay’ rather than actually speaking to real doctors and nurses about whether they had said yes or no.