By: Catherine J. Frompovich
30 September 2010
Autumn finally has arrived in the Northern Hemisphere in 2010 along with admonitions to get the annual flu vaccination to prevent contracting any of the various strains that now circumnavigate the globe, including one or two that may have resulted from scientific ‘tinkering’.
Daily, if not hourly, prompts appear on radio and television about going to a local pharmacy or other health care facility to get immunized. The fear campaign has begun in earnest and, naturally, we need to wonder about the scientific facts associated with vaccine research and flu vaccines, in particular. So let’s examine some of the tall tales and other vaccine myths that also circumnavigate the globe as part of media flu hype and spin.
Children
Are parents aware that the Flu shot [is] not effective in preventing flu-related hospitalizations in asthmatic children? In fact, children who get the flu vaccine are more at risk for hospitalization than their peers who do not get the vaccine, according to new research that [was] presented on Tuesday, May 19, [2009] at the 105th International Conference of the American Thoracic Society in San Diego.
Did you realize that study found children who were vaccinated for flu had three times the risk to be hospitalized when compared with children who were NOT vaccinated for flu?
Furthermore, a U.S. National Library of Medicine, National Institutes of Health PubMed website posting offers this:
The effectiveness of influenza vaccine over multiple influenza seasons in children less than 5 years of age has not been well studied. This is especially important to assess because of the recent recommendation for routine influenza vaccination in childhood. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed.)
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