H1N1: Are You Scared Yet?
One of the hardest things about being a parent is having to make decisions for your child that may come back to haunt them later. Before Max was born we were inundated with pressure from friends, acquaintances, and the Lamaze class teachers to breast feed and not circumcise if we had a boy. For a first time parent it's pretty overwhelming. Everyone tells you what horrors will be your child's special treat if you go against their advice and how you'll regret not listening to them.
I'm more influenced by my own upbringing and my own experiences than by all the advice of well meaning (obnoxious) people trying to pressure me with fear into their view point. I always assumed I'd breast feed because I was raised by a mother who believed in doing everything the natural way. In our household there wasn't any other way. I was brought up believing that breastfeeding is best, not because of all the propaganda* the La Leche League pours out, but because women's bodies are provided with breasts that lactate when the body produces a baby- our bodies have this built in tool for feeding our young. It's clearly the first choice in feeding my child if everything turns out to function well. The pressure is so great to breast feed that sometimes women are made to feel like inadequate crap when their breasts don't make enough milk and they have to turn to formulas to feed their babies. I think that's seriously messed up!
As far as circumcision goes, I knew a boy who wasn't circumcised when he was a baby and it was important enough to him to have a penis like all the other boys at school that he got it done as a teen. Which hurt him a billion times more than it hurts infants (like my husband) fresh out of the womb. I don't know a single man who remembers the pain of circumcision who got it done at birth, there are no health risks to them because of it later in life, and it doesn't inhibit any enjoyment of their most beloved pleasure toy. On the other side of it, there aren't any health risks associated with uncircumcised penis', that's how nature originally designed them to be, and since more and more boys who would have traditionally been circumcised are now being left au naturel, it doesn't seem like such a big deal to decide not to do it. What I hate is when people compare male circumcision to female circumcision. Here's the huge difference: female circumcision makes sex painful for the rest of a woman's life. That's cruel. I believe that female circumcision is generally performed much later than infancy which means they'll never forget the pain of the procedure either.
This whole Swine Flu discussion/argument is making me both angry and tired. I feel both camps (those for vaccinating and those against it) getting hot under the collar about the decision the other camp is making. Why? This is a health decision that we're all having to make largely based on speculation and fear. I resent that. That is never a good place from which to make decisions that may (or may not) effect the long term health of you and your family.
One mom I know said she's getting it for her and her kids because she couldn't live with herself if she didn't get the vaccination and she lost one of her children to the H1N1 virus. I'm sure a lot of moms feel that way, but to me it's not at all a logical argument for getting a vaccine that may or may not protect you from the flu. Nearly all mothers in the United States put their children in cars every single day of the week and seem perfectly comfortable gambling with the odds that their kids will survive each ride. What's totally screwy about that is that a lot more people are killed in car accidents every year than are killed by the flu, yet parents don't seem to worry overly much about the higher risk of death the convenience of a car affords their lives.
I worry a lot about my kid dying in a car and he has spent less time in them than most kids we know. Max rarely gets a ride to or from school. We have always chosen to live close to schools and there's no need to use a car for that. He goes on two short car rides every week to Kung Fu and sometimes he'll go to Portland in the car as much as once a week. That's (on average) only three times he gets in a vehicle every week. How often do your kids get in a car?
But don't think I'm criticizing parents who drive their kids around a lot. I'm trying to point out that it's illogical to get all wound up over a flu that might kill your kid when you're already taking much greater risks with your childrens' lives every single day.
I am heavily biased (most people are but many won't admit it) to not believe people who are pressuring me to go in one specific direction without being able to give me enough well founded reasons why I should do it if my natural inclination is to stay put or to run the other way. People who try really hard to convince me to read a particular book or watch a particular movie generally find me swearing I never will out of resentment for being pressured. Generally speaking I know what's best for me and although I am human and make mistakes, I am much more likely to be able to live with the decisions I make if I made them by being well informed and not falling prey to other people's fears.
My huge bias is that I was raised by a mother who never gave us antibiotics or took us to the doctor for colds or cuts or anything less than an emergency. She did vaccinate us against the usual suspects (Polio, Smallpox, etc) because the evidence (by her adulthood) that getting those shots really worked was sound and self evident. The diseases that routinely killed and maimed her peers were barely around anymore when she had us. However, her natural living philosophy said that colds and flus are something a healthy body is able to fight off without intervention and eating healthily, getting exercise, and getting enough sleep were a good ways to prevent getting them in the first place. Add to that her multivitamin peanut butter balls and you have her method of keeping us relatively healthy. We got the usual yearly colds but I have to say we grew up as pretty healthy kids.
Her philosophy, and now mine, is that you shouldn't medicate for illnesses you don't have (unless they're a real threat to you as is the case with Polio) and you shouldn't ever put toxins of any kind in your body** but most especially ones that are manufactured in a lab. I didn't grow up taking Aspirin for anything but the very worst most persistent headache. To be honest, I don't know if I ever took a painkiller of any kind until I was a teenager. Even now I wait to see if a headache will go away on its own in a few hours rather than take pills for it.
As anyone knows who reads my blog, I am by no means an enemy of western medicine. Unlike my mother, I have given my kid antibiotics when he had infections that caused him great pain (such as ear infections) that could be dispatched much more quickly with antibiotics. But we were cautious with the children's cold products and while we have given him Acetaminophen more often than some of our friends have given their own children, I can honestly say that I have never mindlessly dosed my child.
I am against getting seasonal flu shots in general. I don't care if other people are getting them. It doesn't make me feel all defensive about my own choice (believe it or not). I think if you've decided for yourself and your children that getting the flu shot is the best protection for yourselves against the flu and it's worth getting every year- why should I be upset by it? What I don't understand is why anyone would care that I will not be getting it myself or for my family. The other vaccines that I have had and gotten for my child as well don't have to be administered every year. A few times in childhood and that's it. What risks you have from whatever creepy-ass shit is in those shots is over with. I don't like the idea of getting shot up with lab juices every single year for the rest of my life. I'm not saying I won't change my mind at some point. Especially if I enter a high risk group for the flu. That would make sense.
A friend said "Since it's free and there's little risk of side effects, it's a no-brainer to get the H1N1 shot." Just because something is free doesn't mean I should go ahead and just get it in case it works. I'm not particularly scared of side effects from getting a vaccination but what bothers me is that they don't seem all that effective, for one thing, I don't think I need it, for another, and if I get it this year, why not every year for the rest of my life? And where will it stop? Will they start having several flu shots every year and we'll all be urged to get them all? Because the shots MIGHT help? Might help when I'm not even likely to die of the flu anyway?
Jesus. I got the flu last spring and it sucked. It did. It was the worst virus I've ever had (pre-swine, by the way) and I even broke my rib from coughing. But my body fought it without anything stronger than a couple of doses of repulsive questionable nasal spray to help relieve the intense congestion in my nose for two desperate days when the natural stuff stopped helping. Did I ever, for one moment wish I had gotten a flu shot last year?
No.
Here's what I want to say to all of you: it doesn't matter what I think or what I'm going to decide. All that matters is that you feel comfortable with the decision you make for yourself and your family. No one else's conclusions matter. If I make a different choice than you, it doesn't mean I think you're making a stupid choice. It just means I'm not comfortable making the same choice as you.
Do yourself a favor if you're not sure and if you haven't already: do a bunch of reading from both perspectives. I will put a couple of things to read below. Read what the CDC has to say and be sure to read the well written articles that demand answers to unanswered questions. Both sides need to be heard in order to make an informed decision. "Informed" doesn't mean that once you read them you will think just as I do, it means that once you've read arguments from both sides from creditable sources, whatever decision you make will be an informed one.
No matter what happens later on, you can never blame yourself for making the very best decision you felt comfortable with at the time with the information at hand. We can't know the future. Don't make your decisions based on fear. Don't make them based on speculation for what might happen in several months. Make your decision based on the information you have right now. You do that and you are doing your best by your family and yourself. Don't let anyone say differently.
Here are a few things to read:
CDC pages on the swine flu
Wikipedia page on swine flu with lots of reference material listed
The New Yorker's take on it all
The Atlantic's take on it (this one brings up a lot of points and questions that I myself have and would like answers to)
The Tom Jefferson (epidemiologist) interview
I read a page at the CDC that I haven't been able to find since that had some interesting information which made me a lot less afraid of the H1N1 and I also read a great interview with the epidemiologist Tom Jefferson that I can't find now. I wish I had bookmarked those pages so I could share them with you. If I find any other well written articles I will include them, but truthfully, I'm worn out on this subject and I want everyone to stop trying to freak each other out.
*Much of what they say about breast milk is true but they have taken it to extremes and some people spout what's true about breast milk and then say things that are untrue or not proven about children raised with formula. I use the term propaganda here to illustrate my opinion that this group has turned many women into mean zealots who don't accept that sometimes breastfeeding isn't possible even when we want it to be and formula becomes necessary. When formula becomes necessary it isn't the enemy but the life giver.
**Alcohol is a toxin to the human body but I make an exception for it because the human body has been tolerating it for a few thousand years now.
As a parting note, we've been talking about the vaccinations with Max and he claims he doesn't want the vaccination (but made sure we knew he isn't afraid of shots) but I know he's going to feel some pressure at school about it. Which? I think is evil- making children afraid like that. I am confident that if Max gets the flu he will be able to live through it. However, he's a kid already full of terrible anxieties, if he starts to feel afraid of dying if he doesn't get the vaccination, I will get it for him. Not having him sitting around worrying about dying from the flu would make it worth getting him the shot. As long as he's not afraid, we're staying flu shot free. I just wanted to mention that because how Max feels about it matters to me. I am not adamantly against vaccinations, I'm just adamantly against getting unnecessary crap pumped into my body based on what I have personally deemed pretty shaky odds that it will even help...and that, my friends, is merely my opinion.
I'm more influenced by my own upbringing and my own experiences than by all the advice of well meaning (obnoxious) people trying to pressure me with fear into their view point. I always assumed I'd breast feed because I was raised by a mother who believed in doing everything the natural way. In our household there wasn't any other way. I was brought up believing that breastfeeding is best, not because of all the propaganda* the La Leche League pours out, but because women's bodies are provided with breasts that lactate when the body produces a baby- our bodies have this built in tool for feeding our young. It's clearly the first choice in feeding my child if everything turns out to function well. The pressure is so great to breast feed that sometimes women are made to feel like inadequate crap when their breasts don't make enough milk and they have to turn to formulas to feed their babies. I think that's seriously messed up!
As far as circumcision goes, I knew a boy who wasn't circumcised when he was a baby and it was important enough to him to have a penis like all the other boys at school that he got it done as a teen. Which hurt him a billion times more than it hurts infants (like my husband) fresh out of the womb. I don't know a single man who remembers the pain of circumcision who got it done at birth, there are no health risks to them because of it later in life, and it doesn't inhibit any enjoyment of their most beloved pleasure toy. On the other side of it, there aren't any health risks associated with uncircumcised penis', that's how nature originally designed them to be, and since more and more boys who would have traditionally been circumcised are now being left au naturel, it doesn't seem like such a big deal to decide not to do it. What I hate is when people compare male circumcision to female circumcision. Here's the huge difference: female circumcision makes sex painful for the rest of a woman's life. That's cruel. I believe that female circumcision is generally performed much later than infancy which means they'll never forget the pain of the procedure either.
This whole Swine Flu discussion/argument is making me both angry and tired. I feel both camps (those for vaccinating and those against it) getting hot under the collar about the decision the other camp is making. Why? This is a health decision that we're all having to make largely based on speculation and fear. I resent that. That is never a good place from which to make decisions that may (or may not) effect the long term health of you and your family.
One mom I know said she's getting it for her and her kids because she couldn't live with herself if she didn't get the vaccination and she lost one of her children to the H1N1 virus. I'm sure a lot of moms feel that way, but to me it's not at all a logical argument for getting a vaccine that may or may not protect you from the flu. Nearly all mothers in the United States put their children in cars every single day of the week and seem perfectly comfortable gambling with the odds that their kids will survive each ride. What's totally screwy about that is that a lot more people are killed in car accidents every year than are killed by the flu, yet parents don't seem to worry overly much about the higher risk of death the convenience of a car affords their lives.
I worry a lot about my kid dying in a car and he has spent less time in them than most kids we know. Max rarely gets a ride to or from school. We have always chosen to live close to schools and there's no need to use a car for that. He goes on two short car rides every week to Kung Fu and sometimes he'll go to Portland in the car as much as once a week. That's (on average) only three times he gets in a vehicle every week. How often do your kids get in a car?
But don't think I'm criticizing parents who drive their kids around a lot. I'm trying to point out that it's illogical to get all wound up over a flu that might kill your kid when you're already taking much greater risks with your childrens' lives every single day.
I am heavily biased (most people are but many won't admit it) to not believe people who are pressuring me to go in one specific direction without being able to give me enough well founded reasons why I should do it if my natural inclination is to stay put or to run the other way. People who try really hard to convince me to read a particular book or watch a particular movie generally find me swearing I never will out of resentment for being pressured. Generally speaking I know what's best for me and although I am human and make mistakes, I am much more likely to be able to live with the decisions I make if I made them by being well informed and not falling prey to other people's fears.
My huge bias is that I was raised by a mother who never gave us antibiotics or took us to the doctor for colds or cuts or anything less than an emergency. She did vaccinate us against the usual suspects (Polio, Smallpox, etc) because the evidence (by her adulthood) that getting those shots really worked was sound and self evident. The diseases that routinely killed and maimed her peers were barely around anymore when she had us. However, her natural living philosophy said that colds and flus are something a healthy body is able to fight off without intervention and eating healthily, getting exercise, and getting enough sleep were a good ways to prevent getting them in the first place. Add to that her multivitamin peanut butter balls and you have her method of keeping us relatively healthy. We got the usual yearly colds but I have to say we grew up as pretty healthy kids.
Her philosophy, and now mine, is that you shouldn't medicate for illnesses you don't have (unless they're a real threat to you as is the case with Polio) and you shouldn't ever put toxins of any kind in your body** but most especially ones that are manufactured in a lab. I didn't grow up taking Aspirin for anything but the very worst most persistent headache. To be honest, I don't know if I ever took a painkiller of any kind until I was a teenager. Even now I wait to see if a headache will go away on its own in a few hours rather than take pills for it.
As anyone knows who reads my blog, I am by no means an enemy of western medicine. Unlike my mother, I have given my kid antibiotics when he had infections that caused him great pain (such as ear infections) that could be dispatched much more quickly with antibiotics. But we were cautious with the children's cold products and while we have given him Acetaminophen more often than some of our friends have given their own children, I can honestly say that I have never mindlessly dosed my child.
I am against getting seasonal flu shots in general. I don't care if other people are getting them. It doesn't make me feel all defensive about my own choice (believe it or not). I think if you've decided for yourself and your children that getting the flu shot is the best protection for yourselves against the flu and it's worth getting every year- why should I be upset by it? What I don't understand is why anyone would care that I will not be getting it myself or for my family. The other vaccines that I have had and gotten for my child as well don't have to be administered every year. A few times in childhood and that's it. What risks you have from whatever creepy-ass shit is in those shots is over with. I don't like the idea of getting shot up with lab juices every single year for the rest of my life. I'm not saying I won't change my mind at some point. Especially if I enter a high risk group for the flu. That would make sense.
A friend said "Since it's free and there's little risk of side effects, it's a no-brainer to get the H1N1 shot." Just because something is free doesn't mean I should go ahead and just get it in case it works. I'm not particularly scared of side effects from getting a vaccination but what bothers me is that they don't seem all that effective, for one thing, I don't think I need it, for another, and if I get it this year, why not every year for the rest of my life? And where will it stop? Will they start having several flu shots every year and we'll all be urged to get them all? Because the shots MIGHT help? Might help when I'm not even likely to die of the flu anyway?
Jesus. I got the flu last spring and it sucked. It did. It was the worst virus I've ever had (pre-swine, by the way) and I even broke my rib from coughing. But my body fought it without anything stronger than a couple of doses of repulsive questionable nasal spray to help relieve the intense congestion in my nose for two desperate days when the natural stuff stopped helping. Did I ever, for one moment wish I had gotten a flu shot last year?
No.
Here's what I want to say to all of you: it doesn't matter what I think or what I'm going to decide. All that matters is that you feel comfortable with the decision you make for yourself and your family. No one else's conclusions matter. If I make a different choice than you, it doesn't mean I think you're making a stupid choice. It just means I'm not comfortable making the same choice as you.
Do yourself a favor if you're not sure and if you haven't already: do a bunch of reading from both perspectives. I will put a couple of things to read below. Read what the CDC has to say and be sure to read the well written articles that demand answers to unanswered questions. Both sides need to be heard in order to make an informed decision. "Informed" doesn't mean that once you read them you will think just as I do, it means that once you've read arguments from both sides from creditable sources, whatever decision you make will be an informed one.
No matter what happens later on, you can never blame yourself for making the very best decision you felt comfortable with at the time with the information at hand. We can't know the future. Don't make your decisions based on fear. Don't make them based on speculation for what might happen in several months. Make your decision based on the information you have right now. You do that and you are doing your best by your family and yourself. Don't let anyone say differently.
Here are a few things to read:
CDC pages on the swine flu
Wikipedia page on swine flu with lots of reference material listed
The New Yorker's take on it all
The Atlantic's take on it (this one brings up a lot of points and questions that I myself have and would like answers to)
The Tom Jefferson (epidemiologist) interview
I read a page at the CDC that I haven't been able to find since that had some interesting information which made me a lot less afraid of the H1N1 and I also read a great interview with the epidemiologist Tom Jefferson that I can't find now. I wish I had bookmarked those pages so I could share them with you. If I find any other well written articles I will include them, but truthfully, I'm worn out on this subject and I want everyone to stop trying to freak each other out.
*Much of what they say about breast milk is true but they have taken it to extremes and some people spout what's true about breast milk and then say things that are untrue or not proven about children raised with formula. I use the term propaganda here to illustrate my opinion that this group has turned many women into mean zealots who don't accept that sometimes breastfeeding isn't possible even when we want it to be and formula becomes necessary. When formula becomes necessary it isn't the enemy but the life giver.
**Alcohol is a toxin to the human body but I make an exception for it because the human body has been tolerating it for a few thousand years now.
As a parting note, we've been talking about the vaccinations with Max and he claims he doesn't want the vaccination (but made sure we knew he isn't afraid of shots) but I know he's going to feel some pressure at school about it. Which? I think is evil- making children afraid like that. I am confident that if Max gets the flu he will be able to live through it. However, he's a kid already full of terrible anxieties, if he starts to feel afraid of dying if he doesn't get the vaccination, I will get it for him. Not having him sitting around worrying about dying from the flu would make it worth getting him the shot. As long as he's not afraid, we're staying flu shot free. I just wanted to mention that because how Max feels about it matters to me. I am not adamantly against vaccinations, I'm just adamantly against getting unnecessary crap pumped into my body based on what I have personally deemed pretty shaky odds that it will even help...and that, my friends, is merely my opinion.
Comments (6)
My hubby was in the hospital recently, for four days with H1N1. Prior to that, I had kind of blown it off as "getting a lot of press" but "not a big deal"...but...
My husband does not have lung problems although he is a smoker. I, however, have asthma, and know what it is like to not be able to breathe.
It started off just like any other bad cold...cough, nausea....but then he started wheezing. And then he started almost gasping for breath. When we went to the E.R., they tried all sorts of asthma remedies and none of them worked. None.
Finally, the doctor just said we would have to wait it out. It was so scary, watching him struggle to breathe!
And I have asthma. Every cold I get is 10 times worse than the ones he typically gets, because of the asthma. It is always a factor. After seeing what this did to my husband, I am scared to death of catching this. I have been so very lucky so far. But when the vaccine is at the clinic in town, I will be the very first one in line....no doubt about that!!!!
My bottom line rationale is this:
Most health experts are saying that the vaccine is created and administered just like any other annual flu vaccine. Because of the asthma, I get that vaccine every year already. No problems.
And....on the off chance that the vaccine is not as great as they are hoping, well, it ends up being a gamble either way, doesn't it? I can gamble with the shot, or gamble that maybe I won't get sick. And based on my experience, I think the shot carries less risk.
Posted by Carol | October 15, 2009 4:48 PM
Posted on October 15, 2009 16:48
It sounds to me like you've got good reason to get the vaccination, though it doesn't matter whether I think so or not. Anyone with respiratory issues is much more susceptible to getting the secondary infections that are what usually constitute the real danger of influenza.
Posted by angelina | October 15, 2009 7:45 PM
Posted on October 15, 2009 19:45
Likewise, my mother is a huge influence on my outlook when it comes to medical decisions - sure, I had probably more than my share of antibiotic treatments as a kid (my father is an FDA man, and to him, pharms were the ONLY way) but she was always reminding me of a few key things every patient should keep in mind:
1) Medicine is an inexact science - we will forever be learning as we go
2) ASK QUESTIONS - get as much information as you can possibly absorb, ask whatever comes to mind - if your doctor does not seem forthcoming, seek a second opinion
3) As a species we survived for ages without modern medicine - which is not to say it has not done amazing things and enabled us to be healthier in the long run - however, your immune system evolved with a purpose, and is worth relying on
As a result, I have NEVER had a flu shot, because I feel that my body may actually develop more immune system strength by being exposed to the seasonal bugs. I've been immunized against those things that may kill me outright, or cause serious health concerns. I recall my last bout of the flu (pre-H1N1) as being absolutely miserable, but as a 20-something, healthy-eating & exercising individual, I was willing to let my body do the best it could to beat the illness. I am more concerned about providing an environment in which these flu bugs and their kin can grow more resistant due to overuse of certain pharmaceuticals.
My father would probably disagree, and my mother would probably be proud... ;)
Posted by Allison | October 16, 2009 4:07 PM
Posted on October 16, 2009 16:07
I like to be informed but goodness my brain hurts after reading all the various takes on this issue. thanks for the easy links.
Posted by Sharon | October 16, 2009 9:21 PM
Posted on October 16, 2009 21:21
"Don't make your decisions based on fear." is what I always keep in mind. For anything.
I also totally agree with the idea of doing things naturally. Breast give milk, that's natural, and obvious, nobody can be rude and say that breastfeeding women are cows (I heard that a lot).
But I am surprised, here in France, most of the boys are not circumcized (except muslim boys), and there is no problem.
Why do american people think it is something important to cut this piece of skin?
Posted by MissYuzu | October 17, 2009 3:50 AM
Posted on October 17, 2009 03:50
You say, "On the other side of it, there aren't any health risks associated with uncircumcised penises." This is not exactly accurate. To wit: there is quite a bit of evidence that circumcision can reduce the transmission of HIV and HPV, which as you know causes cervical cancer. The reduction of transmission would thus affect both male and female health.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Circumcision#Sexually_transmitted_diseases
In addition, adult penile infections are higher among the uncircumcised: "During infancy, circumcised children were found to have a significantly higher risk of problems than uncircumcised children, but after infancy the rate of penile problems was significantly higher among the uncircumcised." Also, urinary tract infections are more prevalent among the uncircumcised.
This is not to say that I think circumcision is a good idea, just that there are, in fact, many potential health risks involved with remaining uncircumcised.
Posted by Blaize | October 17, 2009 10:13 PM
Posted on October 17, 2009 22:13