I heard an interesting thing on NPR. Turns out, if you innoculate 3 and 4 year old, you'd probably prevent most of the spread of flu. Apparently that's where the flu hits first. 3 & 4 year olds don't have the best hygene in the world and it spreads like crazy amoung them. They take it home, it spreads at home. Innoculating the elderly isn't terribly efficient because the vaccine doesn't work all that well in them.

Anyway, I heard they did this in some European countries and it worked really well.

Well, I have a 4-year old son. Last year he started preschool and he's brought home every almost every known virus under the sun... and shared it with my wife and me... so I believe that :)

Over the summer we were all health and nary a sniffle was heard around the house. In August he started his second year of preschool and within 2 days had a cold. In the 6 weeks so far he's had 2 colds, the flu and a couple days of a light fever for some unknown reason (wasn't sick otherwise).

Gonna be another long winter I think...

We nicknamed my now 3 year old neice "The Plague Bringer" (no joke, we really refer to her this way). Every time she's been in our presence (or we in hers) we've gotten really sick. The last time my parents were going to visit, they literally called off their trip the day before because the neice was sick. Last time we visited her, she gave us a stomach flu that had Iagoe vomitting for 8 hours straight with no more than 5 minutes between bouts.

I think innoculating all children 3-10 years old could stop most of the flu spreading. Meanwhile, I think I'll just avoid The Plague Bringer during flu season.

I heard an interesting thing on NPR. Turns out, if you innoculate 3 and 4 year old, you'd probably prevent most of the spread of flu. Apparently that's where the flu hits first. 3 & 4 year olds don't have the best hygene in the world and it spreads like crazy amoung them. They take it home, it spreads at home. Innoculating the elderly isn't terribly efficient because the vaccine doesn't work all that well in them.

Anyway, I heard they did this in some European countries and it worked really well.

You need to take it one step further to understand why the focus of influenza innoculation is not on kids in the US.

Because there is always going to be a minute percentage of ppl that are adversely affected by flu vaccine, including death.

You innoculate a bunch of old ppl and a few die, who cares? The lawsuits are not going to be that costly.

You innoculate a bunch of kids and some die, go have a crusading Mom suing.

The threat of lawsuits in the US also explains why only a few manufcaturers of vaccine exist today and are mostly based outside of the company. Remember last year when a large share of the U.S. vaccine supply had to be dumped due to an issue with a lab in England.

Flu shots are given to "at risk" groups. Elderly are given priority because they are more likely to develop dangerous complications.

Here is what the CDC says:
Who Should Get Vaccinated
In general, anyone who wants to reduce their chances of getting the flu can get vaccinated. However, certain people should get vaccinated each year. They are either people who are at high risk of having serious flu complications or people who live with or care for those at high risk for serious complications.

People who should get vaccinated each year are:

1.) People at high risk for complications from the flu:

People 65 years and older;
People who live in nursing homes and other long-term care facilities that house those with long-term illnesses;
Adults and children 6 months and older with chronic heart or lung conditions, including asthma;
Adults and children 6 months and older who needed regular medical care or were in a hospital during the previous year because of a metabolic disease (like diabetes), chronic kidney disease, or weakened immune system (including immune system problems caused by medicines or by infection with human immunodeficiency virus [HIV/AIDS]);
Children 6 months to 18 years of age who are on long-term aspirin therapy. (Children given aspirin while they have influenza are at risk of Reye syndrome.);
Women who will be pregnant during the influenza season;
All children 6 to 23 months of age;
People with any condition that can compromise respiratory function or the handling of respiratory secretions (that is, a condition that makes it hard to breathe or swallow, such as brain injury or disease, spinal cord injuries, seizure disorders, or other nerve or muscle disorders.)
2.) People 50 to 64 years of age. Because nearly one-third of people 50 to 64 years of age in the United States have one or more medical conditions that place them at increased risk for serious flu complications, vaccination is recommended for all persons aged 50 – 64 years.

3.) People who can transmit flu to others at high risk for complications. Any person in close contact with someone in a high-risk group (see above) should get vaccinated. This includes all health-care workers, household contacts and out-of-home caregivers of children 0 to 23 months of age, and close contacts of people 65 years and older.

Yes, I understand that is the current method. But the problem is, they're not all that effective in the elderly. I would think you would still innoculate them, but if you got the kids innoculated you'd probably go a long way towards reducing the economic burden of the flu, plus you'd have fewer deaths in the elderly because the flu shots just don't work all that well in them.

Here's the NPR link if anyone is interested: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4945957

Yes, I understand that is the current method. But the problem is, they're not all that effective in the elderly. I would think you would still innoculate them, but if you got the kids innoculated you'd probably go a long way towards reducing the economic burden of the flu, plus you'd have fewer deaths in the elderly because the flu shots just don't work all that well in them.

Here's the NPR link if anyone is interested: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4945957

I have no real knowledge of the numbers involve and can only assume the ones making the report are correct, but I would expect the number of elderly in our societies is a bit too big to rely on so-called "herd immunity" to protect them.
I do know that Dutch health authorities not so long ago publicly expressed their worry about the trend that some misguided parents out of the foolish and unfounded belief that innoculations would be harmful to the children refused to let them be given. The number of unprotected children had risen to a few percent of the population and they feared that it would allow epidemics of some very nasty diseases to resurface if the trend was not stopped and reversed quickly. The mentioned 7 or 8 pct for some diseases and I am fairly certain the percentage of elderly people is much bigger than that.


Eri

I suspect they'd still immunize the people most at risk of dying of the flu.

The kids should be getting the shots at school for free. The costs of lost production FAR outweighs the 15 bucks they cost.

I am with Pan, on this one big time. Children are the biggest spreaders(vectors, if you will) of disease amoung humans. Stop it there.

Vaccines for Human Papilloma Virus(HPV), and Herpes Simplex Virus(HSV) are in clinical trials right now. The catch is that they must be given before first exposure, ie when they are children.

There are assinine abstinence groups which are advocating NOT giving these vaccines, right now; because they are STDs.

HPV is the number one cause of cervical cancer.

I heard an interesting thing on NPR. Turns out, if you innoculate 3 and 4 year old, you'd probably prevent most of the spread of flu. Apparently that's where the flu hits first.

Some of those vaccinations are dangerous to children or have a risk of being dangerous. I don't know about flu but parents should be careful...

Some of those vaccinations are dangerous to children or have a risk of being dangerous.

Which ones?

I don't know about flu but parents should be careful...

Any parent who is not careful about their children should not be a parent.

.

Which ones?

I don't know. Vaccines are made from chicken eggs and some people are allergic to chicken eggs. Some vaccines contain arsenic(I think). Just ask your doctor about the vaccine and any side effects.

There are alternative mediums to culture vaccines in. You can get innoculated with a different sort.

I think the big question is about (no clue how to spell it) thisimerol (thigh-sim-erol), and its possible link to autism, in vaccines and I don't know if they use that in flu vaccines or not.

There are alternative mediums to culture vaccines in. You can get innoculated with a different sort.

I think the big question is about (no clue how to spell it) thisimerol (thigh-sim-erol), and its possible link to autism, in vaccines and I don't know if they use that in flu vaccines or not.

That autism link was debunked by the british medical society in a large scale investigation. It is just a scare story that keeps being perpetuated because hardly anybody has the knowledge to consider its merits impartially, and because the perceived risk of it being true is so severe. Parents tend to be better safe than sorry with their children and think they must decide between a crippling condition and (what they belief are) harmless children's diseases.

I guess that it would be better to have a campaign to show the effects of those 'harmless' diseases on unprotected children. Some of those are amongst the biggest killers of all diseases (e.g. measles ranks right at the top with killers like influenza, malaria and smallpox).


Eri

I've seen the debunking and the rebuttal to the debunking. I'm staying skeptical of both sides at the moment. I definitely agree that kids need vaccinations, why can't they replace the thimerisol with something else?

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/06/16/thimerosal/index.html

Actually, I think it has been replaced.

I think they'll need to keep innoculating the elderly. Any move to innoculate children would need to be phased in over a few years and only then can they look at the results and see if the elderly are still at risk. There's no need to stop innoculating the elderly immediately when you start innoculating the children, other than to save pennies.

I think they'll need to keep innoculating the elderly. Any move to innoculate children would need to be phased in over a few years and only then can they look at the results and see if the elderly are still at risk. There's no need to stop innoculating the elderly immediately when you start innoculating the children, other than to save pennies.

Elderly are not children.

They can get the shots themselves, and do.