Swine Flu Vaccine – most health care workers aren’t keen. What about you?
Also, last week, an on-line survey of almost 9,000 health care workers revealed that 58% had reservations about being injected with the swine flu vaccine.
Why would that be?
Could it be that the swine flu isn’t a particularly nasty virus and they’d rather take their chances with the flu than risk being injured by the vaccine?
In Australia, the state of Victoria has been at the centre of the swine flu outbreak. Health journalist Melissa Sweet, writing in the British Medical Journal, quoted Heath Kelly, head of the epidemiology unit at the Victorian Infectious Diseases Reference Laboratory. In his opinion, deaths from swine flu in Australia will be under 1,000, as opposed to the 1,500-3,000 deaths that are commonly associated with the seasonal flu each year.
If you’re already very unhealthy – for example, morbidly obese, an unstable diabetic or someone with severe emphysema – then you’ve probably got more to worry about than the average person when it comes to swine flu, bird flu or any other sort of flu. Your body isn’t in good shape. It’s going to break down earlier and worse than most.
The question for you is this: if you’re already that sick, will taking a vaccine that has been created on the fly and only tested on 240 people be your best bet in staying healthy?
If you’re in pretty good health at the moment, then you’re probably going to get over a case of swine flu after a few days of feeling miserable on the couch.
Professor Peter Collignon, an infectious disease expert from the Australian National University, thinks that the swine flu vaccination campaign is an over-reaction. He predicts one or two extra cases of the paralysing Guillian-Barre syndrome per million vaccinations.
I’d much rather suffer a few days on the couch than a potentially life-threatening or paralysing case of GBS!
What about you? What do you think?
comment by Tiffani
Thank you for a wonderful night at the movies on Friday. Your generosity is very moving. Thank you for being such an inspiring leader for my family and for the community.