[Hoofbite]

Originally Posted by Dallas

Its offensive as a parent seeing someone w/o children try and relate for a second on this topic.

Hoof, nothing personal, but you have NO IDEA what you are talking about. You have no children nor bond to even try to understand where a parent is coming from when they say you will not vaccinate my child. You will not stick my child w/ things I do not support.

There should be nothing offensive about it.

Why would I need to have an understanding of the parent-child bond when the vast majority of reasons that people cite for refusing the flu shot are irrational, something I do have an understanding of? I won't necessarily include the concern over an egg allergy in that because such concerns were reflected in the guidelines. That said, if recent data suggest that egg allergy concerns were blown out of proportion and the possible risk of an allergic reaction is low I would anticipate that people would have their concerns minimized and no longer refuse vaccination for that reason alone. When you get a vaccination, the store has EpiPens on hand to handle allergic reactions. If that's not reassuring enough, their primary care provider could administer it in a more supervised setting.

I don't suppose the birth of your child changed your view on the flu shot, why would mine be expected to change?

I understand the value of vaccines on the individual and societal level. Having a child isn't going to change that.

But even if we want to play the "I know what's best for my kid" game, you have to acknowledge that other parents do as well. If all the other parents are taking steps to avoid the spread of influenza because they deem it to be best, you're basically saying you don't care what they think is best because you presenting the possibility of exposure. You're willing to take the trade off that your child might spread the virus to the youngest children who are at the highest risk all because "you know best"? Pretty selfish and irresponsible when you start thinking outside of your own box and what consequences could arise based on your decisions.

My son has never had a flu shot in his life, nor I. We are never sick nor never get sick. We might get a cold, but probably far less than most.

So please, don't sit here and tell us how the flu shot is some savior, when it has never been proven, but has been proven to have complications.

Thanks

Ummm, the flu shot isn't meant to eradicate influenza. The nature of the bug makes it so. It mutates into different variations that cannot be predicted so the vaccine is only aimed at the variants that are determined to be "most likely". They use these "most likely" variants to create the vaccine. If a new variant were to arise, how could expect it to be covered?

Getting a flu shot doesn't guarantee that you won't get infected by another strain. It's quite possible someone who refuses vaccination be infected by a strain that would have been covered and they infect others who then infect more people, and so on and so forth, until finally a new strain that is not covered arises and infects vaccinated individuals.

The flu shot does reduce the spread of the flu. While there has been some questions about the actual reduction, even the low estimates are significant enough to result in more benefits than harm.