Flu jab?
 

What is the SNet view? My son is 9 & wife wants him to have it ... I'm not keen as IMHO healthy people should fight it off fine whilst littluns, old foggies & already ill people MAY get taken out. Bit of a quandary.

TX.

Mine haven't or going to,my eldest is 9 and the twin's are 7.
My feeling is like your's tbho that the healthy can fight it off without help.

My son had it and ended up in hospital with a temp of 42 c :nono:

I wouldn't give it to my kid unless GP thought there was a good reason for him to have it. dl

afaik children have been worst affected by the flu virus,sadly several deaths
but of those children most had other serious illnesses too.
my six year old has not had the jab and thankfully has been ok ,i on the other hand ended up in bed with flu for 2-3 weeks . difficult one to call

9 years old flu jab are you taking the p!ss?

No quandary. If he's healthy then no need for it.

BTW: saying that even though I have a 6 year old. No way is he getting injected with the flu vaccine. The vaccine *cocktail* may not even be right for the type of flu virus he *might* catch so you gamble that way too. As has been said above, there's always the chance of side effects from the jab anyway.

Dave

The worry is that H1N1 strain which can be deadly as we have seen this year. I personally wanted some kind of protection against that one.

Les

my 5 year old daughter has had it.

We have a friend thats in hospital with swine flu, let me tell you that you should do anything you can to not get it! he is one of the most healthy people that I know, cant ever remember him having a day off work. hes in quarentine on a life support machine in intensive care at the minute, he didnt think he needed the flu jab either.

leave it with you.

Difficult one - I have a 5 yr old & 7yr old.

The thing that bought it home for me was that 5yr old girl who died on boxing day or whatever - she was perfectly healthy the day before xmas!

It almost a damned if you do, damned if you dont call is'nt it......

I don't understand the paranoia about getting a vaccination, it's not as if flu jabs are something new - why take additional risk for your children when you don't have to? If it was 'normal' flu then I wouldn't bother with it - but given that H1N1 effects the young more and has proved fatal to healthy children then it gets the thumbs up from me.

My 5 year and 3 year olds had the swine flu jab last year after we took advice and soundings from 3 GP friends and my sister who is a practice nurse. Glad we did.

End of the day though, it's up to each parent to manage the risk for their own children i.e. when I grow up I'll do everything to stop my boys smoking and riding motorbikes, but some parents are happy puffing away in front and onto/into their children and think the risk of injury from riding a bike is worth the thrill. Everyone is different.

We have 'struggled' with this.

I had the jab dec 2009 as i am in a high risk group - it hospitalised me for 10 days with nearly all of the nasty side effects with me on good sized doses of morphine to help reduce the pain and suffering! it was the sickest and most pain i have been in and i have has Meningitis (as a child)

My girls are 8 (tomorrow) and 5 and a half both are in good health, fit and no underlying issues and we have decided not to vaccinate them.

ive just recovered from swine flu, and thankfully my lad who is 3 years old had the vaccine, it knocked me off my feet for 3 weeks solid, i dread to think what it would have done to him. i say go for it and get them vaccinated to be on the safe side

I certainly would do that.

Les

In the same dilemma - but I think the decision will be taken out of your hands.

I had swine flu in 2009, suffered from hypoxia as a result, and I believe it was a close call. I am in good health, no underlying conditions and no health risks.

I have 7 month old twins, and I would not be convinced such a young child would be able to easily fight off swine flu. I am not happy about the mercury content of the vaccine, and the other preservatives in it, but asked my wife to ask the childrens GP last week about giving them the jab as a precautionary measure, as I have no idea if they may have underlying conditions which may only present as complications once taken ill.

The GP told my wife, that he had been instructed not to administer the swine flu vaccine or seasonal flu vaccine to any child under 5, or anyone without a previously diagnosed underlying health condition. She was led to believe there was a list of underlying conditions which merited the jab.

Indications (according to health professionals in media interviews) are that the swine flu outbreak has now peaked in terms of number of infections, and the number of fatalities is not excessive with our without underlying complications, when viewed against the number of fatalities caused by the seasonal flu outbreaks that occur every year.

I got the swine flu vaccine about a year ago and had zero side effects. Get the regular flu vaccine every year and have no side effects.

Ask your doctor - not a bunch of strangers on a website :thumb:

I worked for Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics on their flu vaccine portfolio and some of the posts on here are total ****e.

i did this on the wrong thread