Note: This week is National Influenza Vaccination Week (NIVW). Today is my attempt to put the risks of vaccination in perspective.
# 5122
Practically every time I mention vaccines in this blog (which is pretty often), I end up with 1 or 2 scathing comments about the `evil’ vaccines do, and links to the usual suspects that peddle vaccine paranoia.
Those comments almost always end up deleted, since they offer little more than vaccine vitriol and the same tired arguments. Invariably they contain a reference to someone whose life was seriously disrupted by a flu vaccine.
In the ultimate personification of irony, I know smokers who refuse the vaccine each year because they don’t know what `poisons’ might be in it.
But as I’ve pointed out in virtually every vaccine essay I’ve written, vaccines are not 100% safe or completely benign.
They can have side effects. Sometimes, albeit rarely, those side effects can be serious.
And that is true for all medicines, medical procedures, and just about everything you ingest in life.
I almost died at the age of 17 from an anaphylactic reaction to penicillin. It took a trip to the ER, and IV epinephrine, to alleviate the crisis. That doesn’t make penicillin a bad drug, it is just the wrong drug for me (and others with a similar allergy).
Even aspirin and NSAIDs – sold over the counter – contribute to thousands of hospitalizations and deaths each year.
There are risks in just about everything you do.
As I’ve said before, if you want a guarantee in life . . . buy a Craftsman.
Today Fergus Walsh, BBC’s medical reporter and blogger, has a terrific essay called:
Aspirin, cancer risk and a personal decision
This is an interesting article on cancer and the potential protective effects of aspirin, but I highlight it because it illustrates quite well that we must always consider the downside to every medical decision we make.
Even if it is something as seemingly innocuous as taking an aspirin every day.
We must weigh the risks against the potential reward and accept that all medicines are a double-edged sword.
Okay, back to the flu vaccine.
Last year in excess of 12,000 Americans are believed to have died from the Swine flu, and the CDC estimates there were roughly 274,000 pandemic flu related hospitalizations.
Overwhelmingly, those killed or hospitalized were under the age of 65.
Despite near-hysterical warnings over the safety of the pandemic vaccine, no deaths were attributed to the Swine flu shot (see CIDRAP VAERS study finds H1N1 vaccine safety similar to seasonal vaccines') and most reported side effects from the vaccine were minor, and temporary.
Only 726 serious adverse reactions were reported, out of more than 80 million shots given.
- 0 deaths from the Vaccine vs 12,000 deaths from the flu.
- 726 severe reactions vs. 274,000 flu hospitalizations
That’s the risk reward ratio to consider.
Even if the vaccine were only 50% effective in preventing the flu, a greater uptake could have saved thousands of lives and tens of thousands of hospital stays.
The truth is, the benefits of the flu shot far exceed its risks.
And that holds true every year, not just during a pandemic.
