Get Your Flu Shot

From Carl Zimmer today I found this excellent opinion piece in the NYT by Jessica Snyder Sachs, explaining why you should get your children vaccinated and why the “natural” approach is no such thing. Some extracts:

Some parents have come to embrace colds and flus, and in recent years we’ve seen a resurgence of the chickenpox party, where parents deliberately expose their preschoolers to infected playmates on the theory that it’s better to get the disease than to have the vaccine.

But the idea that illness is good for children — or anyone else — is wrong. In part, the idea of “good sickness” is a throwback to a now disproved version of the “hygiene hypothesis.”

And she goes on to explain why this idea, which originally was thought to be sound, has been proven wrong. I actually met a woman recently who thought it was better for her kids to get a disease than to have the disease prevented by a vaccine. The logic for that escaped me (if your kid gets the disease he’ll then not get the disease again?). I wish I’d had this article handy. Also, I didn’t know this:

Moreover, studies now show that the more infections a person has during childhood, the greater his or her chance of premature death from scourges of old age like heart disease and cancer. The link appears to be chronic inflammation, a kind of lingering collateral damage from the body’s disease-fighting response.

I thought the most interesting part was how Snyder Sachs explained that getting immunity through getting the disease, is not natural:

A second misconception common among vaccine-shunning parents is that there’s something “natural” about the 6 to 10 respiratory infections the typical American child gets every year (or even the two to four we adults experience). Common, yes; natural no, not if “natural” represents the forces that shaped the human immune system during all but the last sliver of our 250,000 years as Homo sapiens. Colds, flus and most other contagious diseases found a central place in our lives only after we and our domestic animals began crowding together in large settlements some 5,000 years ago.

The article goes on to explain why you really should get your flu shot this year.

Comments

[kevin minney]

Couple of points
You are very general about referring to vaccinations, only in the headline do you refer to getting your flu shot.
For more than 20 years flu shots were reserved for those with impaired immune systems and the elderly for 2 reasons: one, flu could kill them; two, the flu shot was a best guess combination of a few of the many current viruses. If you are young and strong getting the flu would only confer lifelong immunity on you. If it was the wrong choice of viruses the vaccine wouldn't even give you immunity for the one season it was supposed to. This was the stance of the CID until the pharma companies got a little to close in.

[sophia8]

"If you are young and strong getting the flu would only confer lifelong immunity on you."
ORLY???
I've had several doses of flu over the last five decades, each one worse than the last. I'm now of an age and state of health where another dose could put me into the local ICU.
I'm getting my flu jab.

[Bronze Dog]

Do I sense evolution denial as well? Germs evolve. The flu is no exception.

[Skeptico]

kevin minney:

You didn't even read the article. Did you?

[dr. luba]

My SIL's SIL is one of those crazy whole earth anti-vaccintaion types. She decided not to immunize her kids against chicken pox and, surprise of surprises, they all came down with it. They had fairly mild cases.

Her husband, who'd apparently managed to avoid it as a child, was not so lucky. Miserable as hell, and missed ten days of work. But at least he didn't die of respiratory distress like some adults do.

Vacination is not only about protecting yourself from disease, but about protecting society at large (and especially the weak and immunocompromised) through herd immunity. The anti-vaccinationists are not only stupid and selfish, but downright dangerous.

[ohwilleke]

While it is no argument not to get a flu shot, the hygene hypothesis in its current form is still good science.

Among the most interesting recent findings is that the same germ that causes stomach ulcers, when absent, is a risk factor for asthma. Antibiotics have killed off this germ in a much larger share of people and this may explain rising athsma.