Cut the bullshit and get your kids immunised!

This post has been appearing and disappearing constantly! I can't get it to appear in editing, then it disappears in the real post, so I have to start again!! I think Blogger is still having digestive troubles.

First of all, I spotted an article in GOOD about how 8 kids from one little church community died from measles in 1991.

"In 1991, nobody from First Century Gospel Church was prosecuted for failing to give measles vaccinations to the congregation’s children, a decision that resulted in eight of the kids dying from an outbreak of the illness."

They died because their parents falsely believed that vaccination was unnecessary because faith in God could fix their kids instead. Imagine if eight children who attended one church in your neighbourhood all died over a short period of time! How would any Australian community let those poor victims of religious delusion die from a disease which is totally preventable? I'm sure most people these days have NEVER seen anyone with measles. You probably don't have any relatives who are deaf or have lifelong brain damage from measles, either. This is all good. BUT some people who have never seen the symptoms think it isn't a risk any more and so DON'T vaccinate their kids. Do they realise that one of their kids' could easily catch it from a visitor or another unvaccinated child?

Now the US Centre for Disease Control is releasing some alarming statistics about the current rash of measles cases.

It's happened with Whooping Cough (pertussis) where many middle-aged adults whose childhood vaccinations have worn off, get nasty attacks of Whooping Cough that lay them low for weeks. Some cough for months, making work impossible or difficult- imagine being a miner? Note though, that adult Wooping Cough is easily stopped in its tracks by the antibiotic erythromycin, which you can get from your GP or local 24-hour clinic. It works quickly- I've had Whooping Cough as an adult and had to convince the old GP to do a swab to prove I had it.

From unvaccinated people and the expired immunity in adults, babies are starting to get Whooping Cough again. People may not realise that babies can catch it because the immunisation for this doesn't begin until 2 months of age (I think- please correct me if incorrect). This means that newborns who have doting grandparents as babysitters are completely open to infection and at high risk of serious illness or death! My efforts to encourage new grandparents to become re-vaccinated have been surprisingly unsuccessful. Some say- "I'd know if I was infectious, so I wouldn't babysit that day", or, as many nurses say about influenza, "I'm too healthy. I'd never get whooping cough". It's noticeable these days that people continually question public health advice as though the experts don't know anything. Now this sort of advice is based on so many years of work- generations in fact with some diseases (like smallpox), it needs to be accepted at face value. People should regard it as solidly as they would regard injunctions against punching out strangers in a crowd! But no. I keep plugging away, having a word in an ear here or on Facebook another day, hoping the message is persistent enough it will trick.

There is a great chart at this site you can print off that tells you what needles babies should get at what ages. It also has a handy guide to the main physical abilities of babies at those ages:

http://www.gpnnt.org.au/client_images/305400.pdf

Visit these other more erudite blogs for more info, esp. if I haven't convinced you:

http://www.australianimages.com.au/opinion/vaccination.php [Has a video of a child with Whooping Cough just to show how awful it is].

Roald Dahl (yes, the story book guy) had a baby who died from measles- too young for the vaccine. Here's an interview with him talking to Cory Doctorow (yes, another book guy...):

http://boingboing.net/2009/06/03/roald-dahl-on-vaccin.html

Germs- eerrgghh!!

I was inspired by Mike Mad Biologist (http://is.gd/2tdfe), to have a (-nother) rant about spreading germs.

I truly hate it when people:

a) sneeze, cough, spit or snort without attempting to cover it up or face away from others. If only the training most of us receive in childhood about these courtesies would stick!
and/or:

b) laugh at me when I ask them to keep their germs to themselves.

I'm quite phobic (in a mild sort of way) about catching seasonal viruses and things as I'm an asthmatic. My body is notorious for catching a virus, going all breathless on me and making fertile ground for a friendly bacteria to jump on board and lay me low for days or weeks. I've improved with age and learning to look after myself, but I still get horribly wheezy when I get a cold or whatever. I absolutely HATE IT! It feels like I am sidelined from real life for a while and I just have to sit here and take it, while life goes on as usual for everyone else. I don't seem to be able to carry on as usual like most people- I need rest, I can't breathe well enough to hold a decent conversation and I'm useless going out for a meal. The housework piles up, the cats get hungry, we run out of clean clothes and I scowl at the sheets that need changing while I'm stuck in bed gasping and snorting.

What's more, every time I get something serious, I'm reminded that both my grandfathers died in the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic- neither one having left their home towns for the First World War. Sure, one of them probably suffered from asthma as well and worked in a hospital; but the other grandfather was a pretty healthy bloke until then. They both left large families to be brought up by their wives and the eldest kids, which must have been a struggle in those days. Luckily both grandmas had small businesses, which is pretty unusual- one had a sandwich shop in Elizabeth St in Sydney and the other was a well qualified Tailor (-ess) in Wellington, New Zealand. It's not like many younger people die from colds or flu these days- it's mainly older people and those with pre-existing conditions (like asthma, which killed my education tutor at uni when she was only 29). However, so many days of work and useful life are lost from seasonal viruses that I think it's worth defending yourself and others the best way you can.
First line prevention is just what Mike the Biologist says: Wash your hands! and Cover those sneezes!

I'd certainly wear a mask if the flu really took hold- I think the Japanese are quite good with this measure, even though we have been laughing at them on their highspeed trains with their face masks all these years.

Let's get with it- protect ourselves and our mates and cost the country a lot less!

PS. I've been intrigued for some time with the notion that some schizophrenia might be precipitated by prenatal effects of viruses such as the flu or common cold on the developing brain. This article is a broad account of such ideas.