[TheForge] Fw: Risks of FluMist Vaccine-OT

[John Husvar]

David E. Smucker wrote:
> Well we sure don't agree on that one -- polio vaccine.  I was there -- grade
> school -- early 50's and knew kids that got polio, it stopped it dead in
> it's tracks.  You are too young to remember the iron lungs, legs braces etc.
> Not picking a fight, just a different point of view.
> 
> Dave Smucker
> 

I understand some people's hesitancy to vaccinate. In some cases, the 
risk of a bad reaction from the vaccine is higher than the risk of 
actually contracting the diseases. I guess one must weigh the severity 
of bad reaction to the vaccine against the damage the disease can do.

Folks seem to come down on both sides, I guess.

I used to subscribe to a mailing list for Post-Polio Syndrome. 
Interesting group of Type A personalities (Read: Crips with attitudes.) 
who shared a lot of heelpful information.

I had a mild case of polio as a young child and now, 50 years later, I 
have some really irritating reoccurrence symptoms. It's finally been 
confirmed that polio has effects far longer than was at first thought, 
like lifelong. It comes back to haunt you and it sometimes comes back 
hard enough to do further damage.

Lemme tell ya, Pilgrims:)

Polio is a bad one. Funny thing is, it's now thought to be endemic in 
most soils and that nearly all kids were exposed to it through playing 
in the dirt and gradually built up an immunity to it, except for a few 
who actually got it. After people started emphasizing keeping the kids 
cleaner, some theorize, that immunity was compromised because the kids 
weren't exposed early and mildly. the older a kid was when he finally 
did encounter the virus, the worse the disease tended to be.

That's _a_ current explanation for a couple of the later outbreaks, 
especially in the late forties and early fifties. There's some 
controversy about it, but polio vaccination is one I'd really consider 
even if I didn't believe in any of theothers.

I'm old enough to remember mothers praying their way up flights of stone 
steps on their knees into the local cathedrals after the Salk vaccine 
came out, not long after my bout with it. My mother insisted I get the 
vaccine, and later the Sabin, even though I'd had the disease and was 
presumably immune. Guess Mom was of the 
If-one's-good-two-or-three-can't-hurt school. :)

There's a lot of argument about risk/benefit of vaccination and its 
possible side effects. What I know for sure is I knew kids who died of it.


-- 
Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of
arriving safely in one pretty and well-preserved piece.
One should rather skid in broadside, thoroughly used up,
totally worn out, and loudly proclaiming -- "WOW!  WHAT A RIDE!"