Parents and healthcare workers may refuse to get immunized or vaccinate their children against a pandemic virus if they believe the risks of a novel vaccine outweigh the benefits, according to research published in Emerging Health Threats Journal.
Parents known to favor ‘alternative medicine’ were particularly opposed to vaccination-but even healthcare workers would be reluctant to get vaccinated against an illness perceived as mild. “Participants were very concerned that in a pandemic, a vaccine would be brought to market without sufficient testing for safety,” write the researchers. Many believed that instead, they could protect themselves against infection through personal control measures such as hand washing, social distancing, or even a good diet. While these measures are important, say Henrich and Holmes, they are not sufficient to prevent illness. This needs to be made clear to the public to ensure the vaccination campaign is successful, they stress.
See the article here:
Citation: Henrich N and Holmes BJ. “The public’s acceptance of novel vaccines during a pandemic: A focus group study and its application to influenza H1N1.” Emerging Health Threats Journal 2009;2:e8 doi: 10.3134/ehtj.09.008
Dr. Tedd Koren
Dr. Koren, originally from Brooklyn, NY, lives in Montgomery County, PA. A graduate of the U of Miami and Sherman College of Chiropractic, he writes, lectures and teaches in the US, Europe and Australia as well as takes care of patients and fights for healthcare freedom. Dr. Koren and his wife Beth have two children.
The threat of this so called pandemic is insane. I’m glad that ‘they’ may be starting to listen to the people.
I am a mother of a 22 year old son. Generally, we barely see a regular MD and see Chiropractors pretty regularly. I probably wouldn’t even think about the flu vaccine accept for the fact that my son was born with BronchoPulmonaryDysplegia where they damaged his lungs and airways with the ventilator. He spent the first 6 months of his life in the NICU and the next two years going back and forth even when he was quarentined from other people. He has really struggled over the years and we have been told that he will probably have emphasema when he is older. I, myself, have asthma quite badly where it takes around 3 months for me to recover from a normal flu.
I am terrified. I find myself slipping backward into worrying about my son dying. He doesn’t want to get the shot but one of the boys that was in the hospital with him when he was born is in a coma in the ICU on a respirator.
I have tried to tell my son that even if the slightest feeling of being sick occurs, he has to go to the hospital to be tested but I just found out that he was sick 2 weeks ago and didn’t tell me. The last time he went hiking up a tall mountain, he got one of those lack of oxygen headaches so I know he has some residual effects from his disease.
I guess I want to know what you think given his past illness and failure to thrive from the illness. He has finally caught up in size with the other young men but he is extremely thin, 160 lbs at 6’3″.
So what do you think?