Big picture of flu vaccination
Your article about expanding the pool of influenza vaccine candidates to those ages 6 months to 17 years might distract parents’ attention from the real benefits of getting their kids vaccinated [“They Help Kids -- but Mostly Benefit the Herd,” March 10]. Although the total number of youngsters who succumb to the flu is not large, and it is unclear how many lives would be saved by the vaccine, that is beside the point.
The larger picture should include the prevention of severe illness requiring doctor visits, blood tests and hospitalizations, with benefits including relief of suffering and massive savings for the healthcare system. The highly likely impact on the 36,000-plus annual death toll among seniors of stopping the “snotty-nosed transmitters” from passing on the often-deadly virus to their grandparents is also a major benefit.
Better still, there is no downside. The vaccine is safe, despite your gratuitous reference to the unfortunate swine flu episode of 1976, in which ill-advised government panic led to inadequately tested vaccine being unleashed on the public, with unfortunate (albeit still quite rare) complications.
Let’s not quibble about this long-overdue decision.
Gilbert Ross
New York
The writer is executive and medical director of the American Council on Science and Health.
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Your article did not mention that one of the major problems with the flu vaccine is that it is grown in egg whites, and this is one of the leading causes of allergies in children.
My doctor knew my daughter was allergic to eggs but forgot and gave her the vaccine anyway. When I called to find out why she was exploding in hives all over her body and had a fever and diarrhea after her vaccine, the doctor and her allergist suggested it might be some kind of reaction to the hepatitis vaccine. Neither mentioned the flu vaccine.
I believe the flu vaccine should not be added for all children, especially those under 6. The number of children suffering from allergies is so high.
Kristen Hurley
Los Angeles
