Shot of Prevention

By Amy Pisani

This past Friday night my children were both finally vaccinated against H1N1 at a vaccination clinic at our town hall.  It’s hard to express the relief I felt the moment they inhaled those precious (and hard to find) vaccines.  While I recognize that the vaccine takes several days (and two doses) to offer protection, I still let my guard down a bit and gave the ole hand sanitizer a welcome respite over the weekend.

Some people might think that I’m a bit alarmist over the influenza virus, and I have to admit that they are absolutely correct.  It is upsetting that children die every year from seasonal influenza when there is a safe and highly effective vaccine to prevent this disease.  Even a single child is one too many to lose to a preventable disease. Each year, the CDC estimates that between 46 and 153 children die from seasonal influenza.   Government health officials say H1N1 flu has sickened about 22 million Americans since April.  Nearly 4,000 people have died, including 540 kids (1/3 whom had no underlying conditions).   http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/estimates_2009_h1n1.htm

Until recently, we had no means of protecting ourselves and our loved ones against this virus aside from practicing the proper hand washing techniques and of course staying away from anyone who looked like they’d contracted the plague!  Thankfully, shipments of the vaccine are increasing, and more of us can be protected each day.  In fact, Google and the American Lung Association have joined forces on a newer version of a flu shot clinic locator that includes both seasonal and H1N1 vaccination sites.  The site is easy to remember: www.google.com/flushot and I urge everyone not to give up on efforts to get vaccinated.

My family is one of the lucky ones.  We have two healthy, happy boys. One of whom is a nine year old who loves baseball, ice hockey and skiing.  However, each time I hear on the news that another child is suffering or has passed away, I remember the ordeal we endured when he was just past his first birthday.  During that flu season, he was hospitalized for “complications related to influenza” and it was a horrible experience for our family.  At the urging of Families Fighting Flu, I put our experiences on paper in the hopes that it would serve as a reminder of how dangerous the flu can be.

The first ten months of our son’s life progressed smoothly.  He was a happy baby, always laughing.  As fall arrived, he began catching numerous colds and did not seem to recover as quickly as other babies his age. Since he was not in daycare, his parents wondered why he contracted so many illnesses. His breathing would become labored and he would often vomit from the mucous build up in his nose and lungs.

Just prior to his first birthday, he became very ill – he was unable to be consoled, had a very high fever, and was listless and vomiting.  We were visiting my husband’s parents at the time, so we called our pediatrician who recommended that we take him directly to the emergency room.  As soon as we arrived, my son was rushed into a treatment room and placed on oxygen as they assessed his condition. His breathing was extremely labored and he was excessively dehydrated from the fever and vomiting.  He was admitted to the hospital and placed in a large, industrial type crib with metal bars.  His arm had to be tied down so that the intravenous fluids he was being given to combat the dehydration could be placed in his little arm.  He was surrounded by an oxygen tent to aid with his breathing, which precluded me from being able to breastfeed him on schedule and otherwise soothe him by holding him. Seeing a small baby in this condition is enough to break anyone’s heart, but as his parents, it was heart-wrenching.  Fortunately, he responded well to the treatments and was able to go home after several days for close follow-up with his pediatrician.

Our family enjoyed his first birthday celebration later in the month, thinking we were in the clear.  However, several days later he became irritable once again and started having high fevers.  Three days later, he was prescribed Albuterol to help with his breathing and the pediatrician kept a close watch on our son to ensure he did not develop pneumonia.  In November, he was placed on allergy medicine because of the continued “phlegmy, harsh cough”.  On November 17^th, I became very concerned about his condition – throughout the day he continued to vomit and had a very high fever.  As the night wore on, he seemed to become more listless, but as day broke, so did the fever.  My husband was out of town so I called the pediatrician to say he felt cold and clammy, but still so very listless.

The pediatrician directed me to rush the baby to the hospital.  Once in the emergency room, he was again given oxygen and intravenous fluids.  While in the ER, I learned that being cold and clammy was not a sign the fever had broken, but a dangerous sign that his blood pressure was too low.  My husband rushed home from his trip as our son was admitted to the hospital for treatment.  Again he was placed in the crib with the oxygen tent and every hour, twenty four hours a day a technician would come in to provide the baby with breathing treatments.  Often we would offer to give the treatments, just so we could feel useful during the interminable days and nights.  Three days later he was discharged to a very nervous set of parents with instructions about how to assess his breathing function in the event that he became ill again.  Fortunately, he made it through the rest of the flu season without any major illnesses.

Flash forward one year to the impeding influenza season.  I placed a call to my pediatrician to inquire about his need for a flu shot.  The staff person informed me there was a shortage and the vaccine was available only for high risk children.  I mentioned that he was hospitalized twice last year and assumed he might be high risk.  It wasn’t until this time that the staff informed me that, in fact he had been hospitalized due to complications from the flu and that since he also has asthma; he should receive the flu vaccine.  This was the first time we learned that our son’s hospitalization was related to the flu.  He’d only recently been diagnosed with asthma, which is a condition that is only diagnosed after a child exhibits ongoing symptoms. It is sometimes too late by the time you realize a child is high risk particularly since it may not be until the second year of life that asthma is even diagnosed; after several episodes.  Fortunately, influenza vaccine is now recommended for all children beginning at six months of age.

Each year, 36,000 people die from complications related to influenza.  After going through the experience of watching the heartbreak of our helpless infant suffer from these complications, we are now the first in line each year to seek vaccines for our entire family.  We want to ensure that others avoid the ultimate devastation that approximately 150 families endure each year when their child dies from the flu. For more information about how some families have taken action since losing their children to the flu, please go to www.familiesfightingflu.org. To learn more about important vaccines for children please visit Every Child by Two at www.ecbt.org and www.vaccinateyourbaby.org

Take action

• ALL children beginning at 6 months of age and their family members or caregivers should be vaccinated against influenza each year.
• Ask your doctors, other health care providers and your child’s teachers if they have received their flu shot.
• Seek immediate medical attention if your child shows any of the following symptoms, as they may be a sign of complications from the flu:
  • High and prolonged fever (102°F or above for more than 72 hours)
  • Bluish or gray skin color
  • Drop in body temperature (hypothermia)
  • Difficulty with breathing
  • Not able to take in usual amount of fluids
  • Changes in mental condition, such as not waking up or not interacting; being so moody that the child does not want to be held; or seizures
  • Flu-like symptoms improve but then return with fever and worse cough
  • Worsening of underlying medical conditions (for example, heart or lung disease, diabetes)

Guest Blog post by Dawn A. Crawford, Communications Director at the Colorado Children’s Immunization Coalition

At the height of the H1N1 scare it’s easy to forget why we are vaccinating children in the first place.  We vaccinate children with the flu vaccine and all childhood vaccine to keep them healthy. We vaccine children to keep kids out of hospital ERs. We vaccinate children to keep them playing and, simply, being a kid.

This Thanksgiving season the Colorado Children’s Immunization Coalition (CCIC) has created a simple and free way for parents to share their gratitude for healthy children with the CCIC Health Kids Thank-A-Thon.

Parents, grandparents and mommies-to-be are encouraged to submit gratitude statements, photos, videos and blogs online explaining why they are grateful for a healthy child on the Health Kids Thank-A-Thon website.

From these submissions, CCIC will spread gratitude for healthy kids all Thanksgiving weekend long (November 26 – 29) by tweeting parents’ gratitude on Twitter, creating a video for YouTube and updating their Facebook Fan Page.

How to Participate:

• Visit the CCIC Healthy Kids Thank-A-Thon website to tell us why you are grateful for your healthy child. We encourage you to include a picture of your family or a video of your healthy child.

• Spread the word to co-workers, patients, neighbors, and friends by posting this flyer and forwarding this blog post.

All submissions are due Monday, November 23.

Make sure to join CCIC for the Thanksgiving weekend in sharing gratitude for all our healthy kids.

Have a wonderful holiday season!

By Amy Pisani

Hi everyone, I’m not sure how familiar you are with the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee, but it is the committee within the department of Health and Human Services which coordinates all efforts concerning autism. Check out the press release below regarding their recent meeting from IACC member Alison Singer’s organization, the Autism Science Foundation. It’s great to see that the government is moving past the vaccine-autism debate.

Autism Science Foundation Agrees with Decision to Keep Vaccine Research Out of the IACC Autism Plan

(November 11, 2009—New York, NY) Autism Science Foundation President and Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee member Alison Singer joined her colleagues on the IACC in voting to eliminate references in the autism strategic plan that could imply that vaccines cause autism or that call for additional vaccine research.  “Draft materials submitted to the IACC suggesting vaccines and/or vaccine components were implicated in autism were rejected by the committee because the IACC determined that they were not based on good science,” said Singer.  In addition, the two research objectives proposed that specifically called for additional vaccine research were not approved.

Two initiatives in the plan, one old and one new, could allow for vaccines to be studied as part of larger environmental initiatives if circumstances warranted.  First, the IACC voted to retain language from the 2009 plan calling for studies of environmental exposures outlined in the 2007 IOM report “Autism and the Environment”, which could include vaccines. The IACC also voted unanimously to add a new objective to study whether or not there are certain subpopulations that are more susceptible to environmental exposures such as immune challenges (including naturally occurring infection, vaccines, and/or immune disorders).

“More than a dozen studies indicate that neither vaccines nor any specific ingredients in vaccines cause autism.  The IACC affirmed that there is no reason to call out vaccines as a specific area worthy of further study in relation to autism,” said Singer.  “Vaccine safety research is an ongoing process at the CDC.  If some new science were uncovered that brought vaccines into question, then new studies could be done under the auspices of this strategic plan. But there is nothing in the plan that specifically calls for additional vaccine research because there are no data implicating vaccines as a possible cause of autism. While research on environmental factors is important, it makes little sense to pursue a specific study of vaccines, the one environmental factor that science has already ruled out.”

Singer added that some groups seem to be misinterpreting the inclusion of the word “vaccines” in the list of examples of immune challenges as a mandate for vaccine research, and have issued misleading statements. “Based on the votes taken yesterday, the IACC was clear in its position about autism and vaccines.  But if there is public confusion about this new research objective then I will try to make sure we clarify it at our next meeting,” Singer said. The IACC will continue its work on the plan at a meeting on December 11, 2009 with the goal of finalizing the revised plan by January, 2010.

Singer was appointed to the IACC in 2007 by HHS Secretary Michael Leavitt.

To learn more about the Autism Science Foundation, visit www.autismsciencefoundation.org

By Amy Pisani

It’s early November and I’m no closer to attaining H1N1 vaccine for my nine year old. My pediatrician has basically given up and suggested I get my kids on the waiting list for the local health department for our five year old’s second shot and for both shots for our nine year old. It reminds me of the scenes in Willy Wonka as mass hysteria ensued worldwide to find those golden tickets. There was the rich girl, Veruca Salt whose dad ordered all the peanut shelling girls to tear through cases of chocolate Wonka bars and then there was the South American who tried to defraud everyone with a fake ticket. If only there was the potential of a tour of the mystical vaccine factory offered to eight lucky people who find the golden H1N1 vaccine! And, have you noticed that everywhere you go you hear the word vaccines now? Who would have thought that the boring issue of vaccines would be the subject of the news on a daily basis? It’s the conversation on the soccer fields, the hockey rinks, the grocery store..I’m not exaggerating. Literally every time I hear the word “vaccines,” my ears prick up like a dog wondering if it’s time for me to but in with my spiel about the importance of vaccinating.

Even Saturday Night Live had two hilarious skits on H1N1 this weekend. One was a spoof on “The View” that nearly had me pee my pants and the other was on the issue of Wall Street attaining H1N1 vaccine in front of pregnant women and babies. Amy Poehler came back to the show for the “Really??” segment on SNL’s Weekend Update with Seth Myers. Amy declares that Goldman Sachs might have noticed that they had a little public relations problem before they jumped in line for the vaccine. You gotta see this.

By Brendalee Flint

When my daughter was just 15 months old, she contracted Haemophilus Influenzae type B (Hib).  She was fully vaccinated, ate well and got exposed to a bunch of your every day germs thanks to her brothers, yet there we were, sitting in the hospital, not sure if our baby was going to make it through the night.  Julieanna endured several seizures, brain surgery to remove a mass of fluid, sleepless nights in intensive care and endless days attached to a ventilator.  When she was finally released from the hospital, she had to re-learn all of her motor skills: she couldn’t even eat on her own.  How could this have happened?

We did the right thing in getting Julieanna vaccinated, but at the time, little did we know that she had an immune disorder that made those vaccines useless.  We were suddenly placed at the mercy of the “herd” as some scientists call it.  If our family or neighbors fail to get immunized, our daughter‘s life could be put in jeopardy yet again.

Now with the arrival of H1N1, I have to be even more careful.  Each time I take Julieanna to the grocery store, I have to wonder if the cashier who just sneezed on my change is carrying the flu.  When a friend comes to visit, I have to wonder if they’ve been exposed.  

My daughter can’t be vaccinated against H1N1, but yours can.  Please, vaccinate yourself and your family against H1N1.  Julieanna counts on you to help stop the spread of this disease.

Editor’s Note:  Brendalee Flint is a working mother of four in Minnesota. Brendalee Flint’s daughter, Julieanna Metcalf, contracted a rare, life-threatening infectious disease called Hib disease. Since then, Brendalee has been telling her story, in the hopes that it will educate people about the importance of vaccination, especially against Hib.

Brendalee and Julieanna’s story can be found on the Vaccinate Your Baby web site .  We hope you’ll take a moment to read about the very real impact vaccine-preventable diseases still have on our children and loved ones.

By Amy Pisani

Yesterday, CBS’ 60 Minutes gave us a peek into the United States’ only H1N1 flu vaccine production facility in Swiftwater, Pennsylvania – allowing the public to see for the first time where and how the vaccine is made.  It’s a very fascinating video and I highly recommend watching it. It really sheds light on why there have been such long lines in areas around the country in which the demand for H1N1 vaccine outpaces the supply. The complex and rigorous manufacturing process, testing and quality control should instill some confidence in people, and will hopefully help them understand why these vaccines take so long to produce. 

Still, it’s important for folks to be patient. The good news is that the CDC is reporting that more H1N1 vaccine doses are becoming available every day and over the next several weeks the vaccine should be easier to find. I think that this piece does a great job of showing that while there are some bumps in the road in terms of supply issues, it’s worth the wait for those who are at the highest risk of flu complications, and that unfortunately includes young people.  CBS  reported on 15 year old Luke Duvall who almost lost his life to H1N1 this October. Luke was hooked up to a ventilator, of which he is now rid of, but he is still being fed through a tube in his nose and has a long way to go before he is back to his old self. While most people can recover from the flu after a week or so, why would you risk you or your child being the exception?

Take a few minutes and check out the video here: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2009/10/29/60minutes/main5451803.shtml?tag=contentMain;cbsCarousel