Second H1N1 dose for young children producing more reactions
The Guardian
A Guardian online poll over the weekend shows one-third of parents are reporting fever or reactions to the second dose of H1N1 vaccine for very young children, but the Island health system is not seeing reports of adverse reactions.
“We haven’t had any indication that it (second dose H1N1 for children 6 to 35 months old) was different than the first one,” said Doctor Lamont Sweet, acting Chief Health Officer for P.E.I. “We have been monitoring all of the reactions because we report them to Ottawa. Now, we may not get them all.
“We would sort of expect arm swelling to be more than after the first dose but we haven’t had reports of that either.”
“We have had some children who got the vaccine who got a fever and sometimes flu symptoms afterwards but of course flu is on the go as well so we never know whether or not they got the fever from the flu or from the shot.
“We have no one who has had to stay in hospital because of fever either from the first shot or the second shot at this stage,” said Sweet.
Late last week the second round of doses for young children were administered across P.E.I. Over the weekend The Guardian put up the following question as a reader poll: “Did your child between the age of six to 35 months get a fever or reaction later in the day after the 2nd H1N1 vaccine dose, but not after the first dose?
There were a total of 136 answers, of which 50 answered yes, or 37 percent.
Fever, said Sweet, is not common for the H1N1 vaccine.
“They are listing fever as being quite low on the list of what would be expected so fever coming after the vaccine has been very, very low,” he said.
“If you get anything afterwards, we record it as best we can and we report anything we get as far as a possible reaction,” said Sweet.
He said that any reports of reactions after the vaccine should not cause people to avoid the vaccine. Australia went through its flu season before the vaccine was available and there was a high number of hospital admissions when people caught H1N1, said Sweet.
By contrast, he is not aware of any hospital admissions from adverse reactions to the vaccine from people in the age range of 6 to 36 months.
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Stop the hysteria from PEI writes: So the Guardian is doing medical research and publishing eh? WHat a misleading headline guys -- you're a newspaper not a medical research board. This is where the mass hysteria came from.
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Hinnie from PEI writes: This is an example of the Guardian trying to create an issue so they can then report on it. . . again.
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Elizabeth from PEI writes: It is very inappropriate for the Guardian to publish a headline like this without the appropriate scientific research to back it up. An online poll just does not cut it. Scientific research has to consider sampling bias, sampling size, statistical significance etc before coming to any scientific conclusion. Stop misleading the public.
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maggie L from cornwall, pei writes: Completely ridiculous. This news article should be retracted.....no evidence of proper journalism to be found at all!!
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nitpicker from Charlottetown, PEI writes: I usually don't get too critical with the Guardian and the stories they print. They do have to fill a newspaper everyday and the Island isn't always brimming with front page news stories.
But this story is absolutely ASININE. You don't make the angle of a story about
about adverse reactions to H1N1, nor write a provocative headline, based on an anonymous online poll.
Your angle could have been from the Chief Health Officer's perspective. And at the end, perhaps, you could have mentioned your unscientific, baseless poll.
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Debbie from NS writes: hahahahahahaha are you still talking about the hiney flu:) Apparently laughter is still the best medicine:)
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Phil Steele from Lasalle, Ontario writes: I agree, there doesn't seem to be much scientific method to such a poll.
On the other hand, I can tell from fist hand experience my 23 month old son had a fever of 104.3F (rectal temp) and a febrile seizure the day after he had his 2nd H1N1 shot and had to be admitted to the hospital. He did not show any signs of the flu before getting the 2nd shot, and had previously had only a slight fever (98-99F) when he got the 1st shot.
He could have had an underlying bug that caused more of a reaction after getting the shot, but it was a bad weekend. He's fine now, and I would not have any problem giving him another shot (we just know more about how to treat an extreme temperature rise alternating between the tylenol and motrin meds).
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RLS from PEI writes: Parents are worried enough about their children because of H1N1 and whether or not they are vaccinated. Stop it with the fear mongering and print some real facts, or don't print anything. There's not much news on PEI, but if you're going to start fabricating stories for this rag, leave the health and safety of small children out of it.
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Susan Fletcher from Sechelt, BC writes: My, my, we are touchy about criticism of H1N1 vaccine! Nowhere has The Guardian said their poll was decisive. But have any of you critics read the Arepanrix information leaflet? If you had, you’d know there’s no clinical data for babies to back up the “safety and efficacy” of this vaccine.
Phil Steele is also uninformed re fever. Giving anti-pyretics may do more harm than good since fever is part of immunity; high temperatures can kill viruses. Brain damage from fever only occurs if the temperature exceeds 42 degrees C, 107.6 degrees F.
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