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Oct. 25th, 2009 10:29 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
meganursulaI think this article is well worth reading.
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/10/ff_waronscience/
For the record, i think there is room for people to evaluate their vaccination approach. Something i like about this article is that is discusses many of the details in the debate which i think are too often poorly understood or just plain ignored by people.
There are a number of things i would quote from it, but perhaps the most salient for today is “The choice not to get a vaccine is not a choice to take no risk,” he says. “It’s just a choice to take a different risk, and we need to be better about saying, ‘Here’s what that different risk looks like.’
While people are wondering about flu vaccines, and novel H1N1 vaccines, i think we should keep this in mind. I do fall prey to the tendency to want to avoid the vaccines - both of them - because it is an unknown, and because i am currently healthy under the status quo. Why take a risky action when i can avoid it? The answer, of course, is that inaction is also a decision that carries some risk*, and all the current evidence suggests that for me, and my family, at this time, inaction is far more dangerous than the actual action. But, while my head can accept that, my gut still gives me trouble.
My out, of course, is that H1N1, the vaccine that i, particularly, should have this fall, but which is also more frightening because i haven't had it before, isn't available. So i have to hope that no one with exposed symptoms of swine flu rides the bus with my pregnant self, but i'm saved from a decision so far.
* complete aside - this, of course, applies to other areas in my life. Like my job.
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/10/ff_waronscience/
For the record, i think there is room for people to evaluate their vaccination approach. Something i like about this article is that is discusses many of the details in the debate which i think are too often poorly understood or just plain ignored by people.
There are a number of things i would quote from it, but perhaps the most salient for today is “The choice not to get a vaccine is not a choice to take no risk,” he says. “It’s just a choice to take a different risk, and we need to be better about saying, ‘Here’s what that different risk looks like.’
While people are wondering about flu vaccines, and novel H1N1 vaccines, i think we should keep this in mind. I do fall prey to the tendency to want to avoid the vaccines - both of them - because it is an unknown, and because i am currently healthy under the status quo. Why take a risky action when i can avoid it? The answer, of course, is that inaction is also a decision that carries some risk*, and all the current evidence suggests that for me, and my family, at this time, inaction is far more dangerous than the actual action. But, while my head can accept that, my gut still gives me trouble.
My out, of course, is that H1N1, the vaccine that i, particularly, should have this fall, but which is also more frightening because i haven't had it before, isn't available. So i have to hope that no one with exposed symptoms of swine flu rides the bus with my pregnant self, but i'm saved from a decision so far.
* complete aside - this, of course, applies to other areas in my life. Like my job.
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no subject
Date: 2009-10-29 03:38 pm (UTC)If you know that Beth is exposed at any point the doctor may agree to put her on tamiflu so she doesn't get the illness. They don't want to give it to just anyone, because that would increase the chances that tamiflu resistant flu started to spread, but they will if you have a special reason to be concerned.