Wednesday, October 21, 2009

H1N1

So since I am married to a doctor, I have had many family and friends ask me/him what he thinks about the H1N1 virus. More specifically, many people have asked what he thinks of the vaccine.

John is just one doctor and different doctors have different opinions. I really don't want to spur on a debate here at all. Everyone is entitled to their own opinions. However, in the end, we have decided that Elijah will have the vaccine. Isaac cannot have it because he is allergic to eggs. John will get it because he is in the military, and it is required. If it is offered/available to me, I will get it too.

Here is how JB sees it, and subsequently, here is how I see it.

Vaccines are medicines. Every medicine carries with it the chance of side effect. Tylenol can kill someone, and I'm sure it has. However, in each case, the positives have to be weighed against the negatives. When we went to Africa, we took medicine for malaria. The medicine could hurt us. But so could malaria. We weighed the options and deemed the side effects of malaria a higher risk than the side effects of the medicine.

So that's that. In case anyone is curious about JB's opinion and what our family is doing, there it is!