Friday, October 30, 2009
Can the Flu Vaccine Make You Walk Backwards?
Welcome to my nightmare. Long lines of panicky and impatient people.
Emergency rooms full of kids with nothing but sniffles, accompanied by freaked out parents demanding to know why older children aren't getting the vaccine. Or worried that the flu shot might kill their babies or give them autism.
Sébastien is too tired to stand up, I don't know how I'm going to make it through the dark days of November. I need sleep so badly.
But stories like this one keep me awake at night...
Not just because Dystonia has NEVER been linked to a vaccine.
Acquired dystonia, also called secondary dystonia, results from environmental or disease-related damage to the basal ganglia. Birth injury (particularly due to lack of oxygen), certain infections, reactions to certain drugs, heavy-metal or carbon monoxide poisoning, trauma, or stroke can cause dystonic symptoms. Dystonias can also be symptoms of other diseases, some of which may be hereditary.
But also because more than a million people have watched that YouTube. And ignorance is CONTAGIOUS.
So imagine how happy I was to find this excellent article.
Because that's just about all you need to know. And BONUS...it also reminds us what happened in countries that battled H1N1 during the REGULAR flu season.
The New England Journal of Medicine reported this month that pregnant women suffering from swine flu were admitted into intensive care units in Australia and New Zealand during their just completed winter at a rate nine times that normally expected based on their population.
Where they also found out the hard way that we can expect emergency rooms to be swamped.
And that it is critically important to have enough ventilators, or enough EKMO machines that oxygenate the blood outside the body. And not just in cities, but also in remote communities. Because indigenous people in Australia caught the flu and died of it at a rate SEVEN times greater than the general population.
Now ask yourselves are OUR First Nation communities properly protected? And would you trust Stephen Harper's Cons with a pandemic when they are so obviously FAILING?
Because they don't believe in a national role for government. And they're too busy selling their Porky Action Plan trying to buy themselves a majority....and apparently succeeding.
Oh boy. I guess the moral of this story is that some people are easily fooled and others are idiots.
The good news? Sébastien is getting his vaccine tomorrow. And if he starts hee hawing like a donkey...or starts walking backwards. And I'm still alive.
You'll be the first to know...