Thornhill
October 29, 2009 11:31 AM
BY KIM ZARZOUR
There's a common refrain that keeps reappearing when people talk about whether or not they'll get the H1N1 vaccination. It has to do with concern over the unknown long-term risks of vaccines, and the possible link between vaccinations and autism.â?¨When I hear this kind of talk, it makes my blood boil. Here's why. â?¨My first-born was quite possibly the most beautiful baby ever born on this planet. Sky-blue eyes, hair the colour of the sun, he was perfect in every way.â?¨And I, of course, was going to be the perfect parent. â?¨I'd heard friends with older children laughing at how new parents over-protected their children, sheltered them and fussed over them and generally raised them in a parental hothouse. When these sheltered babies were sent out into the real world, the older, wiser folks said, and when that protective hothouse glass was removed, they'd wither in the cold, cruel blast of real life.â?¨None of that for me and my child, I vowed.â?¨So when we were invited to a gathering of friends at my local church, I blithely wrapped my four-week-old in his receiving blanket and ventured out into the real world, eager to begin our new life in the community. â?¨A few of the children at this gathering had coughs. Not wanting to appear over-protective, I let the moms cuddle him, doing my best to unobtrusively shelter him from the dry hacks emanating from the Lego table.â?¨Something I didn't know, that innocent afternoon: one of those families did not believe in vaccinations. They'd heard the rumours about DPT (diptheria, pertussis and tetanus) vaccine being linked to autism, and opted out.â?¨Turns out, those children had pertussis, or whooping cough. Not a big deal to those healthy older children bothered by the nagging cough.â?¨Big deal, it turns out, for my baby.â?¨Of course, we didn't know anything about that, back then, when my baby got a runny nose and rattly cough. Babies get colds, right? We're not a hothouse family; we carried on. â?¨But the 'cold' didn't go away. It got worse. He began hellish coughing episodes that did not seem to end. He'd cough and cough and cough without the intake of breath in between, cough and cough until his face turned blue from lack of oxygen. Finally his little chest stopped moving, his stomach drew in to show his ribs, and he'd suck in air with a desperate whoop.â?¨Then he'd turn vacant-eyed, head loll back and vomit violently, mucous everywhere.â?¨This went on for days. It got to the point where I'd go through the day with the baby in one arm, vomit bowl in the other. â?¨Finally, I took him to the doctor. Nothing but a cold, the doctor said. A little saline in the nose will help clear the nasal passageway. Don't give him cough syrup, he added; it's not recommended for infants. I knew that. I'd read the parenting books. It didn't feel right, but baby, bowl and I went home.â?¨A few days later, after a particularly gruelling midnight coughing episode, I bundled the baby up again and brought him and our trusty bowl into York Central emergency. The first thing the doctor asked me was "are you a first-time mom?" I nodded, silently. "Go home," he gently patted my shoulder. "It's just a cold. Happens to babies all the time."â?¨So the coughing continued until one day I found myself crying into the phone with our nurse-midwife. While we talked the baby, in my arms, began his coughing. Our conversation stopped while he coughed and coughed and coughed. When he finally stopped and his lungs sucked in air, my wonderful midwife ordered me to take him to her hospital in Scarborough, immediately. It sounded like whooping cough, she said, and in newborns, it's deadly.â?¨She arranged for the head of pediatrics to meet us there. The diagnosis was confirmed and we spent the next week in isolation. â?¨I believe our midwife saved our son's life.â?¨I believe fear of vaccinations endangered it.â?¨There are "known knowns," as former defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld once said, and there are known unknowns. â?¨This is what we know: We know pertussis is a highly contagious disease with a death risk in infants up to three per cent. We know H1N1 kills too - and it's unusually dangerous to children and young adults.â?¨The H1N1 shot is voluntary, as is pertussis, part of the DTaaP combination shot schools require unless parents sign a form saying they opt out.
What we know we don't know: the approval process for this flu vaccine was streamlined, and we don't know if there are long-term effects related to the adjuvant on pregnant women and children. â?¨But we also don't know how each person will react to H1N1 flu, or if you or I or our teenaged child will be that healthy patient who randomly dies. And we don't know if the person beside us at the cash register or in the elevator is especially vulnerable.â?¨My seven-year-old niece has leukemia. You'd never know it to look at her. She is a beautiful child whose long dark hair has grown back after chemo. But I worry about the children at the playground who don't know that about her and who may be carrying the virus without anyone knowing it.â?¨Something else we don't know: is the virus is percolating inside us now? H1N1 is contagious before symptoms appear, and that gorgeous baby in the stroller with the pinchable pink cheeks may just catch what we don't know we don't know.â?¨Doctors warned us that our baby might have lasting lung problems after his bout with pertussis. He did not. He turned out to be relatively healthy, a gifted child who also has some learning disabilities. I wonder, though, if those intermittent bouts without oxygen might have been the cause of the learning problems. We will never know.â?¨But I do know this. You make your choices in life based on what you know, not on what you don't know.â?¨We will all be getting the H1N1 vaccination in our not-a-hothouse home.