Raja Posted February 5, 2015 Share Posted February 5, 2015 I'm just curious. Lots of people are uncomfortable with it but never actually say anything. You can tell though, not that it's a big deal. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Maithanet Posted February 5, 2015 Share Posted February 5, 2015 Do vaccines even go in your vein? This seems like something I would know the answer to, but somehow I thought you applied them to a muscle. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pebble thats Stubby Posted February 5, 2015 Share Posted February 5, 2015 I would let a student give me an injection, but not a blood test. As I stated up thread I have problems with my veins which normally leads to being stabbed multiple times in both arms and the nurse getting someone else to also stab me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pebble thats Stubby Posted February 5, 2015 Share Posted February 5, 2015 I would let a student give me an injection, but not a blood test. As I stated up thread I have problems with my veins which normally leads to being stabbed multiple times in both arms and the nurse getting someone else to also stab me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MerenthaClone Posted February 5, 2015 Share Posted February 5, 2015 Quick, off topic question, would you let a med student do it? Someone who probably has not had too much experience with a venopuncture. I let my residents and nursing new hires practice on me if they need them for their program. Blood draws and IV starts both.E: I'd let a med student do it too if they asked, but they're usually not around long enough to feel okay accepting that offer. Also, most med students aren't around at night, where its easier to do that king if thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aemon Stark Posted February 5, 2015 Share Posted February 5, 2015 Most vaccines are given "IM" or intramuscular. So no veins involved (they shouldn't be anyway!). Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MerenthaClone Posted February 5, 2015 Share Posted February 5, 2015 Most vaccines are given "IM" or intramuscular. So no veins involved (they shouldn't be anyway!). I'm curious. Are y'all taught to aspirate before injecting IM meds? We had been but it's apparently not best practice anymore. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Aemon Stark Posted February 5, 2015 Share Posted February 5, 2015 I was just thinking about that. It really shouldn't be necessary in most circumstances. But I don't do IM injections very often. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
IheartIheartTesla Posted February 5, 2015 Share Posted February 5, 2015 I'm inured to needle anxiety. Sticking sharp stuff into myself twice a day for blood samples will do that. ;) Google wants to check your tears for glucose levels. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Glaurung Posted February 6, 2015 Share Posted February 6, 2015 People fear vaccines because they're idiots. A certain % of any population is just flat out dumb, and some of these have latched on to the anti-vaccination movement. These people are irresponsible and I have little forgiveness in them. Then again, I have a friend who got the mumps a few years back and I myself had a wonderful time with the whooping cough a few years ago. It was a nasty experience and one that burns in my memory. I was exposed to the mumps and luckily my vaccine worked there, but it didn't work with the whooping cough. Anti-vaxxers can jump off a cliff for all I care. They do not cause autism. I don't know what the cause is for the increase in autism. Maybe it's simply that it is easier to diagnose now so people who went undiagnosed 50 years ago are now getting the correct diagnoses. Maybe it's that the average child bearing age has increased(or gone down in some cases) and that has some negative health risks. What I do know is that it is not vaccines that causes autism. If people took vaccines every day, sure, but exposure to a handful of shots over several years is not going to cause autism. People are ingesting more chemicals, mercury, etc in their daily meals than they are in any vaccine. And hey, even if vaccines did cause autism, that would not be an adequate reason to not vaccinate your children. Having a few autistic children is a much better trade-off than the alternative. Dead children. I always try to keep an open mind about political or religious issues and see things from both sides, but I have no forgiveness for anti-vaxxers. the "individual choice" reasoning doesn't really apply in this instance (1) we are talking about children, which we do not treat as autonomous. Parents can and should have a large degree of autonomy over them, but there are still limits. (2) we are talking about contagion. Contagion is violence, and we don't allow people to exact violence on others. This seems like a manufactured issue that will go away in a couple weeks. I'm skeptical there exists any widespread anti-vaccine movement other than in extreme religious/hippie enclaves that have always been around. It won't be gone in a few weeks. It's been growing for years. I wonder how many kids will have to die of measles before they change their minds. Anti-vaxxers apparently cross all political barriers, right and left. There are two groups of children typically left unvaccinated. On one side, there are children in poor families who may not have the resources to get their children vaccinated, typically black, single mother family units. People without good access to the health system. On the other end of the spectrum the families are usually white, well-educated, earning over $80,000 a year, concerned, married parents who are linked by their general sense of distrust of the groups who are responsible for vaccinations: politicians, pharmaceutical companies, government authorities. They believe those groups are motivated by factors like profit, and only they, the parents, really care for their children. They see their children as being intrinsically perfect at birth, and that they are being asking to agree to an intervention that may have an unpredictable outcome. So when faced with the choice of asking to have their child vaccinated for a disease they have never seen against the risk of an adverse affect that they have heard is possible, they opt not to vaccinate. They are the people with the best access to the medical system in the country, and they don't trust it I know a few anti-vaxxers and they usually come in 3 categories. Anti-gubmint libertarians or conservatives who don't trust anything and quite possibly think that vaccines are used to control the population or kill off undesirables. And hippy-dippy all natural organic people who think that putting anything that wasn't grown in nature into your body is just terrible for you. They're CHEMICALS!! Nevermind that every natural food they eat is also made of chemicals. Then there is the 3rd kind, the original anti-vaxxers before it was a movement. Religious nutjobs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jaxom 1974 Posted February 6, 2015 Share Posted February 6, 2015 I'm just curious. Lots of people are uncomfortable with it but never actually say anything. You can tell though, not that it's a big deal. My mother is a nurse. My sister is also a nurse. When my sister was in college for nursing, my mom would get flu shots and bring them home and during the holidays and tell my brothers and I that we needed to let or sister "practice"... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inigima Posted February 6, 2015 Share Posted February 6, 2015 Possible measles in Jersey.http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slatest/2015/02/05/measles_in_new_jersey_officials_investigate_possible_infection_in_baby.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Baitac Posted February 6, 2015 Share Posted February 6, 2015 I feel like before I get into this I must start off by saying that we are vaccinating my 6 month old son. So I am not an anti vaccine person; but I do understand the position more now that I have had a baby. On a personal level, getting you child vaccinated seems very alien. You have this perfect, pure, healthy baby and then you take them to the doctor and have them stabbed with metal and injected with somethings that might make them sick. (Even if not with the illness they are being vaccinated against, but the side effects listed are extremely scary). Your doing this to protect them against an illness that you've probably never seen in real life. You probably don't know anyone who has had any of the illnesses. You know that your baby will be in pain. In the case of my son, it's not just the intial shot that hurts, it lasts for hours afterward and his thighs are sore for about a day. Hearing your baby cry out in pain is a terrible feeling, it actually makes me sick to my stomach. I also feel guilty because I am the one who allowed him to be hurt. So the experience is not a great one. I don't think I am alone in saying the experience makes me feel guilty, and sad. Now add this mix the anti vaccine scene. Most anti vaccination people are actually very educated and intelligent. In fact generally speaking the more educated the family, the less likely they are to vaccinate. So you have a privileged group, a group that seems to know what it's talking about, and one that more families probably identify with, opting out. More over they have been opting out for more then a decade now and there hasn't been any large scale public health crisis. (Until the Disneyland measles outbreak). This makes not vaccinating feel reasonable. It also makes the people who criticize them seem more hysterical. Then there is the fact that while most of the parents of young children today have never seen the illnesses that are being vaccinated against, they've all lived through a couple Vioxx type scandals from Big Pharma. Vaccine Court also does not help the imagine that vaccines are indeed safe. It can seem like they are indeed less safe then they are being promoted as. It can feel like you have large untrustworthy corporations, that have limited liability risk, trying to push it's product on your baby. You also have a government that is more concerned with public health, then the personal health and well being of YOUR baby and family. For instance the CDC now recommends the Hep B vaccine at birth. Hep B is mostly transmitted through blood, and other bodily fluids. If a mother has Hep B she can give it to her baby, but there is otherwise no real risk of the baby contracting it. Sex and drug use are the most common ways to acquire it. It used to be given to young teenagers. But teenagers are harder to get to come in for vaccines then babies. So the CDC moved it up in the schedule because of public health. There is also the fact that you give your baby the MMR vaccine right around the time that Regressive Autism hits babies. This is one of the worst fears that parents have. That your wonderful, smiling, social baby will disappear. It honestly keeps me up at night. So there is this very delicate time, when you feel like last thing in the world you want to do change anything physically about your baby. But this is also the time when you have to start giving your baby even more heavy duty vaccines. The MMR vaccine has a high correlation with the onset of Regressive Autism because it is given during the window of time that Regressive Autism develops. It's also one of the more painful vaccines. So you have an event that the parent is dreading, and probably feeling guilty about; followed by the onset of one of the worst fears a parent could have. Correlation of course is not causation; but it can feel like causation; and it can feel safer not to do it. The rate of Autism diagnosis has skyrocketed in the last couple decades, more then just increased diagnosis can explain. Because we don't why, we don't have a causation, naturally people look for things that strongly correlate. In the end vaccinating has been a huge battle for me, my emotional mind and "mommy instincts" against my ration mind. My rational mind wins, but it is a battle. One I didn't think I would have to fight before I had my son. Seventh. I know how you feel. Fear for your children is a very understandable thing. Fear in general is a very powerful feeling, which is why the discredited "study" connecting vaccines and Autism is still very much in our midst. I am very glad that you have chosen to vaccinate your baby. There is neither correlation nor causation between the two. I was very heartened to see that the U.S.'s biggest Autism organization, Autism Speaks, stated this week that children should be immunized and that the MMR vaccine does not cause Autism. Sadly, this condition often manifests itself during the same time that some vaccines are given. But again, there is no correlation. I feel terrible for those children who cannot be immunized or are too young to immunize who are now at risk of an illness no one should be contracting. One of the most worthwhile projects about the World Health Organization is their immunization program. Proper immunization is a world-wide goal. As has been discussed, people who associate themselves with many groups feel pressure to not immunize. These include "Crunchy Moms," anti-government, anti-pharmaceuticals, and some religious groups. I would hope that this outbreak changes the opinion of some of these people. In a sense, the success of the vaccine has made some think that it isn't necessary. That is quite sad. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Myshkin Posted February 6, 2015 Share Posted February 6, 2015 I wouldn't call this current outbreak of measles in the US a severe health crisis. In comparison, the impact of influenza each year is orders of magnitude greater. The vaccination rate for measles in the US is around 90% (thank goodness), so it seems unlikely for this to really blow up in size. On top of that, the mortality rate in developed countries is around 1 or 2 per thousand infected with measles. As long as we maintain a high vaccination rate until measles is eradicated from the world, we should be OK. 90% immunization rate sounds great, but it really isn't. I'm no expert but everything I've read is that herd immunity starts to really break down at the 8% unvaccinated mark. So 90% is just not enough. Further, we should be looking at immunization rates on a community, not national, level. Some communities might have a 100% vaccination rate, while others might only be at 80%. Or much, much lower. A 90% national vaccination rate makes no difference to children being sent to childcare centers in Orange or Marin Counties where the vaccination rate might be as low as 30%. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mudguard Posted February 7, 2015 Share Posted February 7, 2015 90% immunization rate sounds great, but it really isn't. I'm no expert but everything I've read is that herd immunity starts to really break down at the 8% unvaccinated mark. So 90% is just not enough. Further, we should be looking at immunization rates on a community, not national, level. Some communities might have a 100% vaccination rate, while others might only be at 80%. Or much, much lower. A 90% national vaccination rate makes no difference to children being sent to childcare centers in Orange or Marin Counties where the vaccination rate might be as low as 30%. Well, the data suggests otherwise. You can use this website to track the vaccination rate for measles in the US over the last 30+ years. Compare these rates with the massive drop off and eventual elimination of endemic measles in the US by 2000. Before the vaccine, we would have 500,000+ infected/year. You can see that vaccination rates of below 90 were very successful in bringing down the number of infected, and the 5 years before 2000 the rates bounced between 88% and 92%. Since 2000, the rate has been between 90-93%. As long as we are in this range, we aren't going to see a massive epidemic of 100,000+ infected. Sure, there are going to be outbreaks each year as there has been every year since 2000, at least until measles is eventually eradicated from the world, but it's not going to spread out of control. As long as the government continues making an effort to inform the public that vaccination is safe, I doubt that the number of anti-vaxers will grow significantly. The medical study that fabricated a link between vaccination and autism maybe hurt things a bit, but with the retraction of that study and the new studies that show that vaccination is safe, vaccination rates should tick back up over time. Honestly, I think the measles coverage has been overblown in comparison to the actual threat to our national health, but if it scares some people into getting the vaccine, maybe that's a good thing. Say 2000 people get measles this year. Since 1 or 2 people die per thousand infected, that means that 1 or 2 will die from measles this year. In comparison, the flu kills thousands or tens of thousands each year in the US. This year, the effectiveness of the flu vaccine has been abysmal, 23% protection in the US and 3% percent in the UK. In reality, the failure of the flu vaccine this year is going to have a much, much bigger impact on national health than this measles outbreak, but the coverage on measles has dwarfed the story about the flu. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Inigima Posted February 7, 2015 Share Posted February 7, 2015 The threshold for effective herd immunity varies from virus to virus because they aren't all equally contagious. I believe I read that the measles threshold is at about 94% because it's so contagious -- it can linger in the air for a couple hours, and can survive for a while on external surfaces. Others are lower. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mudguard Posted February 7, 2015 Share Posted February 7, 2015 The threshold for effective herd immunity varies from virus to virus because they aren't all equally contagious. I believe I read that the measles threshold is at about 94% because it's so contagious -- it can linger in the air for a couple hours, and can survive for a while on external surfaces. Others are lower. The calculation is just an estimate that depends on many factors and assumptions, one of which is how contagious the disease is. How effective the vaccine is, and the distribution of of the unvaccinated in the population, the response to the infected (i.e. quarantine) are other factors. Again, it's just an estimate and not a hard number where below that threshold, herd immunity actually fails. The wiki page lists the threshold for herd immunity for measles at between 83-94%, which comes from a CDC slide presentation, which I verified. So I wouldn't get hung up on a particular number that you've seen reported somewhere. The real world data makes it clear that a lower 90's immunization rate, and maybe even an upper 80's rate, is sufficient to terminate transmission of measles and prevent it from becoming endemic again. Sure, it would be nice to have a higher immunization rate, which would make outbreaks smaller and terminate more quickly, but it's not necessary. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Suttree Posted February 7, 2015 Share Posted February 7, 2015 Honestly, I think the measles coverage has been overblown in comparison to the actual threat to our national health, Compared to what? I would say the Eblola coverage for instance, was faaaaar more overblown when looking at the actual threat to our national health. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SpaceChampion Posted February 7, 2015 Share Posted February 7, 2015 Saw this posted by an aquaintance on facebook: "My dad is in the ICU right now in a medically induced coma from contracting the measles. Thanks, anti-vaccination new age hippie fucks for probably killing my dad with your religious, paranoid conspiracy theorist crap." Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
drawkcabi Posted February 8, 2015 Share Posted February 8, 2015 0:46 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.