[NVIC] Pregnant Women Don't Want Flu Vaccine

[Guest guest]

E-NEWS FROM THE NATIONAL VACCINE INFORMATION CENTER

Vienna, Virginia http://www.nvic.org

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UNITED WAY/COMBINED FEDERAL CAMPAIGN

#8122

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" Protecting the health and informed consent rights of children since 1982. "

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BL Fisher Note:

It is a no-brainer why most pregnant women do not want to be injected with

mercury containing vaccines. Most educated women know that when one is

pregnant, one does not want to drink alcohol, smoke, take drugs, inhale

environmental toxins such as pesticides or eat fish containing high amounts

of mercury. Many mothers are willing to undergo tremendous pain to deliver

their babies with no anesthesia to avoid any possibility of harming their

infant's brain. Why would a pregnant women want to deliberately subject her

fetus, whose brain and immune system is developing in the womb, to ANY known

neurotoxin? Especially when the flu rarely kills or damages healthy men and

women in their prime, including pregnant women. What part of this logic do

doctors not understand?

http://www.nhpr.org/node/10051

NPR, NH

Wednesday, December 7, 2005

Flu Vaccine Unpopular Among Pregnant Women

Reported by Kerry Grens

Flu season is about to begin. Not the avian flu pandemic, but the regular

influenza people get every year. Seniors, children, healthcare workers, and

those with medical conditions are high on the recommended list for

vaccination.

A more recent addition to that group is pregnant women. But most of them do

not get immunized. All the studies show that the shot is safe, yet some

women are still worried. New Hampshire Public Radio's Kerry Grens has more.

A rough transcript follows:

Holly Stark is six months pregnant with her first child.

Throughout her pregnancy she has made every effort to live a healthy

lifestyle: toxin-free cleaners, organic produce, a strict regimen of

prenatal vitamins.

Just once in a while, she sneaks in a can of coke.

And so as part of her healthy pregnancy, Stark's physician recommended that

she get the flu shot.

Stark: I started thinking about well do I do this or do I not, what kind of

risks am I really looking at. I made the decision that I'm not going to have

the vaccine.

Stark had heard that the flu shot contains mercury, which in some forms can

be a damaging neurotoxin.

For example, pregnant women are advised to avoid certain fish because they

might contain the harmful compound methyl mercury.

The flu vaccine contains a different form-ethyl mercury.

It is used as a preservative and produces no known harmful effects.

But mercury in any form still raises alarm bells for Holly Stark.

Speculation by several parent groups has proposed a link between mercury in

the flu vaccine and autism in children.

Mercury has been removed from children's vaccines.

And although a link to autism has not been proven, Stark was not willing to

take any risk.

And suffering the flu didn't sound so bad.

Stark: One thing I read on the CDC website is that of ten thousand women in

their third trimester only twenty five will be hospitalized for

complications of the influenza virus so that to me is such a small amount,

that I put that on the side of not needing the vaccination.

Holly Stark is like the vast majority of pregnant women.

According to the Centers for Disease Control only twelve percent of pregnant

women were immunized during the two thousand three two thousand four flu

season.

Among the general population nearly twenty seven percent of Americans

received the flu shot.

Dr. Iskander is a medical epidemiologist at the CDC and a pediatrician.

He says a lot of pregnant women don't get immunized because they are not

aware of the risks that flu poses to them.

Iskander: Those might be pulmonary infections such as pneumonia those might

also be complications related to cardiac or heart complications.

On top of these risks, Iskander says there are several studies showing that

the flu vaccine did not cause birth defects.

And there was a massive study of several hundred thousand children showing

no relationship between vaccines and autism.

Iskander: The basic concept here is that if these larger studies involving

multiple doses of vaccines over several years if those have not shown any

concern for increased rates of autism then a single dose of vaccine during

pregnancy shouldn't make a difference.

But an element of doubt still lingers.

Lowne: Right now where I stand I'm a little confused just like everybody

else is.

Dr. Lowne is a primary care physician in Pembroke.

He is not fully convinced that every potential negative effect of ethyl

mercury has been explored.

He says he tries to balance his doubts against the goals of public health.

Vaccination is not just recommended to protect individuals, but a secondary

goal is that if enough people get vaccinated it makes it very difficult for

the virus to spread.

And that helps everybody.

Which is why he follows CDC guidelines and recommends the shot to his

patients.

Lowne: And it is a difficult place to be at times because on one hand I want

the population to be healthy but on the other hand I don't want anything

that I suggest to have an adverse reaction to someone as innocent as a

baby-especially my own baby.

Which underscores how personal the decision can be.

Lowne's wife is pregnant, and she's decided not to get vaccinated.

He says she's low risk because she's a stay-at-home mom, their other two

children don't attend day care, and he will get immunized.

Griffiths, a nurse midwife for over twenty years, says that's a valid

approach.

Yet there's more to the decision making process: a woman can avoid contact

with ethyl mercury by not getting vaccinated.

But then, Griffiths says, she's at risk for needing a whole host of other

chemicals.

Griffiths: I think if we look at the reasons of not wanting to take flu

vaccine because we don't want to put something into our bodies that might

potentially harm the baby, then to say, ok I didn't take that but now I've

got to take all this other stuff: IV fluids, medications for nausea

probably, medications for diarrhea.

Griffiths says the choice ultimately comes down to what risks the mother is

willing to take.

Should she take a chance against the known dangers of flu?

Or should she hazard the speculative threats of the vaccine?

Dr. Iskander from the CDC predicts that as more women become aware of the

health complications from getting the flu during pregnancy, they will choose

to get vaccinated.

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