Tuesday, January 4, 2011

Just a little rant from the peanut gallery...

About this time of year I start to get irritated at the news coverage of flu season. If there is nothing good going on in the news, we have a pandemic. The CDCs website is a wealth of information about everything health related under the sun and I refer to it quite frequently.

Today I was reading the NEW link to information about Vaccine Safety for the Seasonal Influenza Vaccine and this blurb on the page for Febrile Seizures Following Childhood Vaccinations, Including Influenza Vaccination
really just chapped my hide:
About 1 in 3 children who have one febrile seizure will have at least one more febrile seizure during childhood. Most children (greater than 90%) who have a seizure will not develop epilepsy. Genetic predisposition (i.e., family history) and other factors such as cerebral palsy, delayed development, or other neurological abnormalities increase a child’s risk for developing epilepsy after a febrile seizure.
So you mean to tell me that out of 1000 kids who have a febrile seizure, about 300 of them will have another one, and let's say 10% (or 30) of them will develop epilepsy. 30 out of 1000 is not a reassuring number to me. Especially for me (and my kids) since I spent a few years on anti-seizure meds for what may or may not have been epilepsy, for seizures that occurred after each of my well-child visits for shots.

Is it just me or are they really trying to downplay that 3% by saying most WON'T have a problem? In a good sized elementary school that's 3 kids per grade developing problems from seizures. How is that okay?