Since my first blog post about the H1N1 virus we have conducted a second H1N1 vaccination clinic.  We were able to provide second vaccinations to students under 10 who received their first vaccinations at our first clinic, to vaccinate seniors (who were not able to be vaccinated last time due to a shortage of doses) as well as provide vaccinations to some students who missed the opportunity the first time around due to illness.

Given the shortage of the vaccine and the constantly changing guidelines provided by the Health Department, it really was miraculous that we were able to pull off our two vaccination clinics as smoothly as we did. Many at CWA worked very hard to make this possible, and the fact that we were “out of the gate” early in our relationship with the Health Department helped a great deal.

One of the challenges that we had not anticipated, but in retrospect makes a great deal of sense, was working with families as they decided whether or not to vaccinate their children, and if they did, whether to specify one form of the vaccine or another. We live in a time of “too much information,” where it is very easy to obtain far more information than we possibly can sort through rationally. And some of the “information” out there clearly was contradictory.

I think the essence of the challenge for families was this:

• The H1N1 virus causes mild to moderate disease in most, but causes serious illness, and even death, in some people
• All vaccinations carry some small degree of risk; someone, somewhere, will undoubtedly have a serious reaction to a vaccine, even one that is generally regarded as safe

As parents, our first obligation is to try to safeguard our children’s safety. If we decided not to vaccinate, and our children came down with a serious case of the illness and passed away, we would never forgive ourselves. If we vaccinated our children, and they had a serious reaction, we would never forgive ourselves. In either case, we would find having made the wrong choice devastating.

What to do? In the modern era, “what to do” means talking with others, but above all, it means going to the Internet to seek as much information as we can. The problem is that there is absolutely too much information out there. Some of the information is flat out wrong. Other information is spot on. Unless we have some expertise ourselves, it is virtually impossible for us to make an independent judgment about whether what we read on the web is correct or not. That leads to a great deal of uncertainty, anxiety, and often, to paralysis as well.

Our parent community reacted in about as many ways as one could imagine. Most parents gave the matter a little thought and accepted the recommendations of the Centers for Disease Control and/or the Pierce County Health Department and signed their children up immediately. Others hesitated, but signed them up eventually. Still others insisted on one form or another (either nasal spray or injection), concluding that there were unacceptable risks in one (or the other) of these methods of immunization. There were also those who just didn’t want their children to be immunized at all, and a few who were concerned that even being present during the administration of the nasal spray vaccine posed unacceptable risks to their children (and kept their children home that day).

A few years back, I came to the conclusion that in a technical area, such as medicine, that requires expertise beyond what I possess, searching the Internet provides little by way of enlightenment and a great deal of anxiety and confusion. I decided that I needed to listen to the advice of my own physician, something I would have done without thinking in the pre-Internet era. I still think that’s the best option today.

Offering vaccination clinics that allowed the overwhelming majority of CWA students to be immunized was a service we were happy to provide. It did not, alas, prevent the school from experiencing a high level of absenteeism over about a two-week period as the disease briefly swept through our halls. While at this writing, the incidence of disease caused by H1N1 seems to have subsided somewhat throughout the country, the flu season is yet young, and I feel very fortunate that so many members of our community have been afforded some level of protection.