Pitting society’s lack of concern over the crisis in pediatric infectious disease

[Mama_Zappa]

@Dr.Drake

If it’s any consolation, I got my first-ever flu vaccine today. It was someone on this board who pointed out that we used to just bypass that vaccine because those who suffered and died from flu were largely out of sight, out of mind, and that stuck with me.

I started getting flu shots every year, when I developed asthma as an adult (had it as a kid, largely grew out of it, it came back in my mid-20s). My husband never bothered, until we had kids, and I pointed out that a dose of the flu would make it harder to take care of himself, let alone helping out with the youngsters.

I don’t even wait 15 minutes any more - since I’ve been getting the immunizations for nearly 40 years, I feel safe in saying I’m not likely to react badly.

@Darren_Garrison

Has RSV always been a significant problem or is that fairly new? Because I swear that I’ve never heard of it before it started making headlines in the past week or two.

I had the same question.

Why is RSV such a big deal these days?

Both of these things are true. Years before I was born, back in the 60s, they developed an RSV vaccine and human trials went horrifically wrong. Kids who were in the human trial not only did not avoid RSV, they were vastly more likely to be hospitalized. More than one child died. So of course this put scientists off the idea of another vaccine for decades. Now, however, things are dire enough to renew interest in an RSV vaccine and there’s at least one candidate in trials.