Is the COVID Vaccine Safe for Children? A Pediatrician and Immunologist Weigh In

Faith & Science Conversation
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From the CDC, even worse for kids under 5. Here is a summary of flu the last few years, even worse for unimmunized kids than I remembered:

  • CDC estimates that from the 2010-2011 season to the 2019-2020 season, flu-related hospitalizations among children younger than 5 years old have ranged from 7,000 to 26,000 in the United States.
  • While relatively rare, some children die from flu each year. From the 2004-2005 season to the 2019-2020 season, flu-related deaths in children reported to CDC during regular flu seasons have ranged from 37 to 199 deaths. (During the 2009 H1N1 pandemic, 358 pediatric flu-related deaths were reported to CDC from April 2009 to September 2010.) It is noteworthy that among reported pediatric deaths, about 80% of those children were not fully vaccinated. Also of note, even though individual flu deaths in children must be reported to CDC, it is likely that not all deaths are captured and that the number of actual deaths is higher. CDC has developed statistical models that account for the underreporting of flu-related deaths in children to estimate the actual number of deaths.

Also, last year, only one death occurred from flu (so at least social distancing and vaccines worked their magic for that!) a opposed to 442 with covid over 2 years. ( I do not have the patience to run down the yearly numbers. come to your own conclusions.:

06/02/2022 0-4 years 442 Age All All 01/04/2020 05/28/2022
06/02/2022 5-18 years 815 Age All All 01/04/2020 05/28/2022
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Those are not my opinions.

Those are facts.

It is a fact that no vaccinations are planned.

It is a fact that the parents made those determinations.

You may disagree with the opinions of my children and in-laws, but it is fact that those are their opinions.

Do you see the difference?

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Do you understand why I think their opinions may be wrong?

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Yes, I understand why you think their opinions might be wrong.

Do you understand that you could be wrong?

And do you understand that the parents are responsible to make decisions for 5-year-old children?

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I could be wrong, but I have yet to see anyone demonstrate what I am getting wrong.

I absolutely agree that parents are responsible for making medical decisions for their children. I was commenting on why I thought their reasoning was flawed. The question in the topic of the thread is “Is the COVID Vaccine Safe for Children?”. It isn’t, “Are Parents Responsible for Their Children’s Medical Care?”

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Hmmm, I am not sure what the point you are seeking to make in that statement, but the role of parents in determining whether the vaccine is appropriate for their children is quite relevant to the topic.

Parents know the situations and health of their children better than the compilers and evaluators of average or cumulative data know.

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Citation needed. The parents whose kids have died or had to have had amputations or have permanent organ damage because of COVID are among them?

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Good post – I’m glad you didn’t shut it down prior. Now maybe? XD

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You could at least admit you misrepresented my posts — you got that wrong.

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I’m a little tired of this trope. Parents don’t know best and haven’t the faintest clue to decide what’s best for their children many times. A tiny tip of the iceberg of examples:

  • David and Collet Stephan’s son died of bacterial meningitis. They ignored signs he was seriously ill and instead used vitamins, supplements, hot pepper, horseradish, and remedies from their home business, Truehope Nutritional Support. A naturopath recommended Echinacea tincture without ever examining the boy, and the boy sadly died. And of course, the boy wasn’t vaccinated against Hib which protects against bacterial meningitis.
  • Children die of curable cancers because their parents refuse chemotherapy or radiation therapy.
  • Here’s a headline of a girl who died from untreated diabetes after her parents chose prayer instead of medical help
  • What about the 20% of parents who cite “safety” and “lack of necessity” for the HPV vaccine, despite the fact that “their parental wisdom” will lead to some of these children getting vaccine-preventable cancer later in life?

So no, anecdotes and eyeballing the well-being/health of one’s own child doesn’t cut it. It’s not okay that parents just say “eh, doesn’t seem so bad for kids plus the whole COVID thing is overblown anyway.” The vast majority of parents haven’t the foggiest clue of how to determine if a vaccine is appropriate for their child. Seeing that some five-year-olds had COVID-19 and it wasn’t too bad (at least with external temporary symptoms) is not a good argument against getting vaccinated.

Also the trope of “we don’t know the long-term effects of the vaccine” should just go away already. We already can compare the two on a short-term basis (and the virus is most definitely worse - 1 million dead in the US compared to a couple from the J&J vaccine?). And then, on a long-term basis, we know a lot about the long-term damage of the virus and are finding out more every day. Not so with the vaccine.

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Yet your whole post is based on rare anecdotes.

And I am quite tired of people thinking the government should take over control of children in debatable matters.

Like it or not, God gave parents responsibility for their children.

As a moderator you can censor me, but that is not appropriate or righteous. While it may be expedient to your goals, it is not appropriate.

I am old enough to remember thalidomide.

May we never trust science so much that we tell questions to “go away.”

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Even forcing the vaccine and booster shots on adults (and children) who have recovered from the virus.

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And somehow you ignore the main point that parents don’t necessarily know best. If you would like to expand our discussion into larger studies we can do that too, but you don’t seem to be interested in that because you don’t like:

Thalidomide issues were precisely because we didn’t have or do rigorous scientific studies like we do with COVID-19 vaccines. Not even comparable.

Yeah, probably refusing chemotherapy when it has proven efficacy for certain childhood cancers is best. Sorry kid, your parents did their research.

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And you think the government knows best for individual children, better than their parents?

Certainly that happens sometimes. But as a general rule it is both inappropriate and ill advised.

I am certain that you are aware the vaccine was approved on an emergency basis, and that full approval came long after rollout by the same government whose leader said “if you get the vaccine, you won’t get Covid,”

https://www.usnews.com/news/politics/articles/2021-07-21/ap-fact-check-biden-inflates-jobs-impact-from-his-policies

BIDEN: “You’re not going to get COVID if you have these vaccinations.” — town hall.

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… and sadly they were misinformed in most cases.

But censoring the guy they listen to, the one who is calling out perceived problems with big pharma and the vast amount of money and control at stake doesn’t build trust.

And then the CDC reports 80% herd immunity in the US based on vaccinations and recovery from infection in the spring of 2021, pre-Delta, and then pushes for mandatory vaccines the following fall, when immunity is approaching 90%. It’s not believable.

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And because therapeutic treatment was supposedly not available.

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I have often wondered what planet liberals like you inhabit so the feeling there is mutual. Anyway, there are people still today who love the USA. It’s not the mask, the vaccines but the mandate. Seriously, it’s more than a virus it’s a matter of principle.

Besides, I don’t really think you’ve got your facts straight…
Sure, a million people died,
Who were those people?

I hope you’re honest enough to realize that with relatively few exceptions, those who died were the already sick and the aged.

Now that you’re all ready to pounce on me and say I don’t care about anyone I’d like to say:

That doesn’t minimize the death.
All death is terrible.

What it does point out however is that our response to COVID was ridiculous.

We locked everyone and everything up when only those over 50 had a minute chance of getting killed.

We put masks on our kids and cheated them of 2 years of childhood.

And we were inhumane, locking people in hospital wards and not allowing them to see loved ones.

Further, we ignored the common sense idea:
If you’ve already had covid you have natural immunity.

Loving neighbor as self, became an excuse for the Vid nazis to shame those who were ready to move on with a few unmasked life.
Those who’d assessed the risk (as humans have successfully done for thousands of years) and really didn’t give a fig newton bar anymore.

Try looking at suicide rates, depression anxiety.

Maybe you had the privilege of sitting on the couch and working from home, you ever stop to think of those who were trying to do manual work? Those who own their own business? If you didn’t your being pretty selfish.

There’s more to life then living with a low pain tolerance snowflake identity and trying to please everyone.

Go ahead and wear your mask. Get yourself jabbed with booster mach 3. If it protects you so well there is no reason for me to get it and we can all live happily ever after.

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Interesting isn’t it that rather than engage in intellectual commentary the “moderators"of this forum would prefer removing my"dangerous thinking” in order to… in order to what? That my friends stinks of Orwell, wreaks of communism and is I might add rather entertaining.

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@03Cobra, @heymike3:

Why is that beyond you guys. It really is not that hard to understand.

@Sam – you too.

 
ETA: And we’re only talking about the mRNA for the spike protein, the one that the virus uses to attach and infect the cell – not all the other harmful proteins that are produced once the cell is infected and whose damaging functions are still being studied and learned.

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I don’t recall anyone saying the “infection is harmless,” so the post is based on sand and collapses when the rain of facts comes.

It is not a decision between “harmless” and “dangerous,” especially for 5-year-olds. To pretend it is such a choice is simply shameful.

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