Pathfinder
Editor, Senior Moderator
Flu Kills Quickly, Taking Lives of 100 Healthy Children Annually
By SUSAN DONALDSON JAMES
Nov. 28, 2012
In just eight months at his new school in Rifle, Colo., Austin Booth made a name for himself as a star athlete, honor student and a popular classmate with a promising future.
But within six days after he contracted the flu last January, Austin was dead. He was 17. His parents had never even considered giving a flu shot to their otherwise healthy teen.
"It was flu season and we knew other kids who were sick and we didn't think that much about it," said his mother, Regina Booth, 42. "He was a healthy teenager."
...
Dr. William Schaffner, professor and chairman of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, said that people are fooled into thinking that influenza, a serious respiratory infection, is just like a cold.
...
"Although it can be mild and often is, it is often very, very serious and can strike an otherwise normal child and put them in intensive care, usually within 48 hours."
...
Advocacy efforts by the nonprofit organization Families Fighting the Flu were part the gradual change of the CDC recommendation toward universal immunization.
About 100 American children die each year from the flu, according to its executive director, Laura Scott. "It's devastating."
"The more people who get vaccinated, the less disease there is that spreads," said Scott...
...
Full text:
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Coldan...r-deaths-preventable/story?id=17820500&page=2
By SUSAN DONALDSON JAMES
Nov. 28, 2012
In just eight months at his new school in Rifle, Colo., Austin Booth made a name for himself as a star athlete, honor student and a popular classmate with a promising future.
But within six days after he contracted the flu last January, Austin was dead. He was 17. His parents had never even considered giving a flu shot to their otherwise healthy teen.
"It was flu season and we knew other kids who were sick and we didn't think that much about it," said his mother, Regina Booth, 42. "He was a healthy teenager."
...
Dr. William Schaffner, professor and chairman of preventive medicine at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, said that people are fooled into thinking that influenza, a serious respiratory infection, is just like a cold.
...
"Although it can be mild and often is, it is often very, very serious and can strike an otherwise normal child and put them in intensive care, usually within 48 hours."
...
Advocacy efforts by the nonprofit organization Families Fighting the Flu were part the gradual change of the CDC recommendation toward universal immunization.
About 100 American children die each year from the flu, according to its executive director, Laura Scott. "It's devastating."
"The more people who get vaccinated, the less disease there is that spreads," said Scott...
...
Full text:
http://abcnews.go.com/Health/Coldan...r-deaths-preventable/story?id=17820500&page=2