OH GOD ALMIGHTY that thread made me want to find that mother and beat her senseless.
If you want to gamble on the protections of herd immunity while living in the U.S., that is (infuriatingly) your choice as a parent, although playing those odds with a child who has a potentially fatal disease like CF is grossly irresponsible. TAKING SUCH A CHILD TO INDIA UNVACCINATED is so far beyond the pale I don't even know how to talk to someone like this.
In fact, even though my experiences of international travel and living were possibly the most valuable learning experience of my life, I do not think I would take a child with CF to India at all. Air pollution there is atrocious, and the key to a relatively long life for a person with CF is to absolutely minimize the incremental damage that gets done. (I read a really fascinating article a year or two back comparing approaches and outcomes to the top clinic in the U.S. for CF -- which is in my city -- and a somewhat below-average clinic, this one in Ohio. In theory, they did basically the same stuff. The Minneapolis ped wasn't doing anything cutting edge, he was just being an absolute hardass. If someone started cutting corners with their treatment, and their health started to slip even slightly, he'd put them in the hospital for a few weeks to try to regain the lost ground. It kind of drove the teenagers in the program nuts, but his patients were more likely to live well into adulthood than anyone else's anywhere.) (And I can't even begin to imagine his response to a parent who refused to have their child with CF vaccinated against measles or the flu, or who wanted to them to India.)
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Date: 2009-11-01 07:23 pm (UTC)If you want to gamble on the protections of herd immunity while living in the U.S., that is (infuriatingly) your choice as a parent, although playing those odds with a child who has a potentially fatal disease like CF is grossly irresponsible. TAKING SUCH A CHILD TO INDIA UNVACCINATED is so far beyond the pale I don't even know how to talk to someone like this.
In fact, even though my experiences of international travel and living were possibly the most valuable learning experience of my life, I do not think I would take a child with CF to India at all. Air pollution there is atrocious, and the key to a relatively long life for a person with CF is to absolutely minimize the incremental damage that gets done. (I read a really fascinating article a year or two back comparing approaches and outcomes to the top clinic in the U.S. for CF -- which is in my city -- and a somewhat below-average clinic, this one in Ohio. In theory, they did basically the same stuff. The Minneapolis ped wasn't doing anything cutting edge, he was just being an absolute hardass. If someone started cutting corners with their treatment, and their health started to slip even slightly, he'd put them in the hospital for a few weeks to try to regain the lost ground. It kind of drove the teenagers in the program nuts, but his patients were more likely to live well into adulthood than anyone else's anywhere.) (And I can't even begin to imagine his response to a parent who refused to have their child with CF vaccinated against measles or the flu, or who wanted to them to India.)