National Immunization Awareness Month

As August comes to a close, so does National Immunization Awareness Month.
Unfortunately, I was unaware that vaccines received a whole month of education until the last week.  One of our Pharmacy Organizations has us posting Immunization Facts each day on Facebook and/or Twitter.  I support it.  Mostly because I believe in the proper education of patients about vaccines.  But also because I am allowed to immunize people as a PharmD student - which will be doing either at the Student Union or hopefully at the NC State Fair!

I stand by my claim that vaccines are the most important breakthrough in medical history.  We can actually prevent disease by taking the buggers, stripping them of their nastiness, and putting into a person.  Then the patient's own immune system can develop the defenses to fight off any attacks.  We have eradicated polio and small pox and made it so people don't die from the common infectious diseases of our past.  If you don't care about that, realize that kids don't have to get chicken pox anymore!  There a lots of other facts swarming Facebook, like Women should get a flu shots and a Tdap while pregnant to protect their babies.  If you want anymore factual information about vaccinations go to this CDC site.  It is a great resource.

Sadly there is still a thread of people who became convinced that vaccines give children autism.  There are even some Facebook threads spreading their "information" as well during NIAM.  Thankfully, Penn and Teller devoted an entire show to proving why their claims are "Bullsh!t".

Please go out and get vaccinated and help teach others about immunizations.