HIB Vaccine

Dr. Sears says "HIB is a bacterium (singular for bacteria) that can cause serious illness such as meningitis (infection of the lining of the brain), blood infections, bone infections, and pneumonia. It is transmitted like the common cold (through contact with an infected person's cough, mucus, or saliva)."

Here is some summary information that I found to be important in deciding against giving this vaccination to my baby.

In the US is extremely rare, which means the chances of getting it are very slim. There is an even more slimmer chance of getting it if you breast feed and don't use day care. There are only about 25 reported cases of HIB in the entire US every year, and a smaller percent of those (25% I think) are anything serious. Typically the symptoms are just like the common cold and thus are not diagnosed. HIB can be caught more than once and like-wise getting vaccinated once only for it is not effective enough also. You must get booster shots also. Meningitis is a nasty disease (can cause brain damage, nerve damage, hearing loss, and learning issues in severe cases), but the truth is that the most common ways of getting it are not from the HIB virus. The good news is that even the severe cases are treatable, but that is just to save the person from death, not necessaryily to stop the severe symptoms list above. So, at best this vaccination is helpful, but in no way protects you from the most common cause of Meningitis.

There are pretty much no cases of children (only some elderly) over the age of 3, and very few over age two. So, if you are going to vaccinate for HIB you should do it earlier than later from a risk standpoint. If you decide to vaccinate for HIB it is not a bad one to do because it doesn't have much in the way of nasty stuff in it (though some brands do have Alumimum in it), and the list of side effects is not that bad compared to most vaccines. So, all in all it is not such a bad idea to do it if you want to do your part from herd immunity.

I am leaning towards not vaccinating for HIB in my baby. The Dr. Sears books "The Vaccine Book" is a GREAT book for getting unbiased information on vaccinations. I highly recommend reading it.