Mother grieves after 4-year-old daughter dies from flu

[dkf]

It all happened so fast, she says. Her four-year-old daughter -- the youngest of three sisters -- was healthy and happy one day, feverish with the flu the next day.

"Friday, she started to have fever so I took her to the doctor right away, and her doctor prescribed her Tamiflu because they suspect she has the flu," Cabasag said.

After the first dose, Jianna's fever went down, but only for a while.

"So, I believed the medicine was working. I said 'thank God,' but early afternoon Saturday she fell feverish again," Cabasag said.

She was given a second dose of Tamiflu, but on Sunday morning it got worse. She was sweating, her hands and feet freezing, and little Jianna was too exhausted to move. Cabasag rushed her to the Emergency Room.

http://www.khon2.com/news/local/story/EXCLUSIVE-Mother-grieves-after-4-year-old/a_m462iH4E2Y-6ZknNl1Tg.cspx

This story scares me...her mother did everything right, had her daughter vaccinated and got her to the doctor and tamiflu early. Moreover the little girl was healthy prior to her illness. How can this happen?

[TwilightGardener]

1. Sounds like ARDS (acute respiratory distress syndrome).

[donco]

2. That dont sound

like the flu to me.

[Control-Z]

4. I just keep hearing how bad

and deadly this year's strain of flu is.

[Mojorabbit]

14. It can be the flu. It happens more often than you would think.

The body goes into overdrive to fight it and this happens. Here is an article that describes the cytokine storm. http://articles.washingtonpost.com/2012-01-02/national/35439674_1_flu-virus-immune-response-flu-infections
Peace, Mojo

[NYC_SKP]

3. Everyone is "healthy prior to their illness"...

The poor thing may have died from any number of things, flu related or not.

Poor thing, poor family.

[bama_blue_dot]

5. I have been reading some crazy stuff

about this Tamiflu Vaccine.. I had no idea that Japan banned it after children died from it...

[dkf]

6. That was for psychiatric problems...

http://www.newscientist.com/mobile/article/dn11451-japan-bans-tamiflu-for-teenagers.html

[kestrel91316]

8. Tamiflu is an antiviral pharmaceutical. Flu vaccine is a biological.

You need to read a tad more.

[bama_blue_dot]

13. Thanks

for the condescending advice! Much appreciated!

[kestrel91316]

18. Nothing condescending about it. You're reading too much into it.

I'm just correcting a glaring inaccuracy.

I'm weird about science and medicine that way. Facts matter.

[bama_blue_dot]

20. Your first line would have been sufficient enough

to get your point across..

[RandiFan1290]

21. They can't feel superior if they don't get that personal jab in, ya know!

[bama_blue_dot]

22. I am beginning to realize that.. n/t

[GaYellowDawg]

25. Well, here's the thing...

You should spend a little less time being overwrought and a little more time making yourself informed. Read/research more is always good advice, especially when it comes to vaccines and DU. We have way too many Jenny McCarthy "vaccines are evil" woo-woos on this board.

[Orrex]

26. .

[bama_blue_dot]

27. So, if I decide I don't want a flu vaccine

that must mean that I am against all vaccines? Sorry, that's not me..

[jeff47]

9. Tamiflu isn't a vaccine.

It's a drug which interferes with flu's ability to replicate.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oseltamivir

[Spider Jerusalem]

19. Or, it doesn't

Two months ago, we pointed out in our story on flu in The Atlantic that the antiviral drug Tamiflu might not be as effective or safe as many patients, doctors, and governments think. The drug has been widely prescribed since the first cases of H1N1 flu surfaced last spring, and the U.S. government has spent more than $1.5 billion stockpiling it since 2005 as part of the nation’s pandemic preparedness plan.

Now it looks as if our concerns were correct, and the nation may have put more than a billion dollars into the medical equivalent of a mirage. This week, the British medical journal BMJ published a multi-part investigation that confirms that the scientific evidence just isn’t there to show that Tamiflu prevents serious complications, hospitalization, or death in people that have the flu. The BMJ goes further to suggest that Roche, the Swiss company that manufactures and markets Tamiflu, may have misled governments and physicians. In its defense, Roche stated that the company “has never concealed (or had the intention to conceal) any pertinent data.”

The BMJ’s investigation began innocently enough, with an update of a review by the Cochrane Collaboration, a widely-respected international consortium of researchers who periodically examine the medical literature to assess the safety and effectiveness of various treatments. Roche has claimed that its drug reduces hospital admissions by 61% in patients who were otherwise healthy before they got the flu. It has also said that Tamiflu reduces such complications as bronchitis, pneumonia, and sinusitis by 67%, and lower respiratory tract infections requiring antibiotics by 55%. A 2006 Cochrane review of Tamiflu came to similar conclusions—based largely on a paper that looked at ten studies, all of them funded by the company.

But when the Cochrane team, led by Chris Del Mar, from Bond University in Australia, re-examined the studies they had previously used in 2006, they found some discrepancies. It turned out that only two of the ten studies had ever been published in medical journals, and those two showed the drug had very little effect on complications compared to a dummy pill, or placebo. So the Cochrane reviewers decided to look at the data for themselves.

(much more including links to BMJ article at link)
http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2009/12/the-truth-about-tamiflu/307801/

[kestrel91316]

7. It happens because NO vaccine is 100% effective, and because

our herd vaccination rate is far too low to prevent the virus from propagating through the population.

So basically, antivaxers killed her.

And it's entirely possible that she had a fever from something else around the time of the vaccine and that negated her body's ability to properly respond.

I NEVER vaccinate my patients within a week of a fever or even if I suspect they might have had one that is resolved. You do that, it's like giving water. Completely ineffective.

Vaccine failures like this are not an issue if the overall herd immunity rate is high enough.

[pnwmom]

11. We don't know what killed her. She could have had a flu strain that

wasn't covered in the vaccine. And it's possible that she actually died of something else. I knew a boy whose father thought he had the flu (the father was a physician) but it turned out to be another virus -- meningitis.

[dkf]

12. Yes I understand the vaccine is hit or miss...

I am just wondering from the point of view of a parent if its a matter of catching or missing a sign that you need to get to the ER ASAP. What stuns me is how fast it happened, 2 days! I know the guidelines for a high fever and the ER, but the other symptoms that necessitate immediate action, that I don't know.

And the kids have gone through difficulty breathing and high fevers before, but we toughed it out with humidifiers and NSAIDs.

[pnwmom]

10. It is scary. A physician I know lost his son that way. He thought the boy

had the flu, but it turned out he had viral meningitis.

Sometimes it's not obvious even to physicians. And sometimes, despite the best efforts of everybody, a child dies.

But if you have a very sick child, and your gut feeling is that something really serious is wrong with your child, go with your gut.

[dkf]

16. You are so right...go with your gut.

If its the flu, over thinking it can be too risky and slow.

[Horse with no Name]

15. We just finished a round of Tamiflu with my granddaughter

and the way I am reading it, it says they gave Jianna a dose of Tamiflu on Friday then her fever went down and when the fever returned, they gave her another dose on Sunday.

Tamiflu is a twice a day medication. If it was not given properly, it would have been ineffective from the start. It has to be started within 48 hours of onset.

The flu vaccine only covers the strains of flu included in it--and there just happens to be more strains of flu out there other than the ones included in the vaccine.

Very sad for this family.

[davidn3600]

17. People dont die from the flu, they usually die from complications

The flu can cause high fever, pneumonia, bronchitis, infections, and in rare cases even things like myocarditis leading to heart failure or sudden death.

Most people with decent immune systems won't have much trouble fighting the flu. But the virus effects every person a little differently. And some people are more sensitive.

[gollygee]

23. One of my kids was horribly sick from the flu

And she'd had the flu shot as well. I couldn't believe how sick she was. I had her at the doctor twice for it.

My daughter is usually very healthy. She has not other health issues. This is just a very nasty flu bug. (I'll add that the other child had the flu and did not get nearly as sick so of course not everyone gets it so bad.)

[Freddie Stubbs]

24. The flu vaccine is about 60% effective

[pipi_k]

28. What they've been saying lately

about that sort of thing...

If someone has the flu, seems to get better, then gets sick again, it's more than likely a bacterial infection which will be more serious because the body is already weakened from having to deal with the flu, which is a virus.

If it was a secondary bacterial infection, Tamiflu would be useless.

[apples and oranges]

29. A little surprised by the lack of questions about tamiflu's role in all of this

Or the flu vaccine the child received prior to this. People talk about "herd immunity," well the dirty little secret of herd immunity is that there will be casualties because no medicine is 100% safe for everyone. You just have to hope you're not among the 5% who dies for the greater good.