Kidney Transplant for Daniel Westling: May 2009

[Odette]

Royals must wait in line for flu vaccine - The Local

"Royals must wait in line for flu vaccine(Daniel Westling did get the H1N1 flu vaccine)."

It is good to know that they are so "democratic" about it.
Very good of themselves to let others with more pressing health issues to get to the front of the line

 

[lilytornado]

I am glad that Daniel already received the vaccine. The article says that he is in the high-risk group with his kidney-transplantaion.

 

[carlota]

i'm surprised to see that the swedish royal family will receive the vaccine and that the swedish health services think it's appropriate - same goes for the norwegian royal family who also seems to be vaccined: in the countries were i have been to lately there's much controversy over whether the vaccine is good enough and it's secondary effects.

 

[RubyPrincess168]

I wondered when the topic of Royals getting the H1N1 vaccine would come up. I am surprised by the Royal families getting the swine flu vaccines, although I wonder if they actually got the regular flu vaccine instead. I would think that with the beefed up security normally around them, there would be an extra effort/layer to keep potentionally infected people away from them as well.

Personally I got the regular flu vaccine but not the H1N1 vaccine because I haven't heard good things about it. Some of my co-workers' pediatricians actually recommended getting just the seasonal flu vaccine and not the H1N1 because the seasonal vaccine contains the H1N1. That contradicts what the CDC say though CDC - Seasonal Influenza (Flu) - Key Facts About Seasonal Flu Vaccine . Aside from seasonal allergies I rarely get sick so I'll take my chances.

 

[Katrianna]

I would think that Daniel would receive the flu vaccine because of his transplant surgery status and it still being recent event with healing and the danger of rejection. I don't about Europe, but most kidney transplants are not scheduled, there are still waiting lists. Finding a living donor can be difficult because even if close family members want to donate, they have to go through a testing process and may not match. Daniel's father may have had his kidney removed laparoscopically, meaning he had small incisions instead of a large incision and probably recovered a little faster than before. I work in the operating room and have had to do kidney transplants.
As for Daniel, he's young and may well have a long life, but it's a wait and see.

 

[firelight]

It must have been a real relief when they found Daniel's father was a match, otherwise it would be terrible having to be on the waiting list.

As for Daniel getting the vaccine, that makes sense because when you have received an organ transplant, your immune system will recognise the organ as a foreign body and reject it. To prevent that, transplant patients like Daniel have to take drugs to suppress the immune system. But if you're taking something to suppress your immune system to prevent organ rejection, the obvious side effect is that you're going to be more vulnerable to infections. It's definitely a good idea for Daniel to get the vaccine. The down side is that he is going to be on these immunosuppressing drugs his whole life, so this is not going to be a one-off thing. This problem will always be there.

As for the rest of the royal family, I think it makes sense for them to get the vaccine. Bear in mind that their job involves a lot of handshaking with members of the public. It's impossible for the security folks to keep the infected people away from them. How could they possibly screen EVERYONE? There's just no way to know when the king might shake hands with someone who has just touched a contaminated doorknob.

Most of the negative reports I've read about the H1N1 vaccine are not all that surprising - even with regular vaccines, there are always people who get a bad reaction. As a matter of fact, this is true for ANY medicine, whether it's a herbal health supplement, or a cold medicine you get from the supermarket, or a flu jab. The only difference is, H1N1 is big news, and every possible bad reaction to the vaccine (even the ones that are later shown to be unrelated to the flu jab) gets reported in the news.