Question regarding recent cases of virus causing partial paraylysis...

[Anonymous]

Let me start by saying that I am 100% pro-vaccine and we get flu shots each year (and are anxiously waiting for our pediatrician to get their supply for this season) but is there any way that these cases of partial paralysis are related to a bad reaction to the flu shot, similar to Guillain-Barre' syndrome? Or is that just bunk?? A friend suggested this and I wondered what people think, since the root cause of this illness seems to be a complete mystery thus far.

[Anonymous]

No. It's related to the entero virus strain 68.

Not the flu shot .

[Anonymous]

Almost all of the kids with paralysis tested positive for an enterovirus and a portion of those tested positive for the D68 form of the virus - the same one that is causing severe breathing problems for a lot of kids. This doesn't mean that I'm not scared to death of my kids getting sick but I'm confident it's not caused by the flu shot.

The flu vaccine this year is identical to last year's and I don't even think that many people have gotten it, yet. My kids get the FluMist in school (optional for Howard County) at the end of this month.

[Anonymous]

The outbreak also started ahead of flu shot season (began in the high summer).Not all kids who've had it get so seriously ill.
And, no, it didn't come from undocumented, unaccompanied Honduran minors, no matter what talk radio or the tinfoil hatters of DCUM say.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No. It's related to the entero virus strain 68.

Not the flu shot .

But I just read that only some of the kids in the recent Colorado outbreak tested positive for 68, not even sure if it was a majority.
And the symptoms found a lot like GBS.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The outbreak also started ahead of flu shot season (began in the high summer).Not all kids who've had it get so seriously ill.
And, no, it didn't come from undocumented, unaccompanied Honduran minors, no matter what talk radio or the tinfoil hatters of DCUM say.

OP again...that's true, it started before flu season.

[Anonymous]

Not GBS. the paralysis is clearly related to the presence of the entero virus infection. Polio was another virulent form of a different enterovirus and also caused "childhood paralysis" in the US.