Well, millions and possibly billions of people have received vaccinations over the last century. It's thought that the worst possible side effect from a vaccination is Guillain Barre Syndrome - a paralysis syndrome in which the body attacks its own nerves. The rate of full recovery from the syndrome is 85%. The chances in totality of suffering from GBS is about 1 or 2 in 100,000. Considering that most people in the US have received at least one vaccination and up to maybe... 20?... I would say the risk of developing GBS are extremely low.
From a strictly statistical and mathematical perspective using good sources for figures:
If 1:100,000 = GBS and 1:25= Death from GBS, then chances are
1:2,500,000 of developing the syndrome and dying of it.
Some sources say 2:100,000 and 1:33, but worst case scenario is maybe 2:100,000 total odds of GBS, 1:33 mortality which amounts to total risk of mortality of
1:1,665,000.
Not bad odds at all, so far.
So let's say you find that total risk acceptable, but you believe this current vaccination to be more risky. If so, maybe we should look at the statistics for just regular flu fatalities in comparison to GBS fatalities to evaluate the risk vs. benefits:
Approximately 36,000 deaths and more than 200,000 hospitalizations are directly associated with all influenza every year in the United States.
Assumed population count in US: 305,529,237
population / deaths = odds of death from flu yearly
1 in 8,487 die of any type of flu.
compared to
1 in 1,665,000 die from GBS
I sincerely doubt the risk of developing GBS from the Swine Flu vaccine are worse than 1:8,487 since health organizations the world over have been doing clinical trials with a total number of people probably exceeding 8,487. They would probably be watching for GBS, too.
Yes, we didn't count who died from GBS that was induced by the flu shot, but we can assume that most of the people who died (these are US numbers) have had at least one vaccination in their lives. It's also believed that any viral or bacterial infection can lead to GBS, and the cause of GBS is not yet understood and is not exclusive to vaccinations. GBS strikes randomly more often.
You're a valver and valvers sometimes have a harder time with bad flu infections. I would think this already kind of puts you in a higher risk category.
Some may reference the 1976 vaccination campaign by the US government, where around 550 people developed GBS. Wiki had this to say:
There were indeed reports of GBS affecting about 500 people who had received swine flu immunizations in the 1976 U.S. outbreak of swine flu — 25 of which resulted in death from severe pulmonary complications, leading the government to end that immunization campaign[11]. However, the role of the vaccine in these cases has remained unclear, partly because GBS had an unknown but very low incidence rate in the general population making it difficult to assess whether the vaccine was really increasing the risk for GBS. Later research have concluded to the absence of or to very small increase in the GBS risk due to the 1976 swine flu vaccine[12]. Besides the GBS may not have been directly due to the vaccine but to a bacterial contamination of the vaccine that triggered GBS.[13]
If you have medical conditions that make you less able to fight off influenza (like asthma, COPD,
heart problems, diabetes, etc), I'd say it definitely makes sense to be vaccinated given the odds.
