A shot in the dark

Bloggy Friends, you’ve always helped me out (except for Victoria Beckham’s phone number, but that was a tough one, I grant you), so can I ask you to come to my aid again? Two things.

First, I want to set up that clever system whereby whenever one of you writes one of your fabulously witty and interesting posts, I am notified. I think there are various sites on which I can do this, so just tell me the best one (for ‘best’, read ‘simplest’).

Second, and this is a bit more of a challenge, help me out with cross-Atlantic immunization issues (and I’m not just talking about the spelling). The story so far: 4-yo had all her infant jabs. She is due her pre-school boosters. Immunization schedules are different in the US and UK. The whole DTP bundle is given five times in the US to a child by the time it reaches school age, to the UK’s four. Is this cost-cutting by the NHS, or cynical cashing in by US drug companies? Or neither? I have no way of knowing. Are they different products or different doses, and will it matter? Trawling the internet hasn’t yielded an answer.

Immunizations are compulsory here, so in order to attend preschool, 4-yo had to have a letter from her doctor saying that there were medical reasons for her not to be immunized. (Odd, isn’t it, that in a nation that holds so dear the principle of personal freedom, people are quite happy to be compelled to have their children immunized – can you imagine the outcry there would be in Britain?) I told 4-yo’s doctor that she could have her pre-school booster when we were on holiday in Scotland, sticking to the UK schedule. Keep things simple. I have now had to tell him that the GP in Scotland said it was too complicated to give her the shot because she was no longer registered with him, he didn’t have her records, and it meant he would have to register her as a temporary resident, which took two weeks. At this point, I warmed greatly to my doctor here, when he said “but that’s the kind of thing we say in this country”. I love it when I come across an American who can laugh at America. Anyway, he now wants a bit more information on what exactly 4-yo was injected with, as an infant, and so I am charged with phoning my very nice and long-suffering health visitor and getting the information from her (without either of us saying “wouldn’t it just have been easier if Dr X had agreed to do the job when you were over?”).

Option A: postpone the whole issue, assume 4-yo isn’t going to be exposed to polio, diphtheria, whooping cough and tetanus (especially given that every other child has been immunized), get my nice doctor here to write the medical exemption note for preschool, and have another try at sorting it all out when we are next in Britain.

Option B: get her to have the American booster, and trust to luck that it won’t do her any harm, but actually after the conversation with the doctor, I’m already committed to

Option C: get information from the health visitor in Scotland (which may well not help anyway).

Option D: an immunologist, who enjoys blogging in his/her spare time, happens to read this post, and is able to tell me authoritatively what to do. That would be nice. De-lurk, kind passing immunologist.

They’re shots in America, jabs in England, jags in Scotland. Shots, jabs, jags, whatever. They’re a pain in the behind.