Yesterday I got a letter from the city hall. Usually this is something to do with the child subsidy, kodomo teate, or tax related. However, this time a bunch of paper work regarding vaccinations came out.
Now I’m no genius when it comes to kanji knowledge, but the gigantic katakana polio all over the print outs was a pretty big tipoff. Prior to moving to Japan with the family I did a fair amount of research on Japanese vaccinations. After all, most vaccinations are administered early in life and I wanted to make sure Olive got the proper jabs. Not much was that different. The schedule was more laid back, a few American vaccinations were lacking, but the American system seems to be a little gung-ho about vaccinations after all. However, what did surprise me was that Japan still uses the live polio vaccination.
The cases of polio that occur in Japan are caused entirely by this vaccine. I work with one such affected individual. Now the numbers are low, an estimated 1.4 per million experience paralysis from the vaccine. Still, some Japanese people have figured out that non-live vaccines are used in most industrialized countries, and have a lower occurrence of negative side effects. They got pretty pissed off, rightly so. There were some protests, news stories, that sort of thing. So the officials declared that they would switch to the non-live virus vaccine, but they wanted to develop it in country. So it would take some time. So would you please continue to take the old vaccine until we get the new one up and running.
Well the new vaccine is on its way, according to my print out. It will be here this year! In September!! So please get your child vaccinated with the old live vaccine this July and August.
Wait… what? You have the new vaccine on the way, one month after the regular mass vaccination schedule, and you think parents are going to opt for the old version rather than wait a month for the new version?
Oh Japan. I think I’ll have to play the ignorant foreign resident card and forget to show up for the vaccinations at the city health center.
2 comments:
Thanks for the info! I was a bit leery of getting the attenuated polio vaccine for our kids as well, but it's good to know they can get the non-live one if we just wait a bit. What do you think about the BCG shot that they give here.? The pediatrician was horrified when I told her that I didn't want the children to receive it. Even after I made it clear that I wanted to skip that one she still made an appointment to have them vaccinated with it (which I didn't show up to). I know for a fact that you can opt out of certain vaccinations here but I don't think it is common for mothers here to go against doctor's recommendations. Every time the kids go in for one of their other vaccinations or a check up my doctor brings up the BCG subject again and tries to whittle me down...
I was actually advised against getting it by the official at the community health center. However, we are close to an American military base. Perhaps they are more familiar with the difficulties the tuberculosis vaccination can cause kids once they go back home and try to enter public schools.
From what I can tell, vaccination is at an all time low in Japan due to some problems in the past with vaccinations, and the general inaction of the government to update available vaccines to the most current and safe versions. And yes, the way to get out of it is simply not to show up. Feign misunderstanding and no one will call you on it. That is the Japanese way of resistance. If he/she really won’t take no for an answer, tell her you’re keeping your kid on the immunization schedule of your home country and that the vaccine simply isn’t given there.
Good luck. I hate visiting doctors, no matter what the reason. Having to do it in Japanese only makes it worse.
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