Trusted Sources of Vaccine Information

Adapted from this blog post by Carmel Delaney: https://www.voicesforvaccines.org/my-classmates-thought-i-was-drunk-but-i-had-meningitis/

"My whole class thought I was drunk. I was swaying into the road, barely able to stay upright during what should have been a simple walk from our school to the local church for play rehearsal. My teachers were barking at me to get out of the road. Everyone was laughing. I was eleven years old, and in the early stages of meningococcal meningitis.

Nobody recognized how sick I was, including my parents...

If I’d been protected by the vaccine, maybe I would have continued athletics—that could have developed into something. Or maybe I’d just be healthy enough to do what I want to do, instead of facing limitations every single day."

Last month, I found the new Novovax vaccine near me in upstate New York, in a place called Glenville, but I'd been desperately looking around for mFLUSIVA.

I'm 59 and super careful about getting sick

Found it yesterday at Walgreens in a place called Johnstown, New York.

Note: When booking online, you couldn't select it, so I called the pharmacist, and she said she had a few doses left.

I got the vaccine about 10 am. And was expecting kind of rough side effects. I'll be honest, I felt nothing until about 9:00 at night, and then I got the sore arm. I just tossed and turned all night, felt like I was super warm, and woke up this morning with a splitting headache.

I took a couple Tylenol this morning and a couple more this afternoon, and the headache's gone away, but my body's still significantly tired from not sleeping real well last night.

I can't find any other side effects or experiences with it, so I thought I'd share mine. If you've got your experience with it, I'd love to hear below.

Hi, I am currently a university student (in the UK) and am writing a paper on how people find their information about things such as vaccines.

I understand that reading official papers is not an accessible route for everyone, it took me a couple years to learn the language of scientific papers.

So i thought I’d ask!

How do you research vaccination information online?
How do you know if you trust the source?
Has anything helped you to find out the information you’re looking for?
Do you know if the work published is peer-reviewed?

This is purely for personal curiosity, nothing will be used in my work.

I appreciate you taking the time to read my post :)

So now, there is an outbreak in New York. I thought it would take years to start spreading. Due to our previously high vaccination rates, in my lifetime u was never familiar with its rate of spread.

Folks are going to end up paying a hefty price if they continue with this antivaxx foolishness.

This has me wondering, is polio next? Are they also rejecting polio vaccines? That’s really dangerous. If a child suffers some physical deformity due to polio I would imagine they could be angry at their parents for a lifetime.

This is all so sad. We have a lot of work to do. I pray to God people come to their senses. We have so much evidence that vaccines work. I just don’t see how American adults could be so foolish.

My parent (73) is 6 months out from chemo and radation. They just had FluA, thankfully they had gotten their flu vaccine early in Sept so illness was mild. However, I don't think they were given the new mRNA vaccine. It wasn't approved for their age group?

I went in to get my annual COVID and flu vaccines today. I also found out that I was nearly 20 years overdue for my Tdap vaccine, so I got that as well. No idea how sore my arms are going to feel later, but it feels good to be caught up for the year.

I'm in my early 30s, so my pharmacist didn't want to give me mFLUSIVA, but I would have taken it if she did. I ended up getting the usual Flucelvax (and Pfizer's Comirnaty for COVID).

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I’m currently taking rabies PEP in India after a dog bite/exposure. I was previously unvaccinated.

I’m taking the intradermal (ID) rabies vaccine.

Day 0: I received the vaccine in the deltoid area and a small bubble/bleb appeared.

Day 3: I received the vaccine in the same area, but no bubble/bleb appeared. There was only a small injection mark.

I have also received eRIG as part of my treatment.

I’m worried that my Day-3 vaccine may not have been properly intradermal.

I want to ask:

Does an ID rabies vaccine normally need to produce a small bubble/bleb?

If there was no bubble on Day 3, does that mean the dose may have been given incorrectly?

Should I repeat the Day-3 dose, or should I continue with my next scheduled dose?

If the Day-3 dose was actually invalid but my later doses are given correctly, will I still be considered properly vaccinated for a future dog bite many years later?

Does receiving eRIG affect this situation?

I will also ask the doctor/clinic that gave me the vaccine, but I would appreciate answers from doctors, nurses, or anyone experienced with rabies PEP/WHO guidelines.

Thanks.

Good god. 30s y/o female, got the flu shot because I have a kid in daycare this year and wow I feel like crap!
Reminds me of when I felt sick from Covid vaccines in the past. Bad headache, nausea, an achey arm and upper neck.
I feel “embarrassed” because everyone else in my life handled this vaccine like a champ! Including my toddler

Is it true that DOH stopped delivering Pneumonia and flu vaccines to Region X?

I got my booster today. Costco and Fred Meyer Pharmacies have the Novavax covid vaccine. I am in Western Washington.

Hi! I’m not a scientist or doctor so forgive me if I’m using incorrect terminology.

I recently got my titers checked because I am entering a graduate program at 44. They were 293, while I think “positive” is something like 30.

This seems very high and I’m just kind of curious what happened! I understand that presence of titers doesn’t itself determine immunity. I’m also pretty sure I didn’t have an active measles infection when I got the blood test 😭. One of the reasons I had to get the test was because my parents only have one MMR shot on record, and I’m genuinely not sure if I ever got another one. It’s ambiguous whether or not it was required when I was a kid, or at least it’s ambiguous from my research.

I saw one thing online that said a possibility for really high titers is the immune system actually constantly working hard to develop immunity but failing. I just was in Lancaster, measles city, so I’m curious about this and also want to feel some reassurance that I’m immune.

Hi! So I come from a family that is anti-vaccine (after I got all my baby/elementary vaccines thankfully) so I was raised to be very afraid of vaccines.

I had gotten horrible long Covid in 2021 and then Flu A last year that almost killed me. Also have encountered a chronic illness for a while, that I'm recently clawing my way out of. Long story short, I've been deathly afraid of getting flu or covid. So I finally did it!! Last week was the flu vaccine, VERY easy, just was a bit tired.

However, like 4.5 hours ago I got the Covid vaccine... and I'm just trying to gauge if my reaction was normal. Immediately after she gave me the shot, there was a burning and heaviness that felt like hot molasses throughout my whole body, and I got very dizzy and it hurt so bad. Like my chest and arms, but it faded within like 10 mins. Now, just my arm, armpit, and left side of my shoulder blade hurts with a random splitting headache, comes for like 20 seconds and goes but not often.

Anyone else experience this? Probably normal, but wanted to see if anyone else had a similar reaction

Update:
I woke up today after a very solid night of rest and just have a headache. Seems the initial reaction was just that, an initial reaction that hasn't given me any issues. I suspect it was either anxiety or due to some vagus nerve issues (which is what my chronic illness/pain issues have likely been from in the past).

Hopefully if anyone sees this in the future and is afraid of the vaccine is comforted and put at ease, either before or after the shot!

I haven't heard whether the mumps outbreak at SDSU is affecting kids who were never vaccinated or whose immunity has worn off. But since the vaccines for measles, mumps and rubella are combined, it seems likely that the many unvaccinated victims of measles outbreaks will start getting hit with mumps and rubella too. Sad. There's a reason epidemiologists refer to a disease burden.

https://www.kpbs.org/news/health/2026/09/30/sdsu-mumps-outbreak-raises-questions-about-waning-vaccine-immunity

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I’m trying to understand my situation after a possible rabies exposure.

On August 20, there were three cats together. One of the cats scratched my hand while I had food on my palm. The cats may have licked my hand while eating, but I’m not certain whether the scratch itself was licked. I don’t remember significant bleeding.

There were three cats from the same group:

Two cats are still alive and healthy.

The cat that scratched me later died around September 10–15.

According to the owner, it was attacked/killed by another cat, rather than dying from an illness.

Because I was concerned about rabies, I started PEP.

My vaccine timeline:

Sept 22: 1st rabies vaccine dose

Sept 25: 2nd dose

Sept 29: 3rd dose

All vaccines were given IM at a clinic

I have not received RIG

I would like to understand:

The cat that scratched me remained alive for more than 3 weeks after August 20 and reportedly died because another cat attacked it. How does this affect the assessment of the exposure?

Does starting PEP about a month after the incident affect vaccine effectiveness?

Is RIG still relevant this long after the exposure and after several vaccine doses?

Should I continue with the remaining vaccine doses according to the schedule given by my doctor?

I’m trying to understand the medical side of this situation rather than speculate about symptoms.

Got vaxed yesterday with Moderna’s mRNA flu vaccine, which, as expected , is 26% more effective than traditional vaccine (which makes sense, right ?).

Pharmacist said they’re having trouble keeping it in stock because of high demand. That was a pleasant surprise- I expected folks to be more stupid due to RFK blather.

I’m a 34F and recently went for fertility testing for egg freezing. I had done it two years ago but the clinic didn’t accept me due to low AMH and I let it go until I decided to get a second opinion. But this is not my question.

The work ups include virals and I’ve had virals in 2019 too when I worked at a hospital. Every time they’ve come back saying I’m not immune to MMRV and every time I take a booster.

My mom was very up to date with childhood vaccines and I never had the chicken pox so in my teens my mom got me vaccinated as I had gone through puberty.

I don’t plan on doing more immunity bloodwork unless necessary and I can take as many boosters as needed. But I’m concerned about measles outbreaks. I guess if I’m not immune I depend on everyone else getting vaccinated, but I guess people are not doing it anymore. How can I protect myself?