I Have a Question??? - Hepatitis Message Board

AliceBlueBelle · 09-17-2003, 09:09 PM

If there is anyone out there around fiftish I was wondering if you remember your vaccinations to get into school, around 1955. I remember the doctor visit and he used one of the old fashioned type of syringes. What I am wondering if anyone knows if the needle part was just cleaned/sterilized or if a new one was used each time? I also remember standing in a long line at the high school to get my first polio shot. The oral kind didn't come about until later. The flu season of '76-78 I also got a flu shot. They used one of those air injectors that has been blamed in the military for transfering hepatitis and most likely other things. The way I see it, these seem to be just as much a part of the riks factors as some of the other things listed.

Just wondered if anyone has heard or read anything along these lines.

Alice

Wes1212 · 09-18-2003, 09:12 AM

they used the jet guns in our schools in the '70's

sean · 09-18-2003, 10:19 AM

Hi

I am over fifty, and remember all my shots, vaccinations, novacaine at the dentists, and so on, were with NON-disponsable syringes. real shots with real, reuseable and re-used needles.
Disposables did not come into wide use until the HIV alerts of the 1980's.
Of course the re-used needles were supposed to be sterilized between uses, but deficiencies in these procedures almost certainly happened. So, I'd believe that this indeed might be a risk factor.

I know of only one published example--the group of people in Ireland who were infected through contaminated gamma globulin injections.

So, you never know, eh?

sean