Hub got a tetanus shot several years ago when he got his shoe poked with a nail while helping clean up at a friend’s house. Very dirty, she kept goats, and there was lots of trash. So as a precaution I encouraged him to get it, after reading about symptoms of tetanus and once acquired, there is no cure.
And I’m the most anti-vax person in the world.
I think there is probably a risk-benefit calculation when it comes to the tetanus vaccination that makes sense.
For people living in environments and doing things regularly whereby they can get dirty wounds and not be able to wash them out right away, the vaccine might make sense. Or if you were in a one-off situation where something happened and you got a dirty wound and couldn’t wash it out right away.
But if you can prevent a lot of pokes and scrapes by wearing kevlar gloves, sleeves, and shin guards while gardening and you have clean water from spigots on your house and a handy spreay bottle of wound cleaner, I think the risk-benefit goe against the vaccine.
If only twenty people in the U.S. a year die of tetanus, I don’t think it is because so many people are up to date on their vaccine. I think millions of people aren’t up to date and they work on their suburban gardens and landscaping and get some scrapes and pokes, rinse them off, and go on.
I’d like to know who these twenty people are. My guess is that they are people with either poor immune systems, people who live in s some sort of dirty environment, such as extreme hoarders, or people who engage in regular activities, such as camping or rock climbing, that put them at risk.
It’s like the hepatitis vaccine. It might make sense to get it if one works with psych patients who could have hep and sometimes bite people.
I garden and sometimes use products that have rotted manure in them so tetanus is a concern. I was vaccinated perhaps 10 years ago and my thought is that I have probably been exposed to it regularly enough that I still have an immune response to it. I am disappointed not to be able to have it in a single shot vaccination.