Eggcellent!
Back in September, I traveled home to the Lehigh Valley (Allentown and Bethlehem, PA, area) for a get-together with my girlfriends from high school.
I made a cake for the occasion (one I was pretty proud of). We were cutting the cake when my friend Tanya asked if it had egg in it. It did. She was planning on giving a piece to her 1-year-old son Gavin, but she told me she just found out Gavin had egg allergies.
A few weeks later I was immersing myself in all of the H1N1 vaccine information. When I came across the information for kids getting the vaccine, I realized it, like most vaccines, had egg in it. I wondered if Tanya was going to give Gavin the vaccine. I made a call to her. Turns out she was in the pediatrician's office when I called her, and she was going to ask the doctor about the vaccine during their visit.
However, as I read today in this release from Newswise, just because you have an egg allergy doesn't mean you need to completely avoid all vaccines. There are ways to get vaccinated.
If you have an egg allergy and want to get vaccinated for H1N1 or seasonal flu, contact your allergist and talk about the risks and benefits. It's also possible to get the vaccine in graded doses and be observed for 30 minutes afterwards -- which is what Tanya did for Gavin. She talked to her doctor, weighed the pros and cons and decided it was important to her to make sure Gavin was vaccinated against H1N1.