Aa
Ongoing discussion about H1N1 Vaccine
Well it seems that the newest fearmongering technique has been to take data from the CDC to a logical absurdity.
Why do we quake at the mere mention of Swine Flu?
First, I want to explain that this "Swine Flu" vaccine is not like the "Swine Flu vaccine of 1976. That vaccine was made by an entirely different method, and after the large number of neurologic complications seen in 1976 that method was abandoned and is not used anymore and was not used here. The swine Flu vaccine in 1976 caused a huge number of cases of Guillain-Barre Syndrome and deaths and the immunization program's reputation in this country has never recovered EVEN THOUGH there has not been another such debacle. GB is rare with the seasonal flu vaccine.
What do they mean by a "strain" of the flu?
The term "swine" refers to the fact that H1N1 has genes from the kind of influenza commonly seen in pigs. Many species have influenza strains particular to them. We have heard recently about about dog flu. We all know about the scare with avian flu in the recent past. Typically flu strains do not jump species. When they do it can be particularly dangerous for the new species that they enter.
Our usual seasonal flu strains are mixtures of many of the same old genes that have been around for years. Thus, most of the population has some on-going resistance to the full effect of the flu. Each year scientists are in a rush to try to accurately predict which strain are going to get loose and cause the most disease. They begin studying and doing trials in the spring of every year. Every year the vaccine manufacturers have just a few months to come up with the vaccine for the prediction that year. H1N1 popped up out of nowhere in the early summer. Yes, the testing of this vaccine was rushed, but the process to make it is tried and true.
The swine flu is pretty new to the human species. Apparently it appeared a decade or so ago. So few of us have any resistance to it. Because of this more people will catch it and those that do may have a more severe disease. It is true that the amount of time that has been available to manufacture the H1N1 vaccine has been shorter this year, but only by a couple months. Yes, the testing for it has been more brief and not as thorough as for the usual seasonal flu. BUT, it is important to note that the method used for the production of the H1N1 is the same method that has been shown to be safe in the past couple decades. It is the method of producing the vaccine that is most linked to side effects. It would be highly inaccurate to associate this swine flu vaccine with that from 33 years ago.
The testing of the H1N1 vaccine is ONGOING. New testing has shown that pregnant women - a highly vulnerable group and one that has seen an unusual number of deaths - respond well to the vaccine and there has not been any remarkable incidence of side effects. However, the ongoing testing is showing that children need two doses to be fully protected. This will further decrease the number of doses that are available to the public, those at less risk of death from the infection.
Now a word of caution about a statistic that you will undoubtedly hear/read:
Now, recently the CDC announced that the rate of possible permanent harm or death from the H1N1 vaccine would be estimated to be 1 in every 100,000 shots. The procedure implemented to report serious reactions is the most comprehensive in history. They are tracking the living bejeebers out of this vaccine. So far, I have not seen any reports of serious reactions. There will be such reactions. All things that modulate the immune system wills hsow some deadly reactions if enough people get them. Viruses that are usually benign will kill some people. Vaccines act just like wild viruses. Over 16 million doses have been given out, so we might expect to hear that 160 people have suffered severe reactions. I have been watching and no such report has yet appeared.
Several of the vehemently anti-vaccination sites are running with the "data that the CDC is expecting to see 30,000 poeple maimed or killed by this vaccine." REALLY? I would like to see this quote if any of you can find the speech, press release or document that says this. If every single person in the US (approximately 307,000,000) is vaccinated would this number stand up? My math says that we would see only 3,000 such reactions. Is my math correct? If so, then someone is running amock with bad math and an agenda to boot.
I only caution you to make sure that people are quoting the CDC correctly. To my calculations, the number of serious reactions comes closer to 3,000 EVEN IF EVERY SINGLE PERSON IN THE US GETS A DOSE. Come on, people! In a good year less than 30% of people get vaccinated. So we might be looking at 1000 such severe reactions, not the 30,000 that I saw on at least a dozen sites this morning.
Is the H1N1 really over estimated or over-feared?
The H1N1 pandemic is still evolving. At first last summer it looked like the plague. Then as it hit the US it looked a lot milder. But, the whole thing is looking more sinister again. At the beginning of this year's flu season (August 31)proven (lab-veriofied) H1N1 killed 64 children in the time between August 31 and October 30. Another 10 were suspicious and definitely influenza, but they were not proven to be H1N1. So that is 74. H1N1 is the only strain that is currently actively causing disease in the US. Deaths to non-pediatric patients has been about 600 in that same time period. Yes, the math says that more than 20 people a day are dying from this in the US alone and it is just getting going.
It is well-known that the peak flu season runs November through about February or March. We have 700 deaths already so far and the really dangerous time has not even arrived. It seems almost every night we hear the latest number of healthy infants and young people who have died that day from H1N1. As a pediatrician I know that the flu season often overlaps with another big killer of infants, RSV. I literally shudder thinking about what the news is going to sound like in two months. (For perspective the CDC states that for EACH of the last 30 years, on average, there have been 34,000 flu-related deaths in the US. The numbers range from 20,000+ to 52,000 deaths depending on the severity of the flu season)
http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/disease/us_flu-related_deaths.htm
God knows, and I believe, that everything possible is done to make our vaccines as safe as possible. A lot was learned from 1976 and has not been repeated. Do we hold this vaccine in fear and suspicion because of 1976? Or do we try to estimate what really threatens us and do the best we can to protect ourselves and those around us?
Again, someone please help me find out where the CDC supposedly announced that "the H1N1 vaccine will maim or kill 30,000 people."
I am amazed at the wide variety of numbers regarding all this that you can find on the net. I wrote this to help people answer some questions about the "swine" flu, what it means, how it is different, whether all "swine flu" vaccines were bad and what the risk appears to be from the vaccines versus the infections themselves.
This topic may have been done to pieces already, but it was on my mind this morning when I read what seemed to me to be blatant misinformation.
Quix
Why do we quake at the mere mention of Swine Flu?
First, I want to explain that this "Swine Flu" vaccine is not like the "Swine Flu vaccine of 1976. That vaccine was made by an entirely different method, and after the large number of neurologic complications seen in 1976 that method was abandoned and is not used anymore and was not used here. The swine Flu vaccine in 1976 caused a huge number of cases of Guillain-Barre Syndrome and deaths and the immunization program's reputation in this country has never recovered EVEN THOUGH there has not been another such debacle. GB is rare with the seasonal flu vaccine.
What do they mean by a "strain" of the flu?
The term "swine" refers to the fact that H1N1 has genes from the kind of influenza commonly seen in pigs. Many species have influenza strains particular to them. We have heard recently about about dog flu. We all know about the scare with avian flu in the recent past. Typically flu strains do not jump species. When they do it can be particularly dangerous for the new species that they enter.
Our usual seasonal flu strains are mixtures of many of the same old genes that have been around for years. Thus, most of the population has some on-going resistance to the full effect of the flu. Each year scientists are in a rush to try to accurately predict which strain are going to get loose and cause the most disease. They begin studying and doing trials in the spring of every year. Every year the vaccine manufacturers have just a few months to come up with the vaccine for the prediction that year. H1N1 popped up out of nowhere in the early summer. Yes, the testing of this vaccine was rushed, but the process to make it is tried and true.
The swine flu is pretty new to the human species. Apparently it appeared a decade or so ago. So few of us have any resistance to it. Because of this more people will catch it and those that do may have a more severe disease. It is true that the amount of time that has been available to manufacture the H1N1 vaccine has been shorter this year, but only by a couple months. Yes, the testing for it has been more brief and not as thorough as for the usual seasonal flu. BUT, it is important to note that the method used for the production of the H1N1 is the same method that has been shown to be safe in the past couple decades. It is the method of producing the vaccine that is most linked to side effects. It would be highly inaccurate to associate this swine flu vaccine with that from 33 years ago.
The testing of the H1N1 vaccine is ONGOING. New testing has shown that pregnant women - a highly vulnerable group and one that has seen an unusual number of deaths - respond well to the vaccine and there has not been any remarkable incidence of side effects. However, the ongoing testing is showing that children need two doses to be fully protected. This will further decrease the number of doses that are available to the public, those at less risk of death from the infection.
Now a word of caution about a statistic that you will undoubtedly hear/read:
Now, recently the CDC announced that the rate of possible permanent harm or death from the H1N1 vaccine would be estimated to be 1 in every 100,000 shots. The procedure implemented to report serious reactions is the most comprehensive in history. They are tracking the living bejeebers out of this vaccine. So far, I have not seen any reports of serious reactions. There will be such reactions. All things that modulate the immune system wills hsow some deadly reactions if enough people get them. Viruses that are usually benign will kill some people. Vaccines act just like wild viruses. Over 16 million doses have been given out, so we might expect to hear that 160 people have suffered severe reactions. I have been watching and no such report has yet appeared.
Several of the vehemently anti-vaccination sites are running with the "data that the CDC is expecting to see 30,000 poeple maimed or killed by this vaccine." REALLY? I would like to see this quote if any of you can find the speech, press release or document that says this. If every single person in the US (approximately 307,000,000) is vaccinated would this number stand up? My math says that we would see only 3,000 such reactions. Is my math correct? If so, then someone is running amock with bad math and an agenda to boot.
I only caution you to make sure that people are quoting the CDC correctly. To my calculations, the number of serious reactions comes closer to 3,000 EVEN IF EVERY SINGLE PERSON IN THE US GETS A DOSE. Come on, people! In a good year less than 30% of people get vaccinated. So we might be looking at 1000 such severe reactions, not the 30,000 that I saw on at least a dozen sites this morning.
Is the H1N1 really over estimated or over-feared?
The H1N1 pandemic is still evolving. At first last summer it looked like the plague. Then as it hit the US it looked a lot milder. But, the whole thing is looking more sinister again. At the beginning of this year's flu season (August 31)proven (lab-veriofied) H1N1 killed 64 children in the time between August 31 and October 30. Another 10 were suspicious and definitely influenza, but they were not proven to be H1N1. So that is 74. H1N1 is the only strain that is currently actively causing disease in the US. Deaths to non-pediatric patients has been about 600 in that same time period. Yes, the math says that more than 20 people a day are dying from this in the US alone and it is just getting going.
It is well-known that the peak flu season runs November through about February or March. We have 700 deaths already so far and the really dangerous time has not even arrived. It seems almost every night we hear the latest number of healthy infants and young people who have died that day from H1N1. As a pediatrician I know that the flu season often overlaps with another big killer of infants, RSV. I literally shudder thinking about what the news is going to sound like in two months. (For perspective the CDC states that for EACH of the last 30 years, on average, there have been 34,000 flu-related deaths in the US. The numbers range from 20,000+ to 52,000 deaths depending on the severity of the flu season)
http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/disease/us_flu-related_deaths.htm
God knows, and I believe, that everything possible is done to make our vaccines as safe as possible. A lot was learned from 1976 and has not been repeated. Do we hold this vaccine in fear and suspicion because of 1976? Or do we try to estimate what really threatens us and do the best we can to protect ourselves and those around us?
Again, someone please help me find out where the CDC supposedly announced that "the H1N1 vaccine will maim or kill 30,000 people."
I am amazed at the wide variety of numbers regarding all this that you can find on the net. I wrote this to help people answer some questions about the "swine" flu, what it means, how it is different, whether all "swine flu" vaccines were bad and what the risk appears to be from the vaccines versus the infections themselves.
This topic may have been done to pieces already, but it was on my mind this morning when I read what seemed to me to be blatant misinformation.
Quix
The Sweden story was something written by a nonjournalist on a nonjournalism Website. There is no confirmation of these claims.
The mercury in the non-nasal version of the flu vaccine is a preservative called thimerosal, which is about 50% ethylmercury. That form of mercury differs in activity and toxicity from the scarier form, methylmercury. If you are concerned about mercury exposure, nasal vaccinations are not preserved with thimerosal, and neither are single-dose shots--thimerosal is used for multi-dose vials. If you have a concern, talk to your doctor about it. Please do not rely on information from unconfirmed sources (including me) about any of this. Here is a link to a Q&A from the CDC regarding flu vax and thimerosal: http://www.cdc.gov/Flu/about/qa/thimerosal.htm
If that breaks, it's cdc(dot)gov/Flu/about/qa/thimerosal(dot)htm
Please do what is best for you (and for the people around you), but do it with good information.
Bio
The mercury in the non-nasal version of the flu vaccine is a preservative called thimerosal, which is about 50% ethylmercury. That form of mercury differs in activity and toxicity from the scarier form, methylmercury. If you are concerned about mercury exposure, nasal vaccinations are not preserved with thimerosal, and neither are single-dose shots--thimerosal is used for multi-dose vials. If you have a concern, talk to your doctor about it. Please do not rely on information from unconfirmed sources (including me) about any of this. Here is a link to a Q&A from the CDC regarding flu vax and thimerosal: http://www.cdc.gov/Flu/about/qa/thimerosal.htm
If that breaks, it's cdc(dot)gov/Flu/about/qa/thimerosal(dot)htm
Please do what is best for you (and for the people around you), but do it with good information.
Bio
I have a flu now, a cold has never put me down like this. Dont know what kind of flu, I dont know if it makes a difference what kind of flu it is. And since iy has kicked up my MS symptoms also, it is difficult to figure out what is what. But it has gone into my lungs and I have asthma so the dr did call in a antibiotic for me. My cog issues are worse right now so i can not think well or type well, so I am going closing this note..
stay well,
meg
stay well,
meg
I called my inturnests office. They took my request, will determine if I am elligable to recieve one of the few precious shots. I reminded them that I haveMS and that we are going to try to conceive in January. I am still waiting to hear.
Oh great... I check out the social forum to get away from health matters and there is a post about H1N1 vaccination deaths in Sweden. I did a google search and sure enough... there are articles about this. = (
http://www.medhelp.org/posts/MedHelp-Social/H1N1-Vaccine-Side-Effects-Will-you-risk-it-now/show/1086459
Good discussion.
I would actually like to get the H1N1 vaccination, but only after all of the safety tests have been conducted. The problem with me and many other CFS and even fibromyalgia patients is that vaccinations often put us in a relapse. I've had several reactions to vaccations in the past.
According to the CDC, the majority of flu vaccines contain thimerosal. Some contain as much as 25 mcg of mercury per dose. This means that it may contain more than 250 times the Environmental Protection Agency’s safety limit for mercury. That is yet another concern of mine in regards to vaccinations.
I haven't heard of any reported severe reactions to the H1N1 vaccination yet, but there have been reports of severe reactions to the H1N1 nasal mist. You might want to google, "Woman Suffers Severe Reaction To H1N1 Mist" for one testimonial. A woman in Oregon was hospitalized after receiving the mist. So given my health and my reactions to some vaccinations in the past..... reports like this obviously concern me a great deal. And not to mention... the Gardasil vaccionation. You know how many young women are now chronically ill due to that vaccine ? I guess the best thing we can do is just keep informed and do our research. I do know that some of the information on the anti-H1N1 vaccination (not all vaccines) websites is inaccurate or does not back up their claims with research. But do I trust the CDC ? No way ! ; ^)
I would actually like to get the H1N1 vaccination, but only after all of the safety tests have been conducted. The problem with me and many other CFS and even fibromyalgia patients is that vaccinations often put us in a relapse. I've had several reactions to vaccations in the past.
According to the CDC, the majority of flu vaccines contain thimerosal. Some contain as much as 25 mcg of mercury per dose. This means that it may contain more than 250 times the Environmental Protection Agency’s safety limit for mercury. That is yet another concern of mine in regards to vaccinations.
I haven't heard of any reported severe reactions to the H1N1 vaccination yet, but there have been reports of severe reactions to the H1N1 nasal mist. You might want to google, "Woman Suffers Severe Reaction To H1N1 Mist" for one testimonial. A woman in Oregon was hospitalized after receiving the mist. So given my health and my reactions to some vaccinations in the past..... reports like this obviously concern me a great deal. And not to mention... the Gardasil vaccionation. You know how many young women are now chronically ill due to that vaccine ? I guess the best thing we can do is just keep informed and do our research. I do know that some of the information on the anti-H1N1 vaccination (not all vaccines) websites is inaccurate or does not back up their claims with research. But do I trust the CDC ? No way ! ; ^)
Oh, yeah, wouldn't an MS vaccine be nice!
My MS nurse said that the H1N1 will keep rolling around like it has been, and that it won't be too late to get a shot when the vaccine becomes more widely available.
It is so widespread around here, they have had tents set up in some hospital parking lots to triage the possible flu patients coming in, to avoid giving it to other ED patients.
Take care, everyone, and stay well.
Kathy
My MS nurse said that the H1N1 will keep rolling around like it has been, and that it won't be too late to get a shot when the vaccine becomes more widely available.
It is so widespread around here, they have had tents set up in some hospital parking lots to triage the possible flu patients coming in, to avoid giving it to other ED patients.
Take care, everyone, and stay well.
Kathy
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