To give my kids Swine Flu vaccinations or not?

And it was things like that which prompted the creation of the Food and Drug Administration. Cigarettes would never have even been allowed on the market today. And Fluffy, I do remember you smoking... How does that factor in?

The flu vaccine has been around since WW2 which I would think would be enough time for any scientific body to study it - even non capitalist ones. h1n1 isn't really anything new either, this 2009 variant is just a more lethal tweak to other h1n1 viruses. Spanish and Russian flu pandemics were also h1n1 variants, and some form of h1n1 is actually always part of the seasonal flu shot. There's really nothing spectacularly new here, not even some people's fear of big government or that of big medicine.
 
My wife, Cat, works part time checking people into the Emergency Room. In the front line she has received the Flu Shot, a couple of weeks ago, and the H1N1, a couple of days ago.

Everything is AOkay.
 
FluffyMcDeath said:
The German government has taken steps to ensure that there will be adequate amounts of H1N1 vaccine to protect the people. As for the Government, they'll be getting a different vaccine.

The people are not filled with confidence

(or in the original German)
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Or just read it by an English author: Merkel in row over 'government-only' swine flu jabs

Obviously, this isn't going to help boost confidence.

Btw, I asked my sis and she says she'll likely take the shot, although admitted she hasn't received any official info on the vaccine itself. In her position, she's not likely to administer the vaccine to patients. At any rate, here in MB we have some known cases of swine flu but no critical cases yet. Vancouver however has a handful of ICU patients and two deaths.
 
Here's a totally different perspective on the issue:

Current public opinion about childhood vaccinations sometimes seems to be influenced less by science and more by Jenny McCarthy. But here's something that rarely gets discussed: the threat posed by nonvaccinated on children who are immunosuppressed.
 
Glaucus said:
Here's a totally different perspective on the issue:

Current public opinion about childhood vaccinations sometimes seems to be influenced less by science and more by Jenny McCarthy. But here's something that rarely gets discussed: the threat posed by nonvaccinated on children who are immunosuppressed.
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while I sympathize with this mother who has a child with cancer that child is at risk all the time even from children who have gotten a shot. unless she plans to put her child in a bubble she will have to come up with more creative solutions
 
"Normal influenza" kills about a million people globally every year and no-one bats an eye.

H1N1 has killed how many and all of a sudden pharma wants to mass vaccinate the populace? What's that going to cost ? Seems like a good way to get the economy going again !!

Influenza is constantly mutating, not a static virus. The flu jabs doled out to the elderly every year are actually a "best guess" on the strain. Literally stabbing (your arm) in the dark!

We'll pass thanks. It will be interesting to read Smithy's views to glean some info how the North O' England thinks as well. (I'm in East Anglia)
 
ScapeGoat said:
"Normal influenza" kills about a million people globally every year and no-one bats an eye....

Influenza is constantly mutating, not a static virus. The flu jabs doled out to the elderly every year are actually a "best guess" on the strain. Literally stabbing (your arm) in the dark!
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Strange that no one cares yet a flu shot is made every year. IMO this shows that someone cares.

What's that going to cost ?
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Mexico's loss of tourism due to H1N1 is estimated to be $150M/day. I understand international tourism around the world has taken a hit. What are those costs?
 
ScapeGoat said:
H1N1 has killed how many and all of a sudden pharma wants to mass vaccinate the populace? What's that going to cost ?
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Vaccine or not, h1n1 is gonna cost us big. Either way "big pharma" is gonna win. Treating people in intensive care units isn't cheap as it involves many drugs, exotic equipment and high priced medical staff. But it's not just that, our entire emergency treatment system has now been reorganized around h1n1 with "express lanes" in ERs for h1n1 patients. My sister tells me all former ICU nurses (especially the senior ones) have been re-assigned to ICU. Tons of new equipment has been bought. They seem to be expecting most people to not take the vaccine, and the few that will are not expected to be enough to offer any kind of herd protection. In other words, our government is assuming for the worst and has spent a lot on various medical expenses just in preparation. Of course when dealing with something that's potentially life threatening and expensive as h1n1 politicians are in a no win situation here. They're bound to do one of two things: 1) over spend on vaccines, medical equipment and personnel only to see a small h1n1 outbreak or 2) under spend and see a massive outbreak with huge loss of life. I'd suspect that most governments would favor the former. The likelihood that they'd strike the proper balance is close to zero because there's no scientist or witch doctor that can reliably predict the future here.

Influenza is constantly mutating, not a static virus. The flu jabs doled out to the elderly every year are actually a "best guess" on the strain. Literally stabbing (your arm) in the dark!
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I think we covered that already, but we already know that h1n1 is circulating, we know we have a vaccine for it. Not sure what your point is. If it does mutate, the current form will still keep circulating around, there will just be an additional strain floating around with it.

We'll pass thanks. It will be interesting to read Smithy's views to glean some info how the North O' England thinks as well. (I'm in East Anglia)
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I certainly don't expect most people to get the vaccine, and for many it's probably not the worst decision they could ever make, but it does frustrate me when people base their decision on voodoo instead of facts.
 
Here's and interesting news story.

The gist is that most people with swine flu actually don't have swine flu - or any flu.

This is actually quite normal for any flu season. Far more people have flu symptoms than have flu because there are hundreds of different viruses that have pretty much the same sort of symptoms. In fact, in any given year, a large percentage of the people who die from the flu didn't have the flu. This is from random sample studies that have been done. It just happens that the kinds of people who are most likely to die of the regular flu are also likely to die from other viruses too but when there is an outbreak and someone who has flu symptoms dies the cause of death will get put down as flu or complications of flu. The winter sees a rise in colds and flu and other similar viral diseases. Why? No clear winner among the theories as yet.
 
A decent Podcast on medicinal topics isQuackCast Anti-Vaccers and Flu related should listen to Podcast #34 and especially #35. Warning 35 is boring it's basically a lecture format.
 
Unfortunately watching videos at work is harder to get away with then by typing and reading... I guess I'll have to watch them on my own time... :-(
 
Didn't feel like starting a new thread, so I brought this one back from the dead.

The Lancet retracts paper linking MMR vaccines and autism

This week, after receiving the conclusions of a multiyear ethics investigation of UK doctor Andrew Wakefield performed by the General Medical Counsel (GMC), the editors of British medical journal The Lancet formally retracted a study which purported to find a link between the childhood MMR vaccine, gastrointestinal disease, and autism. It was published in 1998 and has been a source of controversy ever since.
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The article goes on to explain how the media blew Wakefield's comments out of proportion and that all other scientific attempts to reproduce his findings failed. Not much new there. But what surprised me a little was this:

While science was doing what it does best, other motives for Wakefield's work came to light. In late 2006, investigative journalists in London found that Wakefield's work was paid for by a legal team that was in the process of suing vaccine manufacturers, and that this same team represented some of the children who took part in the study. New evidence that came to life in the GMC ethics review found that a year before the study was published, Wakefield himself applied for a patent for a new vaccine that would eliminate both the measles virus and treat inflammatory bowel disease.
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I suppose I shouldn't be surprised at all. Nor should I be surprised about this...

It is difficult for the work to be more thoroughly discredited, but even with this retraction Wakefield's supporters still believe that a link between the MMR vaccine and autism exists, and have been offering up comments to the media despite the recent findings. This is a case where people will believe what they want to, all other evidence be damned.
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The above of course applies to many things, including the H1N1 vaccine.
 
Glaucus said:
It is difficult for the work to be more thoroughly discredited, but even with this retraction Wakefield's supporters still believe that a link between the MMR vaccine and autism exists, and have been offering up comments to the media despite the recent findings. This is a case where people will believe what they want to, all other evidence be damned.
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The above of course applies to many things, including the H1N1 vaccine.
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A recent study came out of Poland. For economic reasons they have a large population of unvaccinated kids. They have a slightly smaller pool of measles only vaccinations. The smallest pool is one receiving the MMR. The MMR had to be fully paid by the patient. Many families choose to not do this. Then then looked for Autism and found that there was statistically no significant difference between the populations. The smallest amount was in the one's who received the MMR, but again not statistically different. This is but one of many that has demonstrated a link to be false.
 
Sad to see an Autistic center be so anti-science. There has been numerous epidemological studies and surveys disproving the links they claim. First we hear it's Mercury. While science shows their observation as incorrect it's removed for political reasons. Then we hear it's the MMR vaccine. Again studies come in no difference. Now we hear it is the Hep B vaccine. I expect Hep B link will also be demonstrated coorelation and not causitive. What I expect from this is the same thing... Anti-Vaccers recite the big pharma conspiracy and move the goal post to a different vaccine. IMO, the best thing we can do at this time is feel for the Luddites.
 
What is the result of the H1N1 in the US this season? There was a 2-3x increase in death of children: Graphics from CDC.
IPD08_small.gif
 
I may be misreading that graph, but it seems as though more died in the 2nd wave, which surprises me.
 
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