Swine Flu/H1N1 Vaccination - Yes or No?

[Myka]

Originally Posted by midgetwaiter

They haven't substantially changed the way they make flu vaccines in 30 years, how much more information could you possibly need?

I haven't had a vaccine since the Hepatitis C triple vaccine in grade 6, so I'm not exactly on the vaccine bandwagon. Call me ignorant, but enough other people will get vaccines that I have little to worry about. I haven't even had a "regular" flu in several years. I don't get sick very often. I had a cold last March though.

[GreenSpottedPuffer]

I'm not sure where I stand but my doctor who is also a family member, strongly advised myself and my fiancee who is asthmatic to NOT get the vaccine. His concern is not necessarily that anything sinister is going on here (nor do I) but simply that it was way too rushed as normal vaccinations for the flu are put under much more rigorous and longer term testing. He instead prescribed us tamiflu to have on hand. Asked us to keep up with our Vit. D, C, zinc, ect. along with a bunch of herbal suggestions.

He said its been a really tough subject at work lately as people ask him daily.

Actually both my brothers and mom have already had H1N1. One of my brothers was confirmed H1N1, so we assume the others also had it since it was all at the same time. Both my brothers got it very mildly although it lasted about 2 weeks. My mom was a little more severe I guess but she said the worst part was the aches.

[intarsiabox]

The vaccine has been in development since the end of April, exactly how long is the regular annual flu shot worked on? The researches need to figure out what the most common flu's of the season are going to be before any development is done so when do they start working on it? Anybody know anyone who works in vaccine mfg that would know the answer to this?

If the H1N1 vaccine wasn't "fast tracked" the same people complaining about it now would still be complaining but saying that the research companies are taking too long and people are dying needlessly. The conspiracy would still be the same though, the government is trying to reduce the population by not vaccinating instead of by vaccinating.

Where did H1N1 come from? There are fossilized viruses found in dinosaurs, despite small brains maybe they bio-engineered them? Where did the plague come from? How about tuberculosis? Wasting disease in wild animals? Viruses were here long before humans and have been killing and mutating since the dawn of time. After 4.5 billion years of virus evolution I'm sure there is going to be plenty more new viruses to found in the future. The wild can only support so much wildlife and when it gets overpopulated a virus shows up and culls the animals, how much of a human population will the earth support before we're culled? The plague wiped out 1/4 of the worlds population once, was it Utopia after that or just the same sad world we've made for ourselves?

Of course no one is the same, we all have a different genetic make up. There is always a risk with anything medical, with every medicine, vaccine, chemical or procedure there will always be someone with adverse side effects from it. Nothing is risk free, you could try a new dish at a restaurant and die from an unknown allergy, so you need to judge for yourself if the risks of a vaccination outweigh the risks of the disease.

Just remember, dead people don't pay taxes!

[GreenSpottedPuffer]

Seasonal flu kills an estimated 500, 000 worldwide every year but rarely are the cases reported on. Every single H1N1 death is headline news lately yet for example in BC the death toll is still in the teens, I believe 12 deaths with less than 200 severe cases since this all began. Worldwide I believe its around 5, 000 now.

I'm not taking it lightly and it does concern me, I do think it could get worse, ect. but what does concern me is how fast the WHO declared a pandemic and started to push these vaccines. Less than 200 severe cases in BC (just using BC as an example because I keep hearing about how its worst hit in Canada) in 7 months, among 4.4 million people, is hardly a pandemic. Reason for concern of course but not a pandemic.

[intarsiabox]

The WHO has different levels of pandemic and this one is a low level. Actually the word pandemic gets thrown out to the public suprisingly very easy from what I've read. It doesn't take much for a virus to be declared a pandemic so I would heed the word with a grain of salt, although one of the criteria is a viruses ability to become worse (which is a real potential). If the H1N1 virus does mutate to a more evil form there is no guarentee that the current vaccine will protect you but this hasn't happened yet and may never happen.

[Ron99]

Originally Posted by VFX

As you say, the H1N1 vaccine is specifically targeted at a strain of flu which is mutative by nature... what happens when a more virulent & more resistant strain develops? Do we keep updating our flu jabs like constantly downloading Windows patches & fixes?.

That Depends on how it mutates. The current vaccine may still provide full immunity, partial immunity or none at all. Can't predict that in advance. It depends on how it mutates.

Originally Posted by VFX

The fact that they have to use adjuvants to boost effectiveness worries me & shows that they've struggled to get the drug on the market.

Why is H1N1 so virulent & contagious but when they try to mass produce it in a lab, they can't? Doesn't this indicate that H1N1 is something more exotic than a strain of the flu virus?.

The adjuvants are there to boost effectiveness when you don't have enough virus to make a full strength vaccine. Growing a flu virus in a lab culture is different then where the virus normally grows in human tissue. It is not the virus' normal environment so it may not grow anywhere near as well in culture. It would be like trying to grow SPS at the bottom of a 24" tank with some PC lighting. It might survive and maybe even grow really slowly but nowhere near as well as in its optimal conditions. Not the best analogy but something we can relate to on this board.

Originally Posted by VFX

What people need to understand is that we're not comparing like for like. The H1N1 vaccine is not like the regular flu vaccine for numerous reasons..

Maybe a bit different then the typical North American flu vaccine but it is very similar to the European vaccines that have been used for years in millions of people. So we have all that data on it.

Originally Posted by VFX

As for smallpox? You can't compare smallpox to flu. You get smallpox you get very ill or very dead, very quickly. In fact there's an approximate death rate of 50% for the more virulent smallpox strain. You get H1N1 & only a very tiny percentage die..

Yeah, that is a more extreme example. However, as has been pointed out, this strain of flu is more virulent then the usual seasonal flu and is killing people that would not normally be considered as high risk from regular seasonal flu. yes, it is still a relatively small number but it is significantly higher then regular seasonal flu. Young children are considered a higher risk group in H1N1. I would rather take the chance of a 1 in a million side effect in my kids then the 1 in 100 or 1 in 1000 chance they could become seriously ill or die from H1N1. I would also not want to be the guy that gave H1N1 flu to somebody who ends up dead.

Originally Posted by VFX

As for implying that I'm ignorant... doesn't my post here show that I'm seeking to add to what I know about H1N1 vaccinations & what people think of them? I'm trying to educate myself here..

As I said, I wasn't trying to be insulting and it was more a general comment that a lot of the fear and uncertainty is coming from ignorance and misunderstanding.

Originally Posted by VFX

To say that I'm lacking information (hence my post to gather opinions) is probably true, but to call me ignorant is a step too far. How much of what you think you know do you REALLY know? .

Well, I would hope that my degrees in pharmacoloy and toxicology coupled to my 15 years of work in the pharmaceutical industry and my earlier undergraduate education in microbiology and my 6 years or so of working in diagnostic microbiology labs gives me some knowledge and experience to comment on this stuff

Originally Posted by VFX

How much do we all really know about the origins of H1N1?

How much do we all know about GSK, Baxter & other pharmaceuticals & their rush to develop the vaccine?

How much do we know about the hundreds of concentration camps springing up around the US right now? Are they to quarantine people who refuse to take the vaccine? Are they to future quarantine H1N1 sufferers? Those are some pretty big camps!

How much do we really know about the Vatican? the Illuminati? the Rothschilds? the Free Masons? Knights of Malta? the plot to eliminate most of the planet's population so that 550 million of the enlightened ones can live in paradise?

Sounds like a Dan Brown novel, but do we really know that there's nothing more sinister happening?

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Okay, now you're just getting silly

[Ron99]

Originally Posted by noirsphynx

http://logisticsmonster.com/2009/10/...ccine-dangers/
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=5237185n

For video number 1 I would take anything found on that website with a huge grain of salt. A bunch of sound bites from people does not constitute any real facts or conclusions. In any group of people; scientists and doctors included, you will find dissenters and people who disagree with the evidence or accepted conclusions.

Video number 2 is a bit more balanced but agin does not sound any alarms. Yes, there are slight risks associated with vaccines. They occur something like 1 in a million doses. That is a very good safety profile. I can give you examples of many approved (and considered generally safe) drugs with much more common side effects than that. I believe the doctor does go on to state that maybe 1 in 100 people who contract H1N1 will have severe illness, possibly even death. Well, a 1% chance of becoming very ill or dieing is much higher then a 0.0001% chance of having a reaction to the vaccine. I know what odds I want to play.

[midgetwaiter]

Originally Posted by GreenSpottedPuffer

I'm not taking it lightly and it does concern me, I do think it could get worse, ect. but what does concern me is how fast the WHO declared a pandemic and started to push these vaccines. Less than 200 severe cases in BC (just using BC as an example because I keep hearing about how its worst hit in Canada) in 7 months, among 4.4 million people, is hardly a pandemic. Reason for concern of course but not a pandemic.

Pandemic is taken from the Greek pandemos, meaning "all the people". The word is used to indicate the spread of a disease and implies absolutely nothing about how serious a disease it may be. An influenza virus that has spread world wide in less than 6 months certainly qualifies as pandemic.

[midgetwaiter]

Originally Posted by VFX

How much do we know about the hundreds of concentration camps springing up around the US right now? Are they to quarantine people who refuse to take the vaccine? Are they to future quarantine H1N1 sufferers? Those are some pretty big camps!

How much do we really know about the Vatican? the Illuminati? the Rothschilds? the Free Masons? Knights of Malta? the plot to eliminate most of the planet's population so that 550 million of the enlightened ones can live in paradise?

Sounds like a Dan Brown novel, but do we really know that there's nothing more sinister happening?

.

Take the tinfoil off of your head and fashion a face mask out of it. A simple solution that uses materials you obviously have readily available.

[VFX]

Ok being very simplistic here so bare with me...

Birds get flu.

Pigs get flu.

People get flu.

People rarely get bird flu or pig flu. Birds rarely get pig flu or human flu. (they sometimes do but apart from H5N1, it's rare)

Pigs are the link here. They can get both human & bird flu.

However, it's not normal for the flu virus to mutate to such a point that pigs can easily infect humans. It's even more rare for that virus to then mutate so that there's human to human contamination.

With that level of mutation it's likely that the H1N1 virus will mutate again.

Between 2005 & 2008 only dozen people in the US got swine flu. What changed in 2009? Why the sudden worldwide outbreak? Why does H1N1 not have the protein PB1-F2 & how does this effect the virulence & lethality of the flu?

The 22m vaccinations with adjuvants you speak of, do these mix fish oils with aluminium & mercury & other undisclosed biologicals? You have the data on this so it'd be great to let us all know.

When I ask what do you really know, I don't mean in terms of pharmacology, I mean with what's happening on a bigger scale. The larger picture of you will.

You may think it's getting silly to talk of all the different conspiracy theories out there but the one thing they do have in common is population reduction, control over world governments & the end of times.

I'm not saying I believe all those theories, but why discount them & ridicule them? Do you know for sure that everything we're told about the world is the truth?

Anecdotal I know, but I've been advised not to take the H1N1 vaccine by my GP, my partner (pharmaceuticals), the Head of Immunisation for ........ (province name withheld to avoid indentifying him without his permission), a surgeon in the same province, my family doctor in the UK & countless articles in the mainstream & alternative media.

GSP - did you get a preventative Tamiflu 'script because of your asthma condition?

Also, (and maybe Ron can answer this one too) how does Vit. D (or specifically Vit. D3 according to some) help against H1N1? I understand that it helps against bone dificiencies & helps the absorbtion of calcium & other elements but I'm unsure how it helps against flu.

I'm not being ignorant or arrogant but asking as many questions as I need to help me (& hopefully many others) learn.

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