Swine Flu/H1N1 Vaccination - Yes or No?

[Mr.nintendo]

It's all bull**** media hype, I'd rather risk "H1N1" then the known and occuring side effects from the shot

[pinhead]

Originally Posted by Mr.nintendo

It's all bull**** media hype, I'd rather risk "H1N1" then the known and occuring side effects from the shot

What are the known and occuring side effects and where are you getting your information - the media?

Or second hand information from other people,

Originally Posted by Quinster

They told me about half a dozen deaths locally they knew about from the same batch of meds that were used.

Or Youtube?

Originally Posted by workn2hard2day

this is one of the side effects, if you are 1 in a million.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mScGC...layer_embedded

(An explanation of the woman's symptoms http://www.examiner.com/x-13791-Balt...ll-in-her-head)



My information comes from the scientist's research. This information is found in peer-reviewed scientific journals or summarized for the layman magazines such as New Scientist. http://www.newscientist.com/article/...ef=online-news

Doing research from these sources will lead you to the following facts:

This strain of flu isn't always mild

It can be fatal - particularly in young people (43 deaths of children in the US in the first 2 weeks of October)

Even if you have a mild reaction to the flu virus, you could be the cause of a serious ilness in your children, other family member, co-worker or anyone else you come in contact with

Although the virus can be breathed in as an aerosol droplet, in can survive upto 48 hours on non-porous surfaces and then transfered to your eyes, nose or mouth.

The vaccine is safe (the canadian vaccine, unlike the US is a dead virus). The misinformation about flu vaccine side effects come from the 1976 US swine flu vaccinations where out of 48 million vaccinations, roughly 500 people developed Guillain-Barré syndrome and 25 died. This rate is roughly 10 cases of Guillain-Barré Syndrome for every 1 million vaccinations. Surprisingly, Guillain-Barré is found at a rate of 40-70 for every 1 million non-vaccinated flu sufferers and in the general population from other sources at 10 - 20 cases for every million people. Your chances if you were vaccinated in 1976 of getting Guillain-Barré were lower than if you caught the flu and the same as getting it from other sources.

Medical technology and vaccines have improved in 23 years - these side effects were from the 1976 vaccine.

One of these advancements is the addition of adjuvants made of fish oil, water and Vitamin E which are added to improve the body's immune response.

In Canada, the vaccine is free.

So the vaccine is: safe, cheap and will protect me or my family from from a possibly fatal disease. I guess I don't have tell you I am getting the vaccine.

I can provide references so you can base your decision on verifiable facts rather than rumors and information from almost 30 years ago.

[wickedfrags]

Some good references made, so I will ask a couple follow up questions:

Is 43 deaths significant given the number of "young people" in the US? How many young people died in the US during the same time period to give us some perspective? Also - the people who died from the curent strain have generally had underlying health issues and were often immuno-compromized prior to aquiring the flu. Asthma, diabetes, obesity, and various and other upper and lower repiratory tract concerns are common among those who died.

Protecting others is a strong reason for getting the flue shot - and remember you are contagious 48 hours before you show any signs or symptoms of the flu yourself.

The flu can survice up to 48 hours outside the human body, but at what relative humidity? Flu season in Canada (well at least outside BC) is generally quite cold and relative humidity is low.

Originally Posted by pinhead

This strain of flu isn't always mild

It can be fatal - particularly in young people (43 deaths of children in the US in the first 2 weeks of October)

Even if you have a mild reaction to the flu virus, you could be the cause of a serious ilness in your children, other family member, co-worker or anyone else you come in contact with

Although the virus can be breathed in as an aerosol droplet, in can survive upto 48 hours on non-porous surfaces and then transfered to your eyes, nose or mouth.

Medical technology and vaccines have improved in 23 years - these side effects were from the 1976 vaccine.

[intarsiabox]

IF it is preventable even one extra death is too many. I sure wouldn't want one of my daughters to die because of the swine flu and then have people say, "Oh well, she was only one of 43". Of course I'm only saying "IF" as the vaccine isn't widely proven yet but I hope it is the answer.

[Ron99]

Originally Posted by wickedfrags.com

Some good references made, so I will ask a couple follow up questions:

The flu can survice up to 48 hours outside the human body, but at what relative humidity? Flu season in Canada (well at least outside BC) is generally quite cold and relative humidity is low.

Hi Dave,

The conditions in Canada in the winter are actually probably more conducive to flu virus survival outside the body. The virus lasts longer at lower temperatures (and indefinitely below freezing) and lower levels of sunlight (less UV to damage it) and humidity. On a dry non-porous surface such as plastic or metal the virus may survive for several days. I believe studies have shown that on a dry piece of paper it remains viable for 15 minutes. If it is in mucous then it can survive much longer.

So even though it is relatively humid in BC during the winter it is still cold and we get little sunlight.

[pinhead]

Originally Posted by wickedfrags.com

Is 43 deaths significant given the number of "young people" in the US? How many young people died in the US during the same time period to give us some perspective? Also - the people who died from the curent strain have generally had underlying health issues and were often immuno-compromized prior to aquiring the flu. Asthma, diabetes, obesity, and various and other upper and lower repiratory tract concerns are common among those who died.

Not going to plow through the weekly updates from the Centre for Disease control for the statistics for the period of the 43 deaths, but I did find the information in the August 8th report

"8 of the 36 children who died of swine flu were aged 5 years and over and had no reported high risk conditions. Although two of these children were reported as obese, no data was given on their height and weight."

So for the time period in that report roughly 20% of the deaths in children were in healthy individuals.

I am not sure how many other deaths of children occured during that time period but if the vaccine were available at that time at these deaths were preventable.

If I was a parent of a child who died because of my decision not to have them or myself vaccinated, I would carry that guilt for the rest of my life.

André Picard, the health reporter for the Globe and Mail emphasizes this point:

"I am not getting the vaccine for myself, I am getting it for my grandmother"

[fishoholic]

Originally Posted by Ron99

Personally I think it is irresponsible to not get vaccinated when we face a global pandemic. Doubly so if you are a health care or emergency service worker. Imagine if huge numbers of people were paranoid about the smallpox vaccine and didn't get their shot?

+1

Originally Posted by Ian

I realise that some risk is involved in getting the shots(s) but nearly every medical procedure has some risk. The risk to myself, my family, and my students is far greater should I contract H1N1. I know I have ben exposed already and will be multiple times inthe upcoming months. How could I live with myself if I passed a bug that killed a child.
While I do feel that a media frenzy is making this seem worse than it truly is, from everything I have read this flu is a killer far beyond the normal seasonal flu's that come around yearly. it has been followed for nearly 50 years and is not new.

+1

Originally Posted by Delphinus

Hesitant to weigh on this one because I don't think the debate will ever end, people will want to believe what they want to believe and that's really the end of it, isn't it ..

I don't always get my flu shot every year. Sometimes I get flu, sometimes I don't. FWIW, I got my H1N1 shot already on Monday. Had sore arms for most of yesterday, other than that I still appear to be here this morning, at least for now.

This is what I think people need to consider:
- H1N1 is different from other flu's in that otherwise healthy people are dying from it, and not just the usual high-risk groups (infants, eldery, infirm, or otherwise compromised people). Ordinary, average, HEALTHY people are dying from it. Yes, not many, but that's not the point. The point is it's targeting different people.
- If the people who have died, would not have died had they been vaccinated, then does that not favour vaccination?

Don't listen to arguments like "I work in the health care industry and I'm not getting it" (or for what it's worth, arguments like "I work in the health care industry and I am getting it"). Good for you for whatever industry you work in, but it doesn't matter as that's totally irrelevant. That's like me saying "I write software for a living and I don't have any antivirus on my PC."

Do your own research.

To me it is about prevention and risk mitigation. That's part of the problem facing the health-care crisis right there: too many people think in terms of "oh well, if it happens, we'll just deal with it" instead of focusing on prevention, in general.

Peace...

Well said Tony, this sums it up perfectly for me. I plan on getting my shot for H1N1 on friday.

[Ron99]

Originally Posted by pinhead

What are the known and occuring side effects and where are you getting your information - the media?

Or second hand information from other people,


Or Youtube?

(An explanation of the woman's symptoms http://www.examiner.com/x-13791-Balt...ll-in-her-head)



My information comes from the scientist's research. This information is found in peer-reviewed scientific journals or summarized for the layman magazines such as New Scientist. http://www.newscientist.com/article/...ef=online-news

Doing research from these sources will lead you to the following facts:

This strain of flu isn't always mild

It can be fatal - particularly in young people (43 deaths of children in the US in the first 2 weeks of October)

Even if you have a mild reaction to the flu virus, you could be the cause of a serious ilness in your children, other family member, co-worker or anyone else you come in contact with

Although the virus can be breathed in as an aerosol droplet, in can survive upto 48 hours on non-porous surfaces and then transfered to your eyes, nose or mouth.

The vaccine is safe (the canadian vaccine, unlike the US is a dead virus). The misinformation about flu vaccine side effects come from the 1976 US swine flu vaccinations where out of 48 million vaccinations, roughly 500 people developed Guillain-Barré syndrome and 25 died. This rate is roughly 10 cases of Guillain-Barré Syndrome for every 1 million vaccinations. Surprisingly, Guillain-Barré is found at a rate of 40-70 for every 1 million non-vaccinated flu sufferers and in the general population from other sources at 10 - 20 cases for every million people. Your chances if you were vaccinated in 1976 of getting Guillain-Barré were lower than if you caught the flu and the same as getting it from other sources.

Medical technology and vaccines have improved in 23 years - these side effects were from the 1976 vaccine.

One of these advancements is the addition of adjuvants made of fish oil, water and Vitamin E which are added to improve the body's immune response.

In Canada, the vaccine is free.

So the vaccine is: safe, cheap and will protect me or my family from from a possibly fatal disease. I guess I don't have tell you I am getting the vaccine.

I can provide references so you can base your decision on verifiable facts rather than rumors and information from almost 30 years ago.

+1000. This is the best response to this thread yet. I have been trying to decide if and how to respond here. I really can't believe the level of misinformation and paranoia out there. Do people honestly believe this is some sort of government conspiracy (amongst many world governments coordinating it) or conspiracy by the vaccine companies to make money at our expense?

I think we also need to look beyond the fact that H1N1 is a serious health threat to a small subset of the population and also realize that the economic and social threats of a major flu epidemic/pandemic are potentially also very severe, especially coming as the world tries to recover from the economic meltdown.

Imagine millions of people sick and unable to work. The garbage can't be collected, mail doesn't get delivered, transit systems have difficulty running, grocery stores have difficulty receiving shipments of food etc. etc. Now imagine if recalcitrant health care workers do not get vaccinated and start becoming sick. What happens if the health care system itself is impaired during such an epidemic? Sure that's a worse case scenario but it is one that is worth considering as a very real possibility.

Personally I think it is irresponsible to not get vaccinated when we face a global pandemic. Doubly so if you are a health care or emergency service worker. Imagine if huge numbers of people were paranoid about the smallpox vaccine and didn't get their shot?

Of course this is my opinion and I suppose you are entitled to your wrong opinion

[rjengen]

No, No, and No...I don't want it. The last time I was sick was 5 years ago when I got a flu shot, and since then I don't bother. My son is 3 years old, and honestly the only time he has been sick was the night he cut his first two teeth. Other then that time, has has never had a snivle, sneeze, or cough...and yes, we chose to not give him the recomended barrage of vacinations when he was born. We're not hippies, or crazy people...we just take the time to research all of the facts that are now out their due to the internet.

[Ron99]

Originally Posted by 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.

.

The reason pigs seem to be a link appears to be due to the receptors that they have on their cells that the viruses use to attach and infect them. Birds and human proteins are different enough that the viruses have a hard time making that jump. Pigs seem to have proteins similar to both the bird ones and the human ones so the avian flu can jump to pigs more easilly. Once in the pig the virus can mutate to favour the human type receptor proteins and voila, you now have a virus that can more easily infect humans. Secondly, while a mutation to jump species is rare, mutations in general are much more common (I think I read somewhere the mutation rate in influenza virus is 1.4 per generation so in very simplistic terms within three generations of virus you can have a new strain). Especially in things like viruses and bacteria that reproduce quickly and measure their generations in hours instead of years. Thirdly, influenza virus has the ability to have what might be called virus sex (antigenic shift). So if an unlucky pig were to be infected with both an avian flu virus and a human flu virus at the same time they can swap some genes and you can end up with an avian flu virus that now has picked up some tricks to infect human cells too.

Originally Posted by VFX

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?

What likely changed in 2009 was a mutation to make the virus more able able to move from human to human rather than just pig to human. Often humans who work on the farms will catch avian or swine flu but the virus is then not able to go from them to other humans. I suspect it is common for farm workers to catch avian or swine flu but usually they have mild or no symptoms so it likely goes unreported and unknown. But occasionally they may catch a strain that is better able to infect humans and they may have a less mild flu so it is then noticed by the medical professionals. And on that rare occasion we end up with a virus that is more capable of doing the human to human jump and we end up with it now infecting the general population.

Several strains of flu do not produce the PB1-F2 protein and this strain of H1N1 does not either. It is not uncommon and it appears to be a good thing. The PB1-F2 protein appears to increase the virulence of the virus and make it more lethal. It was produced by the viruses that caused pandemics in the past so I guess we are lucky this time. This H1N1 could have been more virulent and deadly had it produced that protein. However, here's the thing. H1N1 does carry the gene for PB1-F2 but it is currently switched off. And while not active at the moment the virus could mutate and the gene could become active so a more virulent strain could emerge. This is one of the reasons vaccination is important. The more people vaccinated, the fewer people get infected and the lower the chance that a more virulent mutation can occur and spread.

Originally Posted by VFX

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.

The mercury compound found in the vaccine, thimerosal is there as an antifungal and antiseptic agent rather than an adjuvant. You want that there so bacteria don't grow in the vaccine and you end up giving people some other infection when you inject them. Firstly, it is a very low toxicity compound that is different than free mercury which is neurotoxic (although that neurotoxicity is reversible) or the organomercury compounds that are considered very toxic. Secondly, this type of mercury compound is actually excreted by your body fairly easily and will be eliminated quickly. Finally it is important to note that it is present in minute amounts and the vaccine contains less mercury then a can of tuna so it is not something to worry about.

The components in the vaccine are as follows:

1. 3.75 micrograms of H1N1 HA protein from the dead virus

2. Squalene. Doing a quick search it looks like the LD50 (the dose that caused 50% of test animals to die) is 1.8 g/Kg(grams per kilogram body weight). The amount of squalene in a dose of vaccine is 10.69 mg or 0.01069 grams. So in an average say 55 kg adult that works out to a dose of 0.00019436 g/Kg which works out to a margin of safety of over 5000:1. So if you gave a bunch of people 5000 vaccine injections to each of those people then about half would die. Of course that is assuming the same LD50 in humans and the LD50 in humans is typically much higher than in mice so the safety margin is likely even higher than that. BTW, that safety margin of 5000:1 is much better then many drugs you take commonly such as tylenol etc. Also, squalene is commonly used by the cosmetic industry in skin moisturizers so you have probably all been exposed to it in the past.

2. 11.86 mg DL-alpha-tocopherol - This is vitamin E. You all like Vitamin E don't you?

3. 4.86 mg Polysorbate 80. This is an emulsifier that helps keep the squalene (fish oil) mixed in with the water and other components in the vaccine. It is very common in food and cosmetics and considered safe. I think some studies showed that higher doses of Polysorbate 80 may cause infertility in rats that was at much higher doses then you will see in this vaccine (again, probably needing to inject thousands of doses to get to that level)

The vaccine also contains a number of excipients which are routine additives that are considered safe such as sodium chloride, the above mentioned thimerosal, potassium phosphate, potassium chloride etc.

As for other "undisclosed" biologicals that is not likely. Regulators are very strict about disclosure of what is in your drugs etc. and every ingredient, including water, has to be listed and disclosed. Uou typically have to submit results of independent analysis of your drug to the regulatory bodies. If you want to read about the vaccine check this link:

http://www.gsk.ca/english/docs-pdf/A..._CAPA01v01.pdf

Originally Posted by VFX

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.

I do think conspiracy theories are silly. Do you really think secret societies of powerful people are controlling the world? Not likely. Have you seen the egos these people have? Can you imagine Donald Trump, Bill Gates, Steve Jobs etc. being able to work together and agree on things to control the world? Not really likely

As for any conspiracy to reduce the human population why do we need a bioengineered flu virus or suspicious vaccines? We have war and famine and to do the job and mother nature is also very good at controlling populations with diseases such as this. So come on, let's be real. I discount and ridicule them because they are extremely implausible and unlikely. There is no real evidence to support them. But they make good stories for Dan Brown, Hollywood and the internet I would ask the people advising you not to take the vaccine to explain to you exactly why they are against it and provide sound evidence and reasoning for it.

I'm a scientist and I am all for questioning things as that is the scientific method. But it has to be done in a reasonable and systematic way and conclusions have to be arrived at based on facts, and evidence rather then anecdotes and feelings and fear and misunderstanding.

Originally Posted by VFX

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.

.

I'm not really sure if any direct link has been established between vitamin D and flus etc. However, it does appear that with our current diets and habits (more time in front of computers, TV, playstations etc.) we are all getting less sunshine and have lower levels of vitamin D so that can probably have general effects on our health and immune system. It does appear that vitamin D plays a role in production of certain immune system proteins in humans. Probably wouldn't hurt to take some Vitamin D supplements to make sure you are getting what you require and maximize your bodies natural defenses. But it is not going to be a a miracle cure or preventative etc. It may just help you fight the infection if you get it.

Anyhow, I need to get back to work now...