1. The H1N1 vaccine is still in testing phase. It's also been fast-tracked, with very limited research concerning the short term as well as long term side effects.
2. It has not been FDA approved. (It takes 7 years to approve a new drug for usage by the public)
"Clinical trials conducted by the National Institutes of Health and the vaccine manufacturers have shown that the new H1N1 vaccine is both safe and effective. The FDA has licensed it. There have been no safety shortcuts.
From: http://www.medpagetoday.com/ProductAler ... ines/15230
FDA Likely to Approve H1N1 Vaccine In Advance of Data
By Emily P. Walker, Washington Correspondent, MedPage Today
Published: July 23, 2009
Reviewed by Zalman S. Agus, MD; Emeritus Professor
University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Click here to rate this report
GAITHERSBURG, Md., July 23 -- The FDA is likely to approve 2009 H1N1 (swine flu) vaccines before trial data can prove their safety and effectiveness against the virus.
Approving a vaccine without safety and immunogenicity data is not uncommon, FDA officials said during a daylong meeting of the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee.
The committee met to hear updates on H1N1 trials from the FDA, NIH, and the five companies that are applying for FDA approval of pandemic H1N1 vaccines.
In fact, the FDA approves seasonal influenza vaccines every year using its "strain change" process, in which it doesn't require vaccine manufacturers to provide safety and efficacy data.
What is different about how the FDA is likely to handle approval for a vaccine for pandemic H1N1, however, is that the agency doesn't normally approve vaccines while major clinical trials of safety and immunogenicity are ongoing.
I meant the former (answering your first question). It's been shown that the those who have gotten sick and those who have died, the majority are pregnant women and the very young for Swine Flu. The first two on the list on the CDC page are these two groups, because they're most at risk.
There's little data available because it's been so short lived. Really, all the data you find on CDC has been since the whole Swine Flu rage came about. So how many months has it been?
And the CDC website -- granted, it's tagline says that it's "Your online source for credible Health Information", yet it's a gov't site. And there's ads on it for Flu.gov, another gov site. And it's sponsored by USA.GOV. It's not a medical journal, it's a government site with flu information. I'll continue my research on legit medical sites, thanks.
I guess I'm still not following you here, which is unusual since I usually see things more or less eye-to-eye with you.
I don't find the specific data where it has been shown that the majority of those who have gotten sick and who have died from H1N1 have been pregnant women and very young children. The age data on the CDC website shows that the highest rate of illness has been in the 5-24 y.o age group, followed closely by the 0-4 y.o. age group. It does show have the highest rate of hospitalization has been in the 0-4 y.o. age group. It also shows that the highest rate of death has been in the 25-49 y.o. age group, with 5-24 y.o. coming in a distant 3rd and 0-4 y.o. having the lowest rate of death (by far) of all age groups. The CDC also says that pregnant women have higher than average rates of hospitalization from H1N1 than the general population, but that they account for only 6% of H1N1 deaths (hardly the majority). It is to be expected that they would have a higher risk of complications - just like they do from the seasonal flu - since pregnant women have lowered immune systems. If you have differing information, please point me in the right direction to find it.
That's all somewhat irrelevant to my initial question, though, which was why you said the data is limited primarily to these two groups. Just because data may show greater risk to these groups doesn't mean there's not data for other groups as well. There must be data for other groups, actually, or they wouldn't be able to make a comparison.
Of course the only data on this particular strain of flu can only be from since it began. But, given the time restraints, I think quite a bit of data has been gathered. I guess what it means to have a little or a lot of data is all relative though. Perhaps the question is whether we have enough data to be making any judgements. I think we addressed that earlier in this thread though,and my answer was that we have what we have and we must make judgements that take the limitations into consideration. And I think that's what's happening. We also have to remember that this is just a dfferent strain of a virus that we already know a lot about.
What I understand the least, though, is your implication that all information that comes from government entities is invalid. (I understand this even less than I understand your belief that nothing relating in any way to for-profit drug companies could be valid.) So BOTH the private AND public sectors are now ruled out as legitimate sources?? The world's leading sources of public health knowledge and informtion are all invalid just because they have .gov at the end of their websites? Really? :? What motive does the CDC have to lie about the numbers of people who have died from the flu? Do you really think they're just making these deaths up? Or do you think they're incorrectly distributing them by demographic group to mis-represent the situation? I just don't get it. Neither the CDC, the NIH, the Department of Health & Human Services, the FDA, the state public health offices, the county health councils, nor the public hospitals are to be trusted?? What about the WHO - are they out too? I know they're not medical journals, but have you found that the majority of good, peer-reviewed medical jornals disagree with all these organizations? And are you suggesting that the info put out by the government is not peer-reviewed? I really don't get it. :? Please point me toward the "legit medical sites" to which you refer.
Also, you stated in another post that the FDA had not approvd the H1N1 vaccine. Is the FDA itself not a good source to find out what they have and haven't approved? And are you suggesting that your source that contradicts the FDA's website is more valid?
I'm not trying to be a pain in the ass here.. just really don't get it.
From: http://www.medpagetoday.com/ProductAler ... ines/15230
FDA Likely to Approve H1N1 Vaccine In Advance of Data
By Emily P. Walker, Washington Correspondent, MedPage Today
Published: July 23, 2009
Reviewed by Zalman S. Agus, MD; Emeritus Professor
University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Click here to rate this report
GAITHERSBURG, Md., July 23 -- The FDA is likely to approve 2009 H1N1 (swine flu) vaccines before trial data can prove their safety and effectiveness against the virus.
Approving a vaccine without safety and immunogenicity data is not uncommon, FDA officials said during a daylong meeting of the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee.
The committee met to hear updates on H1N1 trials from the FDA, NIH, and the five companies that are applying for FDA approval of pandemic H1N1 vaccines.
In fact, the FDA approves seasonal influenza vaccines every year using its "strain change" process, in which it doesn't require vaccine manufacturers to provide safety and efficacy data.
What is different about how the FDA is likely to handle approval for a vaccine for pandemic H1N1, however, is that the agency doesn't normally approve vaccines while major clinical trials of safety and immunogenicity are ongoing.
Thanks for the info. I can't help but note that this article is speculative and from before the vaccine was actually approved. Do you have any current information supporting this?
Also, you left this part out: "We have decades of experience with H1N1, that's why we feel we can do this with a strain-change," said Dr. Baylor.
Not to mention that this is just a slight recipe change, as they do every year, from the billions of doses of flu vaccine that have been given out over many, many years.
Will they EVER have ALL possible information about this flu or any flu or vaccine or anything in life? No. But we've got to make the best decisions we can based on the information we have. Right now we know that 1) risk of complications and death from the flu in general VASTLY outweighs the risk from the flu vaccine in general, 2) the H1N1 vaccine is nearly identical to the flu vaccines we have used in the past and all studies so far show that there is no additional risk from this vaccine versus the ones we have used in the past, and 3) all studies so far show that the risk of the H1N1 flu is much higher amongst the general population than the flu we generally see.
I don't find the specific data where it has been shown that the majority of those who have gotten sick and who have died from H1N1 have been pregnant women and very young children. The age data on the CDC website shows that the highest rate of illness has been in the 5-24 y.o age group, followed closely by the 0-4 y.o. age group. It does show have the highest rate of hospitalization has been in the 0-4 y.o. age group. It also shows that the highest rate of death has been in the 25-49 y.o. age group, with 5-24 y.o. coming in a distant 3rd and 0-4 y.o. having the lowest rate of death (by far) of all age groups. The CDC also says that pregnant women have higher than average rates of hospitalization from H1N1 than the general population, but that they account for only 6% of H1N1 deaths (hardly the majority). It is to be expected that they would have a higher risk of complications - just like they do from the seasonal flu - since pregnant women have lowered immune systems. If you have differing information, please point me in the right direction to find it.
That's all somewhat irrelevant to my initial question, though, which was why you said the data is limited primarily to these two groups. Just because data may show greater risk to these groups doesn't mean there's not data for other groups as well. There must be data for other groups, actually, or they wouldn't be able to make a comparison.
Just one article...this is not the one I read the other day, I read several the other day, I don't rely on one site for stats. http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNe ... GW20090729
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Pregnant women infected with the new H1N1 swine flu have a much higher risk of severe illness and death and should receive prompt treatment with antiviral drugs, U.S. government researchers said on Wednesday.
While pregnant woman have always had a higher risk of severe disease from influenza in general, the new H1N1 virus is taking an exceptionally heavy toll, the researchers said.
What I understand the least, though, is your implication that all information that comes from government entities is invalid. (I understand this even less than I understand your belief that nothing relating in any way to for-profit drug companies could be valid.) So BOTH the private AND public sectors are now ruled out as legitimate sources?? The world's leading sources of public health knowledge and informtion are all invalid just because they have .gov at the end of their websites? Really? :? What motive does the CDC have to lie about the numbers of people who have died from the flu? Do you really think they're just making these deaths up? Or do you think they're incorrectly distributing them by demographic group to mis-represent the situation? I just don't get it. Neither the CDC, the NIH, the Department of Health & Human Services, the FDA, the state public health offices, the county health councils, nor the public hospitals are to be trusted?? What about the WHO - are they out too? I know they're not medical journals, but have you found that the majority of good, peer-reviewed medical jornals disagree with all these organizations? And are you suggesting that the info put out by the government is not peer-reviewed? I really don't get it. :? Please point me toward the "legit medical sites" to which you refer.
I rely on facts to support my views, and in my opinion the gov't sites are not based on facts. They're based on gov't. If you want to continue to side with gov sites, that's your prerogative, but I prefer to go to the professionals, which is the science and medical journals. The researchers, the one's actually doing the work. Once you get gov't involved, factual info can get lost, as we've seen with the whole global warming issue in Bush's administration with censoring scientists' research. This is just one reason why I choose not to rely on .gov anything other than gov't and global issues. When you have the CDC site sponsored by USA.GOV and Flu.gov, it's all gov't related, not medically. It is less credible in my opinion because gov't has a bias. Professional medicine and the journals that report the research....do not. It's there to provide the facts.
I also follow news about the environment. The EPA is supposed to have their interests in protecting the environment. Yet with Bush's EPA, they were making decisions that didn't have the interest of protecting the environment. This is the same reason I don't go to the gov. resources for medicine. Who knows if they're TRULY looking out for our health. Remember, there's the insurance industry and lobbyists they have to cater to, and also our fave, Big Pharma. If I wanted true, not tainted info about medicine I don't go to the gov't sites.
Also, you stated in another post that the FDA had not approvd the H1N1 vaccine. Is the FDA itself not a good source to find out what they have and haven't approved? And are you suggesting that your source that contradicts the FDA's website is more valid?
I thought about that last night, I knew I mentioned both. I heard that the FDA did not approve it from a nurse locally, but then found out that they did approve it,last night while reading, very quickly. It usually takes 7 years for the FDA to approve anything. They approved it in emergency fashion without their typical safety inspections. That's a reason for concern!
From: http://www.medpagetoday.com/ProductAler ... ines/15230
FDA Likely to Approve H1N1 Vaccine In Advance of Data
By Emily P. Walker, Washington Correspondent, MedPage Today
Published: July 23, 2009
Reviewed by Zalman S. Agus, MD; Emeritus Professor
University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Click here to rate this report
GAITHERSBURG, Md., July 23 -- The FDA is likely to approve 2009 H1N1 (swine flu) vaccines before trial data can prove their safety and effectiveness against the virus.
Approving a vaccine without safety and immunogenicity data is not uncommon, FDA officials said during a daylong meeting of the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee.
The committee met to hear updates on H1N1 trials from the FDA, NIH, and the five companies that are applying for FDA approval of pandemic H1N1 vaccines.
In fact, the FDA approves seasonal influenza vaccines every year using its "strain change" process, in which it doesn't require vaccine manufacturers to provide safety and efficacy data.
What is different about how the FDA is likely to handle approval for a vaccine for pandemic H1N1, however, is that the agency doesn't normally approve vaccines while major clinical trials of safety and immunogenicity are ongoing.
Thanks for the info. I can't help but note that this article is speculative and from before the vaccine was actually approved. Do you have any current information supporting this?
Also, you left this part out: "We have decades of experience with H1N1, that's why we feel we can do this with a strain-change," said Dr. Baylor.
Not to mention that this is just a slight recipe change, as they do every year, from the billions of doses of flu vaccine that have been given out over many, many years.
Will they EVER have ALL possible information about this flu or any flu or vaccine or anything in life? No. But we've got to make the best decisions we can based on the information we have. Right now we know that 1) risk of complications and death from the flu in general VASTLY outweighs the risk from the flu vaccine in general, 2) the H1N1 vaccine is nearly identical to the flu vaccines we have used in the past and all studies so far show that there is no additional risk from this vaccine versus the ones we have used in the past, and 3) all studies so far show that the risk of the H1N1 flu is much higher amongst the general population than the flu we generally see.
That's right I did leave that out, I know it's from a few months ago, still doesn't make it totally irrelevant. The reason why I left that out is because I haven't found any truth to that statement. Have you? Decades of experience??
To question your points:
1) Risk of complications or death vastly outweighs the risk of flu vaccine? How many people do you know personally that back that up? How about that favorite term many docs are using ..."underlying healthy complications contributing to sickness / death"? They use that a lot, which is very vague.
2) The H1N1 vac is nearly identical to to flu vaccines? Where's your proof on this? This vac is too new to prove such a thing widely. I know you've been talking strains, but it's still new. It's just now being given. It's too early to tell what the outcomes will be on it. We all know the flu vac does not work on everyone (but does help those with weak immunities). That's why it's voluntary. Have you seen all the side effects for the H1N1? I'll find them, and the side effects for children is a bit lengthy.
3) According to the scare from this past Spring, yes. But it was hysteria and difficult to pinpoint if there were really as many cases as they were saying that came in, not to mention many were not serious. I'll take my chances.
scb - just to show that not all docs are behind recommending the H1N1 vaccine...
Swine Flu Vaccine: What To Do?
posted by Dr. Frank Lipman Oct 11, 2009 5:00 pm
Summer is over and the question I am being asked most frequently in my practice is, “what do I do about Swine flu?” My patients are wondering whether or not they should get vaccinated and the simple answer I give most of the time is ..NO!
From what you may have read, you might think that the swine flu vaccine is the answer to swine flu. Unfortunately this is not true and until we know that the vaccine is safe, I cannot in good conscience recommend it to most of my patients.
From the outset, let me say, I am not anti all vaccinations, rather I am pro vaccine safety and freedom of choice.
This is why am I not recommending the swine flu vaccine:
1. At this stage, for the most part the swine flu seems benign.
Over a million people in the US have already come down with swine flu, many of them without even knowing that they had it. The vast majority of people who get the swine flu recover after a week or so of high fever, aches, and respiratory distress. It’s not pleasant, but except in rare circumstances, it is not fatal. Most people who’ve been infected by swine flu think so little of it, they believe they just had a really bad cold or a regular flu. So unless the swine flu evolves to a much more virulent form, there’s no need for mass vaccination.
2. We don’t know if the vaccine will be effective.
Vaccines are only useful against the specific viral strain that was available at the time of their manufacture. But influenza viruses mutate quickly, and as the WHO has already said, the real concern with H1N1 swine flu is that it will combine with seasonal flu in the Fall, creating a new strain that will of course be immune to all available vaccines.
Just one article...this is not the one I read the other day, I read several the other day, I don't rely on one site for stats. http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNe ... GW20090729
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Pregnant women infected with the new H1N1 swine flu have a much higher risk of severe illness and death and should receive prompt treatment with antiviral drugs, U.S. government researchers said on Wednesday.
While pregnant woman have always had a higher risk of severe disease from influenza in general, the new H1N1 virus is taking an exceptionally heavy toll, the researchers said.
This says the same thing as the CDC website, and I can't help but notice that this source you think is more reliable than the federal government gets its info from the federal government. :?
Regardless, saying a group (like pregnant women) has a higher risk of severe illness and death from the flu is totally not the same thing as saying they account for the majority of severe illness and death. Just one example of how easy it is for laypeople to misinterpret & misrepresent data... which is why I trust professionals instead.
I rely on facts to support my views, and in my opinion the gov't sites are not based on facts. They're based on gov't. If you want to continue to side with gov sites, that's your prerogative, but I prefer to go to the professionals, which is the science and medical journals. The researchers, the one's actually doing the work. Once you get gov't involved, factual info can get lost, as we've seen with the whole global warming issue in Bush's administration with censoring scientists' research. This is just one reason why I choose not to rely on .gov anything other than gov't and global issues. When you have the CDC site sponsored by USA.GOV and Flu.gov, it's all gov't related, not medically. It is less credible in my opinion because gov't has a bias. Professional medicine and the journals that report the research....do not. It's there to provide the facts.
I also follow news about the environment. The EPA is supposed to have their interests in protecting the environment. Yet with Bush's EPA, they were making decisions that didn't have the interest of protecting the environment. This is the same reason I don't go to the gov. resources for medicine. Who knows if they're TRULY looking out for our health. Remember, there's the insurance industry and lobbyists they have to cater to, and also our fave, Big Pharma. If I wanted true, not tainted info about medicine I don't go to the gov't sites.
How can the government sites not be based on facts when they are the ones collecting the data?? I ask you again, do you think they're making this data up?
I do share your skepticicm of the government in general - and I'm always arguing on here that I want medical professionals, not politicians, to inform my medical decisions - but the fact is that the scientists at the CDC and such places ARE medical professionals, not politicians. It just so happens that our world-renowned public health organizations are funded with public money by the government. (Who else should fund them? If they were funded privately, there would be even more of an appearance/threat of bias.)
So, I totally agree with you that we should go with the professionals, the researchers, the ones actually doing the work. But the CDC, the NIH, the state public health offices, etc. ARE the professionals. Where do you think the info for the medical journals comes from? At this point, the CDC is the main primary source. And, I ask you again, what reputable medical journals are disagreeing with the CDC, et al?
Also, what bias does the public health sector of the government have? And, while I'm usually the first one to say that medical journals and professional organizations are the place to go for unbiased info, by your logic I don't see how we can say that ANY information is free enough of bias to be valid. Didn't you already say that professional medicine is not to be trusted because they're all in cahoots with Big Pharma, or am I thinking of someone else?
I thought about that last night, I knew I mentioned both. I heard that the FDA did not approve it from a nurse locally, but then found out that they did approve it,last night while reading, very quickly. It usually takes 7 years for the FDA to approve anything. They approved it in emergency fashion without their typical safety inspections. That's a reason for concern!
How is approving a different strain of the same vaccine - as they do every year to keep up with the various flu strains - lacking their typical safety inspections?
Thanks for the info. I can't help but note that this article is speculative and from before the vaccine was actually approved. Do you have any current information supporting this?
Also, you left this part out: "We have decades of experience with H1N1, that's why we feel we can do this with a strain-change," said Dr. Baylor.
Not to mention that this is just a slight recipe change, as they do every year, from the billions of doses of flu vaccine that have been given out over many, many years.
Will they EVER have ALL possible information about this flu or any flu or vaccine or anything in life? No. But we've got to make the best decisions we can based on the information we have. Right now we know that 1) risk of complications and death from the flu in general VASTLY outweighs the risk from the flu vaccine in general, 2) the H1N1 vaccine is nearly identical to the flu vaccines we have used in the past and all studies so far show that there is no additional risk from this vaccine versus the ones we have used in the past, and 3) all studies so far show that the risk of the H1N1 flu is much higher amongst the general population than the flu we generally see.
That's right I did leave that out, I know it's from a few months ago, still doesn't make it totally irrelevant. The reason why I left that out is because I haven't found any truth to that statement. Have you? Decades of experience??
Huh? How is speculative information possibly relavent once actual information has become available? That's like saying if we want to know whether or not Pearl Jam played a show at Red Rocks on October 1st we should consult an unofficial thread from June saying they might play there rather than checking the Red Rocks schedule or the Pearl Jam tour schedule to find out whether or not they did. :? :?
As for having decades of experience with H1N1, again, do you think they're making that up? There was an H1N1 pandemic in 1918, which, by my math, was 9 decades ago. There was another outbreak in 1976. Do you think with all the flu research they do that they just decided to let this strain go and never study it? And then lie about it? :?
To question your points:
1) Risk of complications or death vastly outweighs the risk of flu vaccine? How many people do you know personally that back that up? How about that favorite term many docs are using ..."underlying healthy complications contributing to sickness / death"? They use that a lot, which is very vague.
First of all, judging the risks and benefits of the flu and its vaccine based on my personal acquantances is the opposite of scientific knowledge. Billions of cases of the flu and of people who have received the vaccine have been collected and analyzed over the years to show that the risk of complication or death from the flu vastly outweighs the risk of the vaccine. Vaccines are one of greatest public health interventions of all time, and the flu vaccine is the best method we have to protect against the flu. I would provide source sto back that up, but you'd probably say they weren't reliable.
Secondly, I actually know quite a number of people to back that up. Plenty of my friends, family, and co-workers are out with the flu right now. I'm having to create back-up plans for coverage at work for when even more people start dropping. We're also trying to figure out how to best handle the outbreak in our population of pregnant patients. 50% of our pediatric population has the flu. My otherwise healthy, 13-year-old cousin got the flu from her older sister and it has now turned into pneumonia and bronchitis. We're being accredited this week at work and the senior coordinator is out with the flu. My partner for a class project can't meet because her kids have the flu. A whole bunch of my Facebook friends/family have the flu. By contrast, I have never known one person who has had an adverse event due to the flu vaccine.
As for "underlying health conditions" being vague, the CDC website spells it out more clearly if you'd like to take a look.
2) The H1N1 vac is nearly identical to to flu vaccines? Where's your proof on this? This vac is too new to prove such a thing widely. I know you've been talking strains, but it's still new. It's just now being given. It's too early to tell what the outcomes will be on it. We all know the flu vac does not work on everyone (but does help those with weak immunities). That's why it's voluntary. Have you seen all the side effects for the H1N1? I'll find them, and the side effects for children is a bit lengthy.
How can you say it's too new to prove that it's nearly identical to the other vaccines? You only need to know what goes in it and how it's made to know this, and the people who made it know what they put in it and how it was made. And the FDA knows what they approved to go in it and how they approved it to be made. And they say it's nearly identical.
As for outcomes, once again, we know what we know. So far we know that no one they have given it to (through trials or otherwise) has had side effects different than they would with the regular flu vaccine. And we know that there has been no increase in the amount of cases of side effects. And they are being hyper-vigilant about tracking any possible cases of side effects that may occur.
I would like to see your list of side effects for H1N1, but let me ask you this: Are they different from the side effects of the regular flu vaccine? Have these side effects actually been observed or are they speculative? What is your source? Do the risks of side effects outweigh the risks of flu?
3) According to the scare from this past Spring, yes. But it was hysteria and difficult to pinpoint if there were really as many cases as they were saying that came in, not to mention many were not serious. I'll take my chances.
Huh?? How can you say it was difficult to pinpoint if there were really as many cases as they were saying? As who was saying? We're talking about actual data here, not anecdotal "evidence". There are criteria (such as labs) for determining what should be counted as a case, and then you count them. How is that difficult? I just don't understand how scientifically gathered, epidemiologic data can just be ignored. :? :?
scb - just to show that not all docs are behind recommending the H1N1 vaccine...
Swine Flu Vaccine: What To Do?
posted by Dr. Frank Lipman Oct 11, 2009 5:00 pm
Summer is over and the question I am being asked most frequently in my practice is, “what do I do about Swine flu?” My patients are wondering whether or not they should get vaccinated and the simple answer I give most of the time is ..NO!
From what you may have read, you might think that the swine flu vaccine is the answer to swine flu. Unfortunately this is not true and until we know that the vaccine is safe, I cannot in good conscience recommend it to most of my patients.
From the outset, let me say, I am not anti all vaccinations, rather I am pro vaccine safety and freedom of choice.
This is why am I not recommending the swine flu vaccine:
1. At this stage, for the most part the swine flu seems benign.
Over a million people in the US have already come down with swine flu, many of them without even knowing that they had it. The vast majority of people who get the swine flu recover after a week or so of high fever, aches, and respiratory distress. It’s not pleasant, but except in rare circumstances, it is not fatal. Most people who’ve been infected by swine flu think so little of it, they believe they just had a really bad cold or a regular flu. So unless the swine flu evolves to a much more virulent form, there’s no need for mass vaccination.
2. We don’t know if the vaccine will be effective.
Vaccines are only useful against the specific viral strain that was available at the time of their manufacture. But influenza viruses mutate quickly, and as the WHO has already said, the real concern with H1N1 swine flu is that it will combine with seasonal flu in the Fall, creating a new strain that will of course be immune to all available vaccines.
I know that not every single doctor agrees, but what about the medical profession as a whole? What about those expert researchers you speak of? I don't even know who this guy is or where this article came from.
scb - just to show that not all docs are behind recommending the H1N1 vaccine...
Swine Flu Vaccine: What To Do?
posted by Dr. Frank Lipman Oct 11, 2009 5:00 pm
Summer is over and the question I am being asked most frequently in my practice is, “what do I do about Swine flu?” My patients are wondering whether or not they should get vaccinated and the simple answer I give most of the time is ..NO!
From what you may have read, you might think that the swine flu vaccine is the answer to swine flu. Unfortunately this is not true and until we know that the vaccine is safe, I cannot in good conscience recommend it to most of my patients.
From the outset, let me say, I am not anti all vaccinations, rather I am pro vaccine safety and freedom of choice.
This is why am I not recommending the swine flu vaccine:
1. At this stage, for the most part the swine flu seems benign.
Over a million people in the US have already come down with swine flu, many of them without even knowing that they had it. The vast majority of people who get the swine flu recover after a week or so of high fever, aches, and respiratory distress. It’s not pleasant, but except in rare circumstances, it is not fatal. Most people who’ve been infected by swine flu think so little of it, they believe they just had a really bad cold or a regular flu. So unless the swine flu evolves to a much more virulent form, there’s no need for mass vaccination.
2. We don’t know if the vaccine will be effective.
Vaccines are only useful against the specific viral strain that was available at the time of their manufacture. But influenza viruses mutate quickly, and as the WHO has already said, the real concern with H1N1 swine flu is that it will combine with seasonal flu in the Fall, creating a new strain that will of course be immune to all available vaccines.
I know that not every single doctor agrees, but what about the medical profession as a whole? What about those expert researchers you speak of? I don't even know who this guy is or where this article came from.
Listen, we'll have to agree to disagree here. I don't rely on gov't to tell me what's best for my health. I also have shown points how the H1N1 is not proven safe. You seem to want to believe that the medical community as a whole think it's wisest to get the vaccine and I disagree. But what do I care what doctors say? They make mistakes all the time. I'm done.
Listen, we'll have to agree to disagree here. I don't rely on gov't to tell me what's best for my health. I also have shown points how the H1N1 is not proven safe. You seem to want to believe that the medical community as a whole think it's wisest to get the vaccine and I disagree. But what do I care what doctors say? They make mistakes all the time. I'm done.
I'm just truly trying to understand what sources of information you think are actually valid and find where they say that the medical community as a whole disagrees with the CDC... and I still don't get it. :? :?
ETA: Can anyone else provide me with reputable information demonstrating that the medical community as a whole believes that the CDC is not a valid source of information on the flu?? Maybe I'm missing something.
Listen, we'll have to agree to disagree here. I don't rely on gov't to tell me what's best for my health. I also have shown points how the H1N1 is not proven safe. You seem to want to believe that the medical community as a whole think it's wisest to get the vaccine and I disagree. But what do I care what doctors say? They make mistakes all the time. I'm done.
I'm just truly trying to understand what sources of information you think are actually valid and find where they say that the medical community as a whole disagrees with the CDC... and I still don't get it. :? :?
ETA: Can anyone else provide me with reputable information demonstrating that the medical community as a whole believes that the CDC is not a valid source of information on the flu?? Maybe I'm missing something.
One more thing: I want to be clear that I'm not just pulling my faith in the validity of the CDC out of my ass. I work at the primary hospital for my state and know that, although CDC guidance isn't always 100% clear and no knowledge is 100% perfect, the CDC is considered the primary source of accurate, valid information when dealing with such illnesses. Our hospital (as a whole, not just a couple of naive docs) is using CDC info to inform its decisions on how to handle this flu season on a population level and an individual treatment level. They wouldn't do that if they thought there was data out there that was more valid.
My suspicion is that you are correct about that. I don't recall anyone ever getting a flu vaccine when i was a kid. now even walgreen's gives them away. and every year there's a new panicked epidemic... avian flu, swine flu, SARS... and every year... like 10 people die in an impoverished country and that's it. this is all a huge hoax to drum up business. it's a flu people. i bet 99% of everyone on this forum do not even know anyone who knows anyone else that even heard of someone dying of a fucking flu.
and if i get it and go down, +1 for mother nature. a little natural selection might not be such a bad thing for this overpopulated planet.
What a nice thought. Why don't you write letters to the parents of the 76 American children that H1N1 has killed so far this year telling them what a great thing it was for the planet that their child died?
"The regular flu kills between 46 and 88 children a year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That SUGGESTS deaths from the new H1N1 virus COULD dramatically outpace children's deaths from seasonal flu, IF swine flu continues to spread as it has."
wow, a wopping 130 kids died of flu out of... how many million/billion born? how does that stack up to poverty and all the other diseases out there? the fact is, the odds of dying of a flu in america are so miniscule that it's absurd. this isn't about public health, it's about business.
and i capitalized the important parts of that quote you gave... when you notice those, you realize they don't know a damn thing. they're guessing. like they did with bird flu and sars and whatever was right before that. this is much ado about nothing.
Listen, we'll have to agree to disagree here. I don't rely on gov't to tell me what's best for my health. I also have shown points how the H1N1 is not proven safe. You seem to want to believe that the medical community as a whole think it's wisest to get the vaccine and I disagree. But what do I care what doctors say? They make mistakes all the time. I'm done.
I'm just truly trying to understand what sources of information you think are actually valid and find where they say that the medical community as a whole disagrees with the CDC... and I still don't get it. :? :?
ETA: Can anyone else provide me with reputable information demonstrating that the medical community as a whole believes that the CDC is not a valid source of information on the flu?? Maybe I'm missing something.
I didn't mean to make it seem like the med. community as a whole believes the CDC isn't a valid source. I only meant that *I* don't consider it valid. Any health network supported and sponsored by the gov't makes me question the accuracy. Gov't has bias and usually an agenda. Medical Journals have no reason to not be objective.
Listen, we'll have to agree to disagree here. I don't rely on gov't to tell me what's best for my health. I also have shown points how the H1N1 is not proven safe. You seem to want to believe that the medical community as a whole think it's wisest to get the vaccine and I disagree. But what do I care what doctors say? They make mistakes all the time. I'm done.
I'm just truly trying to understand what sources of information you think are actually valid and find where they say that the medical community as a whole disagrees with the CDC... and I still don't get it. :? :?
ETA: Can anyone else provide me with reputable information demonstrating that the medical community as a whole believes that the CDC is not a valid source of information on the flu?? Maybe I'm missing something.
I didn't mean to make it seem like the med. community as a whole believes the CDC isn't a valid source. I only meant that *I* don't consider it valid. Any health network supported and sponsored by the gov't makes me question the accuracy. Gov't has bias and usually an agenda. Medical Journals have no reason to not be objective.
Well much of that is debatable, but let's say it's true and medical journals are the only valid source of info. What are the medical journals saying about it?
...But the state maintains that the objective is to reduce the possibility of infecting patients...
I just don't understand this mentality. That health care workers need to be immunized to protect the patients. Shouldn't the onus lie on each individual as to whether or not they should get vaccinated and that it is their own fault if they choose not to and became infected from someone else?
All those who believe the vaccines work can freely choose to get vaccinated, those who don't believe it shouldn't be forced to since those who do believe should have gotten it and will be protected from the unvaccinated. What am I missing here?
shouldn't people that have to be around the high risk patients be immunized from some of these strains?
why is this such a conspiracy? maybe some agency is making bank on a bs flu strain, and they're selling vaccines that we dont' need...but these are health professionals...they are around high risk individuals all day,,,the old and sick...they of all people should be immunized.
1. The H1N1 vaccine is still in testing phase. It's also been fast-tracked, with very limited research concerning the short term as well as long term side effects.
2. It has not been FDA approved. (It takes 7 years to approve a new drug for usage by the public)
3. It is not an emergency situation where it's spreading like wildfire.
4. There are safety issues. Formaldehyde and mercury have been found in several cases so far.
5. NYS Health Board does not entrust their medical professionals to "do the right thing" for the patient's health, but rather force them?
6. Health professionals are not the only people coming into contact with many sick people on a daily basis. What about teachers, students, grocery store clerks?
6. It's against our civil liberties. I know there's a bunch of Libs on here. How would you feel about getting forced by state gov't to be injected or YOU LOSE YOUR JOB?
the idea of it being "forced" seems to be taking over the common sense behind the rule. it should be up to the individual, but really this is common sense. you give some 90 year old some hard core flu strain his/her death is on your hands. it makes more sense to get immunized so that scenario doesn't play out.
This, this is what I just posted about before I read into the thread more...if that 90 year old is worried about the hard core flu strain, shouldn't that 90 year take responsibity for themselves and get immunized on their own, thus not relying on others to be immunized?
...But the state maintains that the objective is to reduce the possibility of infecting patients...
I just don't understand this mentality. That health care workers need to be immunized to protect the patients. Shouldn't the onus lie on each individual as to whether or not they should get vaccinated and that it is their own fault if they choose not to and became infected from someone else?
All those who believe the vaccines work can freely choose to get vaccinated, those who don't believe it shouldn't be forced to since those who do believe should have gotten it and will be protected from the unvaccinated. What am I missing here?
1. Vaccines are not 100% effective.
2. Not everyone is able to get the vaccine (e.g. people with serious allergies to chicken eggs).
...But the state maintains that the objective is to reduce the possibility of infecting patients...
I just don't understand this mentality. That health care workers need to be immunized to protect the patients. Shouldn't the onus lie on each individual as to whether or not they should get vaccinated and that it is their own fault if they choose not to and became infected from someone else?
All those who believe the vaccines work can freely choose to get vaccinated, those who don't believe it shouldn't be forced to since those who do believe should have gotten it and will be protected from the unvaccinated. What am I missing here?
1. Vaccines are not 100% effective.
2. Not everyone is able to get the vaccine (e.g. people with serious allergies to chicken eggs).
Very good points. I could see the vaccines are not 100% effective being argued both ways, though and I still believe that they shouldn't be mandatory at all.
...But the state maintains that the objective is to reduce the possibility of infecting patients...
I just don't understand this mentality. That health care workers need to be immunized to protect the patients. Shouldn't the onus lie on each individual as to whether or not they should get vaccinated and that it is their own fault if they choose not to and became infected from someone else?
All those who believe the vaccines work can freely choose to get vaccinated, those who don't believe it shouldn't be forced to since those who do believe should have gotten it and will be protected from the unvaccinated. What am I missing here?
i agree with this, but also imagine...
right now, someone may be seriously ill. someone seriously ill i do not believe is a good candidate for a vaccine, no? their systems may already be so compromised. thus why some may believe healthcare workers should immunize. not saying i believe in forced vaccinations, but i can at least to some extent see the rationale behind it.
I just don't understand this mentality. That health care workers need to be immunized to protect the patients. Shouldn't the onus lie on each individual as to whether or not they should get vaccinated and that it is their own fault if they choose not to and became infected from someone else?
All those who believe the vaccines work can freely choose to get vaccinated, those who don't believe it shouldn't be forced to since those who do believe should have gotten it and will be protected from the unvaccinated. What am I missing here?
1. Vaccines are not 100% effective.
2. Not everyone is able to get the vaccine (e.g. people with serious allergies to chicken eggs).
Very good points. I could see the vaccines are not 100% effective being argued both ways, though and I still believe that they shouldn't be mandatory at all.
Although I think healthcare workers have a moral responsibility to get vaccinated (barring any personal exceptions, like egg allergies), I don't necessarily think they should have a legal one.
I think, however, that many people don't think of vaccinations for healthcare workers as a way for the providers to protect the patients, but rather as a way for the providers to not harm the patients. I guess it depends on where you define the neutral/baseline position. So one might argue that giving your patients the flu constitutes you causing harm to them and you (the provider) have an obligation to NOT inflict harm. An analogy (until you get to the question of the risk of the vaccine) would be doctors washing their hands before operations. They are not washing their hands to protect their patients, so much as they're doing it to avoid harming their patients. Personally, I think if the purpose of your job is to promote health in your patients and instead you cause them to be more sick, something's not right.
By the way, here's an example that I don't think fits your scenario: My great-grandmother is 95 years old and never leaves the house. She doesn't get flu shots because a) she'd have to leave the house to get one, and b) she shouldn't need to worry about becoming infected by the public because she doesn't go out into the public. But yesterday she fell and broke her hip and was taken, despite her protest, to the ER. So if she gets the flu from her ER doc is it just her own damn fault for trapsing about to the hospital without being vaccinated?
shouldn't people that have to be around the high risk patients be immunized from some of these strains?
why is this such a conspiracy? maybe some agency is making bank on a bs flu strain, and they're selling vaccines that we dont' need...but these are health professionals...they are around high risk individuals all day,,,the old and sick...they of all people should be immunized.
1. The H1N1 vaccine is still in testing phase. It's also been fast-tracked, with very limited research concerning the short term as well as long term side effects.
2. It has not been FDA approved. (It takes 7 years to approve a new drug for usage by the public)
3. It is not an emergency situation where it's spreading like wildfire.
4. There are safety issues. Formaldehyde and mercury have been found in several cases so far.
5. NYS Health Board does not entrust their medical professionals to "do the right thing" for the patient's health, but rather force them?
6. Health professionals are not the only people coming into contact with many sick people on a daily basis. What about teachers, students, grocery store clerks?
6. It's against our civil liberties. I know there's a bunch of Libs on here. How would you feel about getting forced by state gov't to be injected or YOU LOSE YOUR JOB?
1. The vaccine is almost identical to the seasonal shot which has tons of research behind it and an unparalleled safety record.
2. It has been FDA approved. http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/ ... 182399.htm
3. It's not spreading like wildfire? Then why do I only have 14 students in my class today when typically I have 23?
4. Found in several cases of what? Every vaccine I've ever gotten has very likely had thimeresol (sp?) in it...and I'm not autistic, etc. yet.
5. The right thing to do for health is to get the vaccine.
6. Yes. Why aren't teachers, especially, on the priority list? I have half my class out and I'm not a priority? My neighboring teachers are dealing with the same thing. In fact, my grade-level colleague has been out of work nearly a week with the swine flu. I really don't want it next.
7. I had to take a TB test to get this job. I had to have a background check to get my current job. I had to pee in a cup and have my background checked by the quasi FBI to get my last job. I haven't died from either. I couldn't have my job without undergoing quite a lot of rigamarole to get the two best jobs I've ever held. You want to be in certain professions, you do what it takes. If not, get some other kind of job.
My suspicion is that you are correct about that. I don't recall anyone ever getting a flu vaccine when i was a kid. now even walgreen's gives them away. and every year there's a new panicked epidemic... avian flu, swine flu, SARS... and every year... like 10 people die in an impoverished country and that's it. this is all a huge hoax to drum up business. it's a flu people. i bet 99% of everyone on this forum do not even know anyone who knows anyone else that even heard of someone dying of a fucking flu.
and if i get it and go down, +1 for mother nature. a little natural selection might not be such a bad thing for this overpopulated planet.
What a nice thought. Why don't you write letters to the parents of the 76 American children that H1N1 has killed so far this year telling them what a great thing it was for the planet that their child died?
"The regular flu kills between 46 and 88 children a year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. That SUGGESTS deaths from the new H1N1 virus COULD dramatically outpace children's deaths from seasonal flu, IF swine flu continues to spread as it has."
wow, a wopping 130 kids died of flu out of... how many million/billion born? how does that stack up to poverty and all the other diseases out there? the fact is, the odds of dying of a flu in america are so miniscule that it's absurd. this isn't about public health, it's about business.
and i capitalized the important parts of that quote you gave... when you notice those, you realize they don't know a damn thing. they're guessing. like they did with bird flu and sars and whatever was right before that. this is much ado about nothing.
It is very early in the season...and I believe it's 76 kids as of a couple of days ago. In an entire typical season, only a handful or two more children die. (I forgotten the exact #, to be honest.) But, it's only October and you're seeing nearly as many deaths as you'd see at the end of May. Three kids have died here in my state, one after 24 hours of being sick. If I had small kids, I would vaccinate. The fear of possible unknowns does not beat the fear of losing my child through inaction. Most of my personal regrets in life have always been centered around what I didn't do, rather than what I did do. I have urged my own daughter to get vaccinated, but the vaccine in injection form is not yet available even though she is in a high-risk group--young asthmatic adult. She wants the vaccination and will get it herself when it becomes available.
shouldn't people that have to be around the high risk patients be immunized from some of these strains?
why is this such a conspiracy? maybe some agency is making bank on a bs flu strain, and they're selling vaccines that we dont' need...but these are health professionals...they are around high risk individuals all day,,,the old and sick...they of all people should be immunized.
1. The H1N1 vaccine is still in testing phase. It's also been fast-tracked, with very limited research concerning the short term as well as long term side effects.
2. It has not been FDA approved. (It takes 7 years to approve a new drug for usage by the public)
3. It is not an emergency situation where it's spreading like wildfire.
4. There are safety issues. Formaldehyde and mercury have been found in several cases so far.
5. NYS Health Board does not entrust their medical professionals to "do the right thing" for the patient's health, but rather force them?
6. Health professionals are not the only people coming into contact with many sick people on a daily basis. What about teachers, students, grocery store clerks?
7. It's against our civil liberties. I know there's a bunch of Libs on here. How would you feel about getting forced by state gov't to be injected or YOU LOSE YOUR JOB?
1. The vaccine is almost identical to the seasonal shot which has tons of research behind it and an unparalleled safety record.
2. It has been FDA approved. http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/ ... 182399.htm
3. It's not spreading like wildfire? Then why do I only have 14 students in my class today when typically I have 23?
4. Found in several cases of what?
5. The right thing to do for health is to get the vaccine.
6. Yes. Why aren't teachers, especially, on the priority list? I have half my class out and I'm not a priority? My neighboring teachers are dealing with the same thing.
7. I had to take a TB test to get this job. I had to have a background check to get my current job. Big whoop. I had to pee in a cup and have my background checked by the quasi FBI to get my last job. Big whoop. I haven't died from either. I couldn't have my job without undergoing quite a lot of rigamarole to get the two best jobs I've ever held. You want to be in certain professions, you do what it takes. If not, get some other kind of job.
1. False. Read some past pages about Formaldehyde and variable mercury levels found in the vaccine. They are not nearly identical or you'd only need one to combat both flus.
2. It's been rushed through FDA approval without all checkmarks being done for safety and the FDA admits it. Check a couple pages back to read about it.
3. Do they have the Swine Flu? How many do you wanna bet will be back in school in a couple days. Hysteria has led you to believe that it's serious, but more than likely it's not a serious case. There are thousands of cases of non-serious cases with typical flu symptoms.
4.The H1N1 vaccine.
5 The right thing to do is entrust your medical professionals instead of treating them like children. These are respected medical personnel and the state of NY is the ONLY state to mandate. They start with the pros...then they mandate patients, teachers and children...then they move on to the general public. Forcing anyone to get a shot is wrong.
6. You have a choice. Go get it instead of complaining you're not being forced to..yet.
7. This is the first of its kind. We all have to take piss tests at some points, but getting vaccinated with a new and barely tested vaccination that's being questioned for safety is not regularly in the cards. You have a choice to get one. Go ahead. But don't tell someone else what they can and can't do.
Published on Tuesday, October 13, 2009 by Albany Times Union Nurses to Sue Over H1N1 Shots
They object to state mandating health workers be vaccinated
by Scott Waldman
ALBANY -- Lorna Patterson is willing to take on New York's top health official for her right to be flu vaccine-free.
The registered nurse in Albany Medical Center's emergency room is among a group of nurses who plan to file a lawsuit against state Health Commissioner Dr. Richard Daines to prevent the mandatory vaccination of New York's health care workers with the H1N1 flu virus.
"It takes away our freedom of choice," Patterson told reporters during a news conference Monday. "Our health is being affected."
The deadline for the state's health care workers to receive the swine flu vaccination is at the end of next month, though some employers have moved that up to the end of this month.
The four nurses will file a lawsuit against the state this week to prevent the forced vaccination, said their attorney, Terence L. Kindlon.
"This is a significant civil rights issue," Kindlon said. "We think people are being forced to do something by the government."
If Patterson and Kathryn Dupuis do not receive their shots within the next two weeks, they will likely lose their jobs in the emergency room at Albany Medical Center. Patterson said the vaccination was rushed into production in a matter of months and that its effect has not yet been properly studied.
Patterson said the vaccination could be dangerous for people, including pregnant women, and that more time is needed to understand its effectiveness. She said she is not willing to risk her health and does not think it is fair that she should lose her job.
Outside of New York City, 91,000 FluMist doses -- the inhalant form of the vaccine -- were delivered by the end of last week. Health care workers are at the front of the line for those to receive the first round.
A similar suit filed last week in New York City names Commissioner Daines and Jeffrey Kraut, chairman of the state Hospital Planning and Review Council, and contends it is beyond the state's authority to mandate getting the vaccines. Kindlon said the New York Civil Liberties Union and other groups may file similar legal action in the coming weeks.
Daines has said that vulnerable people and those who haven't been immunized come to hospitals and that they need to be protected from the possibility that medical workers carry the virus. The commissioner has said health workers in hospitals, clinics and other settings must be vaccinated by Nov. 30 or risk losing their jobs.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control estimates it will have provided states with 186 million doses of the H1N1 vaccine by January. New York officials expect the state to receive 6.7 million doses for upstate and 5 million doses for the city.
New York is the first state to mandate flu vaccinations for health care workers. The nurses preparing to file the lawsuit have already collected more than 400 signatures of health care workers against the forced vaccinations and are helping plan at rally scheduled for this Wednesday at the Capitol.
By the way, here's an example that I don't think fits your scenario: My great-grandmother is 95 years old and never leaves the house. She doesn't get flu shots because a) she'd have to leave the house to get one, and b) she shouldn't need to worry about becoming infected by the public because she doesn't go out into the public. But yesterday she fell and broke her hip and was taken, despite her protest, to the ER. So if she gets the flu from her ER doc is it just her own damn fault for trapsing about to the hospital without being vaccinated?
Yes, I would say that it is her fault for not leaving the house to get a vaccine. She is 95 years old and that is an age where it is common for broken hips to happen. She should know this, and knowing this she should take any of the necessary precautions regarding her health and if she feels there is a potentional to get the flu at the ER she should then take the steps necessary to prevent that. It isn't the ER's fault that she decided not to get vaccinated because she didn't have the forsight to realize that she just might eventually end up in the ER someday.
Flu vaccines revealed as the greatest quackery ever pushed in the history of medicine
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
(NaturalNews) Prepare to have your world rocked. What you're about to read here will leave you astonished, inspired and outraged all at the same time. You're about to be treated to some little-known information demonstrating why seasonal flu vaccines are utterly worthless and why their continued promotion is based entirely on fabricated studies and medical mythology.
If the whole world knew what you're about to read here, the vaccine industry would collapse overnight.
This information comes to you courtesy of a brilliant article published in The Atlantic (November 2009). The article, written by Shannon Brownlee and Jeanne Lenzer, isn't just brilliant; in my opinion it stands as the best article on flu vaccines that has ever been published in the popular press. Entitled Does the vaccine matter?, it presents some of the most eye-opening information you've probably ever read about the failure of flu vaccines. You can read the full article here: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/2009...
Perhaps its impressive narrative shouldn't be too surprising, though, since writer Shannon Brownlee is also the celebrated author of a phenomenal book on modern medicine entitled Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine Is Making Us Sicker and Poorer (http://www.amazon.com/Overtreated-M...) (http://www.naturalpedia.com/book_Ov...).
While I've never done this before, I'm going to summarize this article point by point (along with some comments) so that you get the full force of what's finally been put into print.
This information is so important that I encourage you to share the following summary I've put together. Email it to family, friends and coworkers. Or post it on your blog or website (with a link and proper credit to both NaturalNews and The Atlantic, please). Get this information out to the world. People need to know this, and so far the mainstream media has utterly failed to make this information known.
(The really good information begins after around a dozen bullet points, so be sure to keep reading...)
Does the vaccine matter?
What follows is my point-by-point summary of this groundbreaking article by Shannon Brownlee, originally published in The Atlantic. My opinion statements are shown in brackets and italics.
• Vaccination is the core strategy of the U.S. government's plan to combat the swine flu.
• The U.S. government has spent roughly $3 billion stockpiling vaccines and anti-viral drugs.
• The CDC is recommending that 159 million Americans receive a swine flu vaccine injection (as soon as possible).
• What if vaccines don't work? More and more researchers are skeptical about whether they do.
• Seasonal flu (that's the regular flu) currently kills an estimated 36,000 people each year in the United States. [But most people who die are already suffering from existing diseases such as asthma.]
• Most "colds" aren't really caused by the flu virus. As few as 7 or 8 percent (and at most, 50 percent) of colds have an influenza origin. There are more than 200 viruses and pathogens that can cause "influenza-like" illnesses (and therefore be easily mistaken for the flu).
• Viruses mutate with amazing speed, meaning that each year's circulating influenza is genetically different from the previous year.
• The vaccine for each upcoming flu season is formulated by health experts taking a guess [a wild guess, at times] about what strain of influenza might be most likely to circulate in the future.
• The 1918 Spanish Flu infected roughly one-third of the world population and killed at least 40 million.
• In the U.S., the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology predicted that H1N1 influenza could infect up to one-half of the U.S. population and kill 90,000 Americans.
[Keep reading, the good part is coming...]
• Of those who have died from the Swine Flu in the U.S., roughly 70 percent were already diseased with some serious underlying condition such as asthma or AIDS.
• Public health officials consider vaccines to be their first and best weapon against influenza. Vaccines helped eradicate smallpox and polio. [I don't agree with that assessment. Vaccines did relatively little compared to improvements in public sanitation.]
• Each year, 100 million Americans get vaccinated, and vaccines remain "a staple" of public health policy in the United States.
Why the research is bogus
• Because researchers can't exactly pin down who has influenza and who doesn't, the research conducted on the effectiveness of vaccines simply calculates the death rate from all causes among those who take the vaccine vs. those who don't. [This includes deaths from accidents, heart attacks, medications, car wrecks and everything.]
• These studies show a "dramatic difference" between the death rates of those who get the vaccines vs. those who don't. People who get vaccinated have significantly lower death rates [from ALL causes, and herein lies the problem...].
• Flu shot propaganda cites these studies, telling people that if they get their flu shots every year, they will have a significantly reduced chance of dying. But this is extremely misleading...
• Critics question the logic of these studies: As it turns out, compared to the number of deaths from all causes, the number of people killed by influenza is quite small. According to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, deaths from influenza account for -- at most -- 10 percent of the total deaths during the flu season (and this includes all indirect deaths aggravated by the flu).
• This brings up a hugely important dilemma: If influenza only accounts for roughly 10 percent of all deaths during the flu season, how could an influenza vaccine reduce total deaths by 50 percent? (As is claimed by the vaccine manufacturers.) [It doesn't add up. Even if the vaccines were 100% effective, they should only reduce the total death rates by 10%, given that only 10% of the total deaths are caused by influenza.]
• Here's a direct quote from the story: Tom Jefferson, a physician based in Rome and the head of the Vaccines Field at the Cochrane Collaboration, a highly respected international network of researchers who appraise medical evidence, says: "For a vaccine to reduce mortality by 50 percent and up to 90 percent in some studies means it has to prevent deaths not just from influenza, but also from falls, fires, heart disease, strokes, and car accidents. That's not a vaccine, that's a miracle." [Emphasis added.]
The failure of cohort studies
• So how do the vaccine companies come up with this "50% reduction in death rate" statistic? Through cohort studies.
• Cohort studies compare the death rates of large groups of people who received the vaccine to large groups of people who did NOT receive the vaccine. But there's a fatal flaw in this approach: People self-select for vaccinations. And what kind of people? As it turns out: People who take more precautions with their health!
• [Thus, you automatically have a situation where the more health-cautious people are getting the vaccines because they THINK it's good for them. Meanwhile all the masses of people who don't give a darn about their health tend to skip the seasonal flu vaccines. And these people tend to not take very good of their health in lots of other ways. In other words, in terms of the masses, people who get vaccines are more likely to avoid junk food and live a more health-cautious lifestyle. This explains the differences in the death rates between the two groups! It has nothing to do with the vaccine...]
• There is extreme "cult-like" peer pressure put on doctors and researchers to swallow the vaccine mythology without question. Quoted from the story: Lisa Jackson, a physician and senior investigator with the Group Health Research Center, in Seattle, began wondering aloud to colleagues if maybe something was amiss with the estimate of 50 percent mortality reduction for people who get flu vaccine, the response she got sounded more like doctrine than science. "People told me, 'No good can come of [asking] this,'" she says. "'Potentially a lot of bad could happen' for me professionally by raising any criticism that might dissuade people from getting vaccinated, because of course, 'We know that vaccine works.' This was the prevailing wisdom." [In other words, don't dare question the vaccine, and don't ask tough scientific questions because the vaccine industry runs on dogma, not science... and if you ask any questions, you might find yourself out of a job...].
[Here's where the really good part begins...]
• Lisa Jackson was not deterred. She and three other researchers began to study the widely-quoted vaccine statistics in an attempt to identify this "healthy user effect," if any. They looked through eight years of medical data covering 72,000 people aged 65 or older and recorded who received flu shots and who didn't. Then they compared the death rates for all causes outside the flu season.
The vaccine made no difference in mortality
• What she found blows a hole right through the vaccination industry: She found that even outside the flu season, the death rate was 60 percent higher among those who did not get vaccines than among those who do. [In other words, even when you take the flu season completely out of the equation, elderly people who don't get vaccines have other lifestyle factors that makes them far more likely to die from lots of other causes.]
• She also found that this so-called "healthy user effect" explains the entire apparent benefit that continues to be attributed to vaccines. This finding demonstrates that the flu vaccine may not have any beneficial effect whatsoever in reducing mortality.
• How well done were these particular studies? Quoted from the story: Jackson's papers "are beautiful," says Lone Simonsen, who is a professor of global health at George Washington University, in Washington, D.C., and an internationally recognized expert in influenza and vaccine epidemiology. "They are classic studies in epidemiology, they are so carefully done."
• Many pro-vaccine experts simply refused to believe the results of this study [because it conflicts with their existing belief in vaccine mythology]. The Journal of the American Medical Association refused to publish her research, even stating, "To accept these results would be to say that the earth is flat!" [Which just goes to show you how deeply ingrained the current vaccine mythology is in the minds of conventional medical practitioners. They simply cannot imagine that vaccines don't work, so they dismiss any evidence -- even GOOD evidence -- demonstrating that fact. This is what makes the vaccine industry a CULT rather than a science.]
• Jackson's papers were finally published in 2006, in the International Journal of Epidemiology.
[And here's the really, really juicy part you can't miss...]
Vaccine shortage proves it never worked in the first place
• The history of the flu vaccine reveals some huge gaps in current vaccination mythology, essentially proving they don't work:
• For example: In 2004, vaccine production was low and there was a shortage in vaccines (a 40 percent reduction in vaccinations). And yet mortality rates did not rise during the flu season. [Clearly, if vaccines actually worked, then a year when the vaccine wasn't even administered to 40% of the people who normally get it should have resulted in a huge and statistically significant increase in mortality. It should have spiked the death rates and filled the morgues... but it didn't. You know why? Because flu vaccines don't work in the first place.]
• In the history of flu vaccines, there were two years in which the formulated flu vaccine was a total mismatch to the widely-circulating influenza that made people sick. These years were 1968 and 1997. In both of these years, the vaccine was a completely mismatch for the circulating virus. In effect, nobody was vaccinated! [Knowing this, if the vaccine itself was effective at reducing death rates, then we should have once again seen a huge spike in the death rates during these two years, right? Seriously, if the vaccine reduces death rates by 50% as is claimed by vaccine manufacturers, then these two years in which the vaccine completely missed the mark should have seen huge spikes in the winter death rates, right? But what really happened was... nothing. Not a blip. Not a spike. Nothing. The death rates didn't rise at all.]
• If vaccines really worked to save lives, then the more people you vaccinate, the lower death rates you should see, right? But that's not the case. Back in 1989, only 15 percent of over-65 people got vaccinated against the flu. But today, thanks to the big vaccine push, over 65 percent are vaccinated. And yet, amazingly, death rates among the elderly have not gone down during the flu season. In fact, they've gone up!
• When vaccine promoters (and CDC officials) are challenged about the "50 percent mortality reduction" myth, they invoke dogmatic language and attack the messenger. They are simply not willing to consider the possibility that flu vaccines simply don't work.
• Scientists who question the vaccine mythology are routinely shunned by the medical establishment. Tom Jefferson from the Cochrane Collaboration is an epidemiologist who questions the claimed benefits of flu vaccines. "The reaction [against Jefferson] has been so dogmatic and even hysterical that you'd think he was advocating stealing babies" said a colleague (Majumdar).
• Jefferson is one of the world's best-informed researchers on the flu vaccine. He leads a team of researchers who have examined hundreds of vaccine studies. To quote directly from the article: The vast majority of the studies were deeply flawed, says Jefferson. "Rubbish is not a scientific term, but I think it's the term that applies [to these studies]."
[And here's the real kicker that demonstrates why flu vaccines are useless...]
Flu vaccines only "work" on people who don't need them
• Vaccines supposedly "work" by introducing a weakened viral strain that causes the immune system to respond by building influenza antibodies. However, as Jefferson points out, only healthy people produce a good antibody response to the vaccine. And yet it is precisely the unhealthy people -- the ones who have a poor immune response to the vaccine -- who are most at risk of being harmed or killed by influenza. But the vaccines don't work in them!
• [In other words -- get this -- flu vaccines only "work" in people who don't need them!]
• [At the same time, it's also accurate to say that vaccines don't work at all in the very people who theoretically could benefit from them. They only produce antibodies in people who already have such a strong immune response that they don't need the vaccine in the first place.]
• Jefferson has called for randomized, placebo-controlled studies of the vaccines. But vaccine pushers are resisting these clinical trials! They call the trials "unethical" [but, in reality, they know that a randomized, double-blind placebo-controlled study would reveal the complete failure of flu vaccines, and they will do anything to prevent such a trial from happening. Don't you find it amazing that drug pushers and vaccine advocates claim they have "science" on their side, but they won't submit their vaccines to any real science at all?]
• [No placebo-controlled studies have ever been conducted on flu vaccines because the industry says they would be "unethical." So where do these people get off claiming their vaccines work at all? The whole industry is based on fabricated statistics that are provably false... and the injections continue, year after year, with absolutely no benefit to public health whatsoever...]
Why anti-viral drugs don't work either
• On the anti-viral drug front, hospitals are urged to hand out prescriptions for Tamiflu and Relenza to almost anyone who is symptomatic, whether they actually have swine flu or not. Concern is growing about the emergence of drug-resistant strains of swine flu. " Flu can become resistant to Tamiflu in a matter of days..." says one researcher.
• In 2005, the U.S. government spent $1.8 billion to stockpile antiviral drugs for the military. This decision was made during the time when Donald Rumsfeld was Defense Secretary. Rumsfeld also held millions of dollars worth of stock in Gilead Sciences, the company that holds the patent on Tamiflu. That company saw its stock price rise 50 percent following the government's stockpiling purchase of Tamiflu.
• The evidence supporting Tamiflu's anti-viral benefits is flimsy at best. Even worse, as many as one in five children taking Tamiflu experience neuropsychiatric side effects including hallucinations and suicidal behavior. [In other words, your kid might be "tripping out" on some bad Tamiflu...]
• Tamiflu is already linked to 50 deaths of children in Japan.
• The evidence supporting Tamiflu is based on cohort studies, just like the vaccines, which may distort or exaggerate the apparent benefits of the drug.
• Even supporters of Tamiflu admit it's never been proven to help. A CDC official says that randomized trials to determine the effectiveness of Tamiflu would be "unethical."
• In all, neither vaccines nor anti-viral drugs have any reliable evidence that they work against influenza at all. Both are being promoted based entirely on pure wishful thinking, not hard science.
• The history of pharmaceutical medicine is littered with other examples of drugs that doctors "knew worked" but which later turned out to harm or kill patients. [All along, the proper scientific studies were avoided because, hey, if you already know everything, why bother conducting any actual science to prove anything?]
• The hype about vaccines provides a false sense of security, taking away attention from other things that really do work to prevent influenza deaths. That's why, except for "hand washing," virtually no advice has been offered to the public on preventing influenza beyond vaccines and anti-viral drugs.
• Concluding quote from the author: "By being afraid to do the proper studies now, we may be condemning ourselves to using treatments based on illusion and faith rather than sound science."
A recap of these astonishing points
Let's recap what we just learned here (because it's just mind-boggling):
• There have been no placebo-controlled studies on flu vaccines because the vaccine pushers say such clinical trials would be "unethical." Thus, there is actually no hard scientific evidence that they work at all.
• The "50 percent reduction in mortality" statistic that's tossed around by vaccine pushers is a total fabrication based on "rubbish" studies ("cohort" studies).
• Scrutinizing the existing studies that claim to support vaccines reveals that flu vaccines simply don't work. And when vaccines aren't available or the formulation is wrong, there's no spike in death rates, indicating quite conclusively that these vaccines offer no reduction in mortality.
• Flu vaccines only produce antibodies in people who don't need vaccines. At the same time, they fail to produce antibodies in people who are most vulnerable to flu. Thus, vaccines only work in people who don't need them.
• The entire flu vaccine industry is run like a cult, with dogma ruling over science. Anyone who asks tough, scientific questions is immediately branded a heretic. No one is allowed to question the status quo. (So much for "evidence-based medicine," huh?)
As you can see from all this, the flu vaccine is pure quackery. Those who administer vaccines are, by inference, QUACKS. They claim to have scientific minds, and yet they are the most gullible of all: They will believe almost anything if it's published in a medical journal, even if it's complete quackery.
Today, countless doctors, nurses and pharmacists across North America and around the world are pushing a medically worthless, scientifically-fabricated chemical injection that offers absolutely no benefit to public health... and yet they're convinced it's highly effective! It just goes to show you how easy it is to brainwash people in the field of conventional medicine.
They've abandoned real science long ago, you know. Now the whole industry is just run on the momentum of dogmatic arrogance and the illusion of authority. From the CDC and FDA on down to the local pharmacist at the corner store, the American medical system is run by some seemingly smart people who have been brainwashed into become full-fledged members of the Cult of Pharmacology where vaccine mythology overrules real science.
The vaccine industry is perhaps the greatest medical scam ever pulled off in the history of the world. Don't fall for it.
Why people get vaccinated: Superstition
Reading everything you've read here, you might wonder: Why do people get vaccinated at all?
The reason is because no one knows whether they work or not, so people keep on taking them "just in case." It's exactly the kind of superstitious ritual that "science-minded skeptics" rail against on a regular basis... unless, of course, it involves their vaccines, in which case superstition is all okay.
People take vaccines for the same reason they rub a rabbit's foot. It's a good luck ritual that may or may not work, but no one really knows. And besides, what's the harm in it? (They think...)
Personally, I'd rather get some vitamin D and have a healthy, functioning immune system. But for those who prefer to play the lotto, gamble in Vegas or bet their lives on medical superstitions, flu vaccines are readily available.
So what are you waiting for? Shoot up a few flu vaccines, rub your lucky rabbit's foot, then spin around clockwise seven times and you, too, may be able to generate enough luck to avoid the flu this winter.
I knew all the rules, but the rules did not know me...GUARANTEED!
By the way, here's an example that I don't think fits your scenario: My great-grandmother is 95 years old and never leaves the house. She doesn't get flu shots because a) she'd have to leave the house to get one, and b) she shouldn't need to worry about becoming infected by the public because she doesn't go out into the public. But yesterday she fell and broke her hip and was taken, despite her protest, to the ER. So if she gets the flu from her ER doc is it just her own damn fault for trapsing about to the hospital without being vaccinated?
Yes, I would say that it is her fault for not leaving the house to get a vaccine. She is 95 years old and that is an age where it is common for broken hips to happen. She should know this, and knowing this she should take any of the necessary precautions regarding her health and if she feels there is a potentional to get the flu at the ER she should then take the steps necessary to prevent that. It isn't the ER's fault that she decided not to get vaccinated because she didn't have the forsight to realize that she just might eventually end up in the ER someday.
By the way, here's an example that I don't think fits your scenario: My great-grandmother is 95 years old and never leaves the house. She doesn't get flu shots because a) she'd have to leave the house to get one, and b) she shouldn't need to worry about becoming infected by the public because she doesn't go out into the public. But yesterday she fell and broke her hip and was taken, despite her protest, to the ER. So if she gets the flu from her ER doc is it just her own damn fault for trapsing about to the hospital without being vaccinated?
Yes, I would say that it is her fault for not leaving the house to get a vaccine. She is 95 years old and that is an age where it is common for broken hips to happen. She should know this, and knowing this she should take any of the necessary precautions regarding her health and if she feels there is a potentional to get the flu at the ER she should then take the steps necessary to prevent that. It isn't the ER's fault that she decided not to get vaccinated because she didn't have the forsight to realize that she just might eventually end up in the ER someday.
this is sarcasm... yes? :?
honestly, it makes me think of the hippocratic oath all doctors take, which in part says "first, do no harm...." so imo, yes, it does indeed suggest that it is up to the healthcare professionals to protect their patients. again, not saying it should be 'forced' on healthcare professionals, but i do believe they hae that obligation.
• Of those who have died from the Swine Flu in the U.S., roughly 70 percent were already diseased with some serious underlying condition such as asthma or AIDS.
• Vaccines did relatively little compared to improvements in public sanitation.
• Because researchers can't exactly pin down who has influenza and who doesn't, the research conducted on the effectiveness of vaccines simply calculates the death rate from all causes among those who take the vaccine vs. those who don't. [This includes deaths from accidents, heart attacks, medications, car wrecks and everything.]
• Here's a direct quote from the story: Tom Jefferson, a physician based in Rome and the head of the Vaccines Field at the Cochrane Collaboration, a highly respected international network of researchers who appraise medical evidence, says: "For a vaccine to reduce mortality by 50 percent and up to 90 percent in some studies means it has to prevent deaths not just from influenza, but also from falls, fires, heart disease, strokes, and car accidents. That's not a vaccine, that's a miracle." [Emphasis added.]
• So how do the vaccine companies come up with this "50% reduction in death rate" statistic? Through cohort studies.
• [Thus, you automatically have a situation where the more health-cautious people are getting the vaccines because they THINK it's good for them. Meanwhile all the masses of people who don't give a darn about their health tend to skip the seasonal flu vaccines. And these people tend to not take very good of their health in lots of other ways. In other words, in terms of the masses, people who get vaccines are more likely to avoid junk food and live a more health-cautious lifestyle. This explains the differences in the death rates between the two groups! It has nothing to do with the vaccine...]
• the vaccine industry runs on dogma, not science... and if you ask any questions, you might find yourself out of a job.
• In 2004, vaccine production was low and there was a shortage in vaccines (a 40 percent reduction in vaccinations). And yet mortality rates did not rise during the flu season.
• In the history of flu vaccines, there were two years in which the formulated flu vaccine was a total mismatch to the widely-circulating influenza that made people sick. These years were 1968 and 1997. In both of these years, the vaccine was a completely mismatch for the circulating virus. In effect, nobody was vaccinated! [Knowing this, if the vaccine itself was effective at reducing death rates, then we should have once again seen a huge spike in the death rates during these two years, right? Seriously, if the vaccine reduces death rates by 50% as is claimed by vaccine manufacturers, then these two years in which the vaccine completely missed the mark should have seen huge spikes in the winter death rates, right? But what really happened was... nothing. Not a blip. Not a spike. Nothing. The death rates didn't rise at all.]
• If vaccines really worked to save lives, then the more people you vaccinate, the lower death rates you should see, right? But that's not the case. Back in 1989, only 15 percent of over-65 people got vaccinated against the flu. But today, thanks to the big vaccine push, over 65 percent are vaccinated. And yet, amazingly, death rates among the elderly have not gone down during the flu season. In fact, they've gone up!
• When vaccine promoters (and CDC officials) are challenged about the "50 percent mortality reduction" myth, they invoke dogmatic language and attack the messenger. They are simply not willing to consider the possibility that flu vaccines simply don't work.
• Scientists who question the vaccine mythology are routinely shunned by the medical establishment. Tom Jefferson from the Cochrane Collaboration is an epidemiologist who questions the claimed benefits of flu vaccines. "The reaction [against Jefferson] has been so dogmatic and even hysterical that you'd think he was advocating stealing babies" said a colleague (Majumdar).
• [In other words -- get this -- flu vaccines only "work" in people who don't need them!]
• The whole industry is based on fabricated statistics that are provably false... and the injections continue, year after year, with absolutely no benefit to public health whatsoever...]
Interesting read.
I have a few questions that hopefully you can help me answer:
1. Are there sources for the statements above?
2. Do the flu vaccine studies really claim to reduce the OVERALL death rate (from everything) by 50% or do they only claim to reduce the rate of death attributable to influenza by 50%? It's hard to tell since the article doesn't cite the studies.
3. Have the results of Jackson's study been reproduced?
4. Did flu cases increase in 2004?
Fuck it... this article is too long to read carefully while I'm at work... I'll have to finish reading it later.
Comments
From: http://www.medpagetoday.com/ProductAler ... ines/15230
FDA Likely to Approve H1N1 Vaccine In Advance of Data
By Emily P. Walker, Washington Correspondent, MedPage Today
Published: July 23, 2009
Reviewed by Zalman S. Agus, MD; Emeritus Professor
University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. Click here to rate this report
GAITHERSBURG, Md., July 23 -- The FDA is likely to approve 2009 H1N1 (swine flu) vaccines before trial data can prove their safety and effectiveness against the virus.
Approving a vaccine without safety and immunogenicity data is not uncommon, FDA officials said during a daylong meeting of the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee.
The committee met to hear updates on H1N1 trials from the FDA, NIH, and the five companies that are applying for FDA approval of pandemic H1N1 vaccines.
In fact, the FDA approves seasonal influenza vaccines every year using its "strain change" process, in which it doesn't require vaccine manufacturers to provide safety and efficacy data.
What is different about how the FDA is likely to handle approval for a vaccine for pandemic H1N1, however, is that the agency doesn't normally approve vaccines while major clinical trials of safety and immunogenicity are ongoing.
I guess I'm still not following you here, which is unusual since I usually see things more or less eye-to-eye with you.
I don't find the specific data where it has been shown that the majority of those who have gotten sick and who have died from H1N1 have been pregnant women and very young children. The age data on the CDC website shows that the highest rate of illness has been in the 5-24 y.o age group, followed closely by the 0-4 y.o. age group. It does show have the highest rate of hospitalization has been in the 0-4 y.o. age group. It also shows that the highest rate of death has been in the 25-49 y.o. age group, with 5-24 y.o. coming in a distant 3rd and 0-4 y.o. having the lowest rate of death (by far) of all age groups. The CDC also says that pregnant women have higher than average rates of hospitalization from H1N1 than the general population, but that they account for only 6% of H1N1 deaths (hardly the majority). It is to be expected that they would have a higher risk of complications - just like they do from the seasonal flu - since pregnant women have lowered immune systems. If you have differing information, please point me in the right direction to find it.
That's all somewhat irrelevant to my initial question, though, which was why you said the data is limited primarily to these two groups. Just because data may show greater risk to these groups doesn't mean there's not data for other groups as well. There must be data for other groups, actually, or they wouldn't be able to make a comparison.
Of course the only data on this particular strain of flu can only be from since it began. But, given the time restraints, I think quite a bit of data has been gathered. I guess what it means to have a little or a lot of data is all relative though. Perhaps the question is whether we have enough data to be making any judgements. I think we addressed that earlier in this thread though,and my answer was that we have what we have and we must make judgements that take the limitations into consideration. And I think that's what's happening. We also have to remember that this is just a dfferent strain of a virus that we already know a lot about.
What I understand the least, though, is your implication that all information that comes from government entities is invalid. (I understand this even less than I understand your belief that nothing relating in any way to for-profit drug companies could be valid.) So BOTH the private AND public sectors are now ruled out as legitimate sources?? The world's leading sources of public health knowledge and informtion are all invalid just because they have .gov at the end of their websites? Really? :? What motive does the CDC have to lie about the numbers of people who have died from the flu? Do you really think they're just making these deaths up? Or do you think they're incorrectly distributing them by demographic group to mis-represent the situation? I just don't get it. Neither the CDC, the NIH, the Department of Health & Human Services, the FDA, the state public health offices, the county health councils, nor the public hospitals are to be trusted?? What about the WHO - are they out too? I know they're not medical journals, but have you found that the majority of good, peer-reviewed medical jornals disagree with all these organizations? And are you suggesting that the info put out by the government is not peer-reviewed? I really don't get it. :? Please point me toward the "legit medical sites" to which you refer.
Also, you stated in another post that the FDA had not approvd the H1N1 vaccine. Is the FDA itself not a good source to find out what they have and haven't approved? And are you suggesting that your source that contradicts the FDA's website is more valid?
I'm not trying to be a pain in the ass here.. just really don't get it.
Thanks for the info. I can't help but note that this article is speculative and from before the vaccine was actually approved. Do you have any current information supporting this?
Also, you left this part out: "We have decades of experience with H1N1, that's why we feel we can do this with a strain-change," said Dr. Baylor.
Not to mention that this is just a slight recipe change, as they do every year, from the billions of doses of flu vaccine that have been given out over many, many years.
Will they EVER have ALL possible information about this flu or any flu or vaccine or anything in life? No. But we've got to make the best decisions we can based on the information we have. Right now we know that 1) risk of complications and death from the flu in general VASTLY outweighs the risk from the flu vaccine in general, 2) the H1N1 vaccine is nearly identical to the flu vaccines we have used in the past and all studies so far show that there is no additional risk from this vaccine versus the ones we have used in the past, and 3) all studies so far show that the risk of the H1N1 flu is much higher amongst the general population than the flu we generally see.
http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNe ... GW20090729
CHICAGO (Reuters) - Pregnant women infected with the new H1N1 swine flu have a much higher risk of severe illness and death and should receive prompt treatment with antiviral drugs, U.S. government researchers said on Wednesday.
While pregnant woman have always had a higher risk of severe disease from influenza in general, the new H1N1 virus is taking an exceptionally heavy toll, the researchers said.
I rely on facts to support my views, and in my opinion the gov't sites are not based on facts. They're based on gov't. If you want to continue to side with gov sites, that's your prerogative, but I prefer to go to the professionals, which is the science and medical journals. The researchers, the one's actually doing the work. Once you get gov't involved, factual info can get lost, as we've seen with the whole global warming issue in Bush's administration with censoring scientists' research. This is just one reason why I choose not to rely on .gov anything other than gov't and global issues. When you have the CDC site sponsored by USA.GOV and Flu.gov, it's all gov't related, not medically. It is less credible in my opinion because gov't has a bias. Professional medicine and the journals that report the research....do not. It's there to provide the facts.
I also follow news about the environment. The EPA is supposed to have their interests in protecting the environment. Yet with Bush's EPA, they were making decisions that didn't have the interest of protecting the environment. This is the same reason I don't go to the gov. resources for medicine. Who knows if they're TRULY looking out for our health. Remember, there's the insurance industry and lobbyists they have to cater to, and also our fave, Big Pharma. If I wanted true, not tainted info about medicine I don't go to the gov't sites.
I thought about that last night, I knew I mentioned both. I heard that the FDA did not approve it from a nurse locally, but then found out that they did approve it,last night while reading, very quickly. It usually takes 7 years for the FDA to approve anything. They approved it in emergency fashion without their typical safety inspections. That's a reason for concern!
That's right I did leave that out, I know it's from a few months ago, still doesn't make it totally irrelevant. The reason why I left that out is because I haven't found any truth to that statement. Have you? Decades of experience??
To question your points:
1) Risk of complications or death vastly outweighs the risk of flu vaccine? How many people do you know personally that back that up? How about that favorite term many docs are using ..."underlying healthy complications contributing to sickness / death"? They use that a lot, which is very vague.
2) The H1N1 vac is nearly identical to to flu vaccines? Where's your proof on this? This vac is too new to prove such a thing widely. I know you've been talking strains, but it's still new. It's just now being given. It's too early to tell what the outcomes will be on it. We all know the flu vac does not work on everyone (but does help those with weak immunities). That's why it's voluntary. Have you seen all the side effects for the H1N1? I'll find them, and the side effects for children is a bit lengthy.
3) According to the scare from this past Spring, yes. But it was hysteria and difficult to pinpoint if there were really as many cases as they were saying that came in, not to mention many were not serious. I'll take my chances.
Swine Flu Vaccine: What To Do?
posted by Dr. Frank Lipman Oct 11, 2009 5:00 pm
Summer is over and the question I am being asked most frequently in my practice is, “what do I do about Swine flu?” My patients are wondering whether or not they should get vaccinated and the simple answer I give most of the time is ..NO!
From what you may have read, you might think that the swine flu vaccine is the answer to swine flu. Unfortunately this is not true and until we know that the vaccine is safe, I cannot in good conscience recommend it to most of my patients.
From the outset, let me say, I am not anti all vaccinations, rather I am pro vaccine safety and freedom of choice.
This is why am I not recommending the swine flu vaccine:
1. At this stage, for the most part the swine flu seems benign.
Over a million people in the US have already come down with swine flu, many of them without even knowing that they had it. The vast majority of people who get the swine flu recover after a week or so of high fever, aches, and respiratory distress. It’s not pleasant, but except in rare circumstances, it is not fatal. Most people who’ve been infected by swine flu think so little of it, they believe they just had a really bad cold or a regular flu. So unless the swine flu evolves to a much more virulent form, there’s no need for mass vaccination.
2. We don’t know if the vaccine will be effective.
Vaccines are only useful against the specific viral strain that was available at the time of their manufacture. But influenza viruses mutate quickly, and as the WHO has already said, the real concern with H1N1 swine flu is that it will combine with seasonal flu in the Fall, creating a new strain that will of course be immune to all available vaccines.
This says the same thing as the CDC website, and I can't help but notice that this source you think is more reliable than the federal government gets its info from the federal government. :?
Regardless, saying a group (like pregnant women) has a higher risk of severe illness and death from the flu is totally not the same thing as saying they account for the majority of severe illness and death. Just one example of how easy it is for laypeople to misinterpret & misrepresent data... which is why I trust professionals instead.
How can the government sites not be based on facts when they are the ones collecting the data?? I ask you again, do you think they're making this data up?
I do share your skepticicm of the government in general - and I'm always arguing on here that I want medical professionals, not politicians, to inform my medical decisions - but the fact is that the scientists at the CDC and such places ARE medical professionals, not politicians. It just so happens that our world-renowned public health organizations are funded with public money by the government. (Who else should fund them? If they were funded privately, there would be even more of an appearance/threat of bias.)
So, I totally agree with you that we should go with the professionals, the researchers, the ones actually doing the work. But the CDC, the NIH, the state public health offices, etc. ARE the professionals. Where do you think the info for the medical journals comes from? At this point, the CDC is the main primary source. And, I ask you again, what reputable medical journals are disagreeing with the CDC, et al?
Also, what bias does the public health sector of the government have? And, while I'm usually the first one to say that medical journals and professional organizations are the place to go for unbiased info, by your logic I don't see how we can say that ANY information is free enough of bias to be valid. Didn't you already say that professional medicine is not to be trusted because they're all in cahoots with Big Pharma, or am I thinking of someone else?
How is approving a different strain of the same vaccine - as they do every year to keep up with the various flu strains - lacking their typical safety inspections?
Huh? How is speculative information possibly relavent once actual information has become available? That's like saying if we want to know whether or not Pearl Jam played a show at Red Rocks on October 1st we should consult an unofficial thread from June saying they might play there rather than checking the Red Rocks schedule or the Pearl Jam tour schedule to find out whether or not they did. :? :?
As for having decades of experience with H1N1, again, do you think they're making that up? There was an H1N1 pandemic in 1918, which, by my math, was 9 decades ago. There was another outbreak in 1976. Do you think with all the flu research they do that they just decided to let this strain go and never study it? And then lie about it? :?
First of all, judging the risks and benefits of the flu and its vaccine based on my personal acquantances is the opposite of scientific knowledge. Billions of cases of the flu and of people who have received the vaccine have been collected and analyzed over the years to show that the risk of complication or death from the flu vastly outweighs the risk of the vaccine. Vaccines are one of greatest public health interventions of all time, and the flu vaccine is the best method we have to protect against the flu. I would provide source sto back that up, but you'd probably say they weren't reliable.
Secondly, I actually know quite a number of people to back that up. Plenty of my friends, family, and co-workers are out with the flu right now. I'm having to create back-up plans for coverage at work for when even more people start dropping. We're also trying to figure out how to best handle the outbreak in our population of pregnant patients. 50% of our pediatric population has the flu. My otherwise healthy, 13-year-old cousin got the flu from her older sister and it has now turned into pneumonia and bronchitis. We're being accredited this week at work and the senior coordinator is out with the flu. My partner for a class project can't meet because her kids have the flu. A whole bunch of my Facebook friends/family have the flu. By contrast, I have never known one person who has had an adverse event due to the flu vaccine.
As for "underlying health conditions" being vague, the CDC website spells it out more clearly if you'd like to take a look.
How can you say it's too new to prove that it's nearly identical to the other vaccines? You only need to know what goes in it and how it's made to know this, and the people who made it know what they put in it and how it was made. And the FDA knows what they approved to go in it and how they approved it to be made. And they say it's nearly identical.
As for outcomes, once again, we know what we know. So far we know that no one they have given it to (through trials or otherwise) has had side effects different than they would with the regular flu vaccine. And we know that there has been no increase in the amount of cases of side effects. And they are being hyper-vigilant about tracking any possible cases of side effects that may occur.
I would like to see your list of side effects for H1N1, but let me ask you this: Are they different from the side effects of the regular flu vaccine? Have these side effects actually been observed or are they speculative? What is your source? Do the risks of side effects outweigh the risks of flu?
Huh?? How can you say it was difficult to pinpoint if there were really as many cases as they were saying? As who was saying? We're talking about actual data here, not anecdotal "evidence". There are criteria (such as labs) for determining what should be counted as a case, and then you count them. How is that difficult? I just don't understand how scientifically gathered, epidemiologic data can just be ignored. :? :?
I know that not every single doctor agrees, but what about the medical profession as a whole? What about those expert researchers you speak of? I don't even know who this guy is or where this article came from.
I'm just truly trying to understand what sources of information you think are actually valid and find where they say that the medical community as a whole disagrees with the CDC... and I still don't get it. :? :?
ETA: Can anyone else provide me with reputable information demonstrating that the medical community as a whole believes that the CDC is not a valid source of information on the flu?? Maybe I'm missing something.
One more thing: I want to be clear that I'm not just pulling my faith in the validity of the CDC out of my ass. I work at the primary hospital for my state and know that, although CDC guidance isn't always 100% clear and no knowledge is 100% perfect, the CDC is considered the primary source of accurate, valid information when dealing with such illnesses. Our hospital (as a whole, not just a couple of naive docs) is using CDC info to inform its decisions on how to handle this flu season on a population level and an individual treatment level. They wouldn't do that if they thought there was data out there that was more valid.
sure, do you have their addresses for me?
wow, a wopping 130 kids died of flu out of... how many million/billion born? how does that stack up to poverty and all the other diseases out there? the fact is, the odds of dying of a flu in america are so miniscule that it's absurd. this isn't about public health, it's about business.
and i capitalized the important parts of that quote you gave... when you notice those, you realize they don't know a damn thing. they're guessing. like they did with bird flu and sars and whatever was right before that. this is much ado about nothing.
Well much of that is debatable, but let's say it's true and medical journals are the only valid source of info. What are the medical journals saying about it?
I just don't understand this mentality. That health care workers need to be immunized to protect the patients. Shouldn't the onus lie on each individual as to whether or not they should get vaccinated and that it is their own fault if they choose not to and became infected from someone else?
All those who believe the vaccines work can freely choose to get vaccinated, those who don't believe it shouldn't be forced to since those who do believe should have gotten it and will be protected from the unvaccinated. What am I missing here?
This, this is what I just posted about before I read into the thread more...if that 90 year old is worried about the hard core flu strain, shouldn't that 90 year take responsibity for themselves and get immunized on their own, thus not relying on others to be immunized?
1. Vaccines are not 100% effective.
2. Not everyone is able to get the vaccine (e.g. people with serious allergies to chicken eggs).
Very good points. I could see the vaccines are not 100% effective being argued both ways, though and I still believe that they shouldn't be mandatory at all.
right now, someone may be seriously ill. someone seriously ill i do not believe is a good candidate for a vaccine, no? their systems may already be so compromised. thus why some may believe healthcare workers should immunize. not saying i believe in forced vaccinations, but i can at least to some extent see the rationale behind it.
Let's just breathe...
I am myself like you somehow
Although I think healthcare workers have a moral responsibility to get vaccinated (barring any personal exceptions, like egg allergies), I don't necessarily think they should have a legal one.
I think, however, that many people don't think of vaccinations for healthcare workers as a way for the providers to protect the patients, but rather as a way for the providers to not harm the patients. I guess it depends on where you define the neutral/baseline position. So one might argue that giving your patients the flu constitutes you causing harm to them and you (the provider) have an obligation to NOT inflict harm. An analogy (until you get to the question of the risk of the vaccine) would be doctors washing their hands before operations. They are not washing their hands to protect their patients, so much as they're doing it to avoid harming their patients. Personally, I think if the purpose of your job is to promote health in your patients and instead you cause them to be more sick, something's not right.
By the way, here's an example that I don't think fits your scenario: My great-grandmother is 95 years old and never leaves the house. She doesn't get flu shots because a) she'd have to leave the house to get one, and b) she shouldn't need to worry about becoming infected by the public because she doesn't go out into the public. But yesterday she fell and broke her hip and was taken, despite her protest, to the ER. So if she gets the flu from her ER doc is it just her own damn fault for trapsing about to the hospital without being vaccinated?
2. It has been FDA approved. http://www.fda.gov/NewsEvents/Newsroom/ ... 182399.htm
3. It's not spreading like wildfire? Then why do I only have 14 students in my class today when typically I have 23?
4. Found in several cases of what? Every vaccine I've ever gotten has very likely had thimeresol (sp?) in it...and I'm not autistic, etc. yet.
5. The right thing to do for health is to get the vaccine.
6. Yes. Why aren't teachers, especially, on the priority list? I have half my class out and I'm not a priority? My neighboring teachers are dealing with the same thing. In fact, my grade-level colleague has been out of work nearly a week with the swine flu. I really don't want it next.
7. I had to take a TB test to get this job. I had to have a background check to get my current job. I had to pee in a cup and have my background checked by the quasi FBI to get my last job. I haven't died from either. I couldn't have my job without undergoing quite a lot of rigamarole to get the two best jobs I've ever held. You want to be in certain professions, you do what it takes. If not, get some other kind of job.
It is very early in the season...and I believe it's 76 kids as of a couple of days ago. In an entire typical season, only a handful or two more children die. (I forgotten the exact #, to be honest.) But, it's only October and you're seeing nearly as many deaths as you'd see at the end of May. Three kids have died here in my state, one after 24 hours of being sick. If I had small kids, I would vaccinate. The fear of possible unknowns does not beat the fear of losing my child through inaction. Most of my personal regrets in life have always been centered around what I didn't do, rather than what I did do. I have urged my own daughter to get vaccinated, but the vaccine in injection form is not yet available even though she is in a high-risk group--young asthmatic adult. She wants the vaccination and will get it herself when it becomes available.
2. It's been rushed through FDA approval without all checkmarks being done for safety and the FDA admits it. Check a couple pages back to read about it.
3. Do they have the Swine Flu? How many do you wanna bet will be back in school in a couple days. Hysteria has led you to believe that it's serious, but more than likely it's not a serious case. There are thousands of cases of non-serious cases with typical flu symptoms.
4.The H1N1 vaccine.
5 The right thing to do is entrust your medical professionals instead of treating them like children. These are respected medical personnel and the state of NY is the ONLY state to mandate. They start with the pros...then they mandate patients, teachers and children...then they move on to the general public. Forcing anyone to get a shot is wrong.
6. You have a choice. Go get it instead of complaining you're not being forced to..yet.
7. This is the first of its kind. We all have to take piss tests at some points, but getting vaccinated with a new and barely tested vaccination that's being questioned for safety is not regularly in the cards. You have a choice to get one. Go ahead. But don't tell someone else what they can and can't do.
Nurses to Sue Over H1N1 Shots
They object to state mandating health workers be vaccinated
by Scott Waldman
ALBANY -- Lorna Patterson is willing to take on New York's top health official for her right to be flu vaccine-free.
The registered nurse in Albany Medical Center's emergency room is among a group of nurses who plan to file a lawsuit against state Health Commissioner Dr. Richard Daines to prevent the mandatory vaccination of New York's health care workers with the H1N1 flu virus.
"It takes away our freedom of choice," Patterson told reporters during a news conference Monday. "Our health is being affected."
The deadline for the state's health care workers to receive the swine flu vaccination is at the end of next month, though some employers have moved that up to the end of this month.
The four nurses will file a lawsuit against the state this week to prevent the forced vaccination, said their attorney, Terence L. Kindlon.
"This is a significant civil rights issue," Kindlon said. "We think people are being forced to do something by the government."
If Patterson and Kathryn Dupuis do not receive their shots within the next two weeks, they will likely lose their jobs in the emergency room at Albany Medical Center. Patterson said the vaccination was rushed into production in a matter of months and that its effect has not yet been properly studied.
Patterson said the vaccination could be dangerous for people, including pregnant women, and that more time is needed to understand its effectiveness. She said she is not willing to risk her health and does not think it is fair that she should lose her job.
Outside of New York City, 91,000 FluMist doses -- the inhalant form of the vaccine -- were delivered by the end of last week. Health care workers are at the front of the line for those to receive the first round.
A similar suit filed last week in New York City names Commissioner Daines and Jeffrey Kraut, chairman of the state Hospital Planning and Review Council, and contends it is beyond the state's authority to mandate getting the vaccines. Kindlon said the New York Civil Liberties Union and other groups may file similar legal action in the coming weeks.
Daines has said that vulnerable people and those who haven't been immunized come to hospitals and that they need to be protected from the possibility that medical workers carry the virus. The commissioner has said health workers in hospitals, clinics and other settings must be vaccinated by Nov. 30 or risk losing their jobs.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control estimates it will have provided states with 186 million doses of the H1N1 vaccine by January. New York officials expect the state to receive 6.7 million doses for upstate and 5 million doses for the city.
New York is the first state to mandate flu vaccinations for health care workers. The nurses preparing to file the lawsuit have already collected more than 400 signatures of health care workers against the forced vaccinations and are helping plan at rally scheduled for this Wednesday at the Capitol.
Yes, I would say that it is her fault for not leaving the house to get a vaccine. She is 95 years old and that is an age where it is common for broken hips to happen. She should know this, and knowing this she should take any of the necessary precautions regarding her health and if she feels there is a potentional to get the flu at the ER she should then take the steps necessary to prevent that. It isn't the ER's fault that she decided not to get vaccinated because she didn't have the forsight to realize that she just might eventually end up in the ER someday.
by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor
(NaturalNews) Prepare to have your world rocked. What you're about to read here will leave you astonished, inspired and outraged all at the same time. You're about to be treated to some little-known information demonstrating why seasonal flu vaccines are utterly worthless and why their continued promotion is based entirely on fabricated studies and medical mythology.
If the whole world knew what you're about to read here, the vaccine industry would collapse overnight.
This information comes to you courtesy of a brilliant article published in The Atlantic (November 2009). The article, written by Shannon Brownlee and Jeanne Lenzer, isn't just brilliant; in my opinion it stands as the best article on flu vaccines that has ever been published in the popular press. Entitled Does the vaccine matter?, it presents some of the most eye-opening information you've probably ever read about the failure of flu vaccines. You can read the full article here: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/2009...
Perhaps its impressive narrative shouldn't be too surprising, though, since writer Shannon Brownlee is also the celebrated author of a phenomenal book on modern medicine entitled Overtreated: Why Too Much Medicine Is Making Us Sicker and Poorer (http://www.amazon.com/Overtreated-M...) (http://www.naturalpedia.com/book_Ov...).
While I've never done this before, I'm going to summarize this article point by point (along with some comments) so that you get the full force of what's finally been put into print.
This information is so important that I encourage you to share the following summary I've put together. Email it to family, friends and coworkers. Or post it on your blog or website (with a link and proper credit to both NaturalNews and The Atlantic, please). Get this information out to the world. People need to know this, and so far the mainstream media has utterly failed to make this information known.
(The really good information begins after around a dozen bullet points, so be sure to keep reading...)
Does the vaccine matter?
What follows is my point-by-point summary of this groundbreaking article by Shannon Brownlee, originally published in The Atlantic. My opinion statements are shown in brackets and italics.
• Vaccination is the core strategy of the U.S. government's plan to combat the swine flu.
• The U.S. government has spent roughly $3 billion stockpiling vaccines and anti-viral drugs.
• The CDC is recommending that 159 million Americans receive a swine flu vaccine injection (as soon as possible).
• What if vaccines don't work? More and more researchers are skeptical about whether they do.
• Seasonal flu (that's the regular flu) currently kills an estimated 36,000 people each year in the United States. [But most people who die are already suffering from existing diseases such as asthma.]
• Most "colds" aren't really caused by the flu virus. As few as 7 or 8 percent (and at most, 50 percent) of colds have an influenza origin. There are more than 200 viruses and pathogens that can cause "influenza-like" illnesses (and therefore be easily mistaken for the flu).
• Viruses mutate with amazing speed, meaning that each year's circulating influenza is genetically different from the previous year.
• The vaccine for each upcoming flu season is formulated by health experts taking a guess [a wild guess, at times] about what strain of influenza might be most likely to circulate in the future.
• The 1918 Spanish Flu infected roughly one-third of the world population and killed at least 40 million.
• In the U.S., the President's Council of Advisors on Science and Technology predicted that H1N1 influenza could infect up to one-half of the U.S. population and kill 90,000 Americans.
[Keep reading, the good part is coming...]
• Of those who have died from the Swine Flu in the U.S., roughly 70 percent were already diseased with some serious underlying condition such as asthma or AIDS.
• Public health officials consider vaccines to be their first and best weapon against influenza. Vaccines helped eradicate smallpox and polio. [I don't agree with that assessment. Vaccines did relatively little compared to improvements in public sanitation.]
• Each year, 100 million Americans get vaccinated, and vaccines remain "a staple" of public health policy in the United States.
Why the research is bogus
• Because researchers can't exactly pin down who has influenza and who doesn't, the research conducted on the effectiveness of vaccines simply calculates the death rate from all causes among those who take the vaccine vs. those who don't. [This includes deaths from accidents, heart attacks, medications, car wrecks and everything.]
• These studies show a "dramatic difference" between the death rates of those who get the vaccines vs. those who don't. People who get vaccinated have significantly lower death rates [from ALL causes, and herein lies the problem...].
• Flu shot propaganda cites these studies, telling people that if they get their flu shots every year, they will have a significantly reduced chance of dying. But this is extremely misleading...
• Critics question the logic of these studies: As it turns out, compared to the number of deaths from all causes, the number of people killed by influenza is quite small. According to the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, deaths from influenza account for -- at most -- 10 percent of the total deaths during the flu season (and this includes all indirect deaths aggravated by the flu).
• This brings up a hugely important dilemma: If influenza only accounts for roughly 10 percent of all deaths during the flu season, how could an influenza vaccine reduce total deaths by 50 percent? (As is claimed by the vaccine manufacturers.) [It doesn't add up. Even if the vaccines were 100% effective, they should only reduce the total death rates by 10%, given that only 10% of the total deaths are caused by influenza.]
• Here's a direct quote from the story: Tom Jefferson, a physician based in Rome and the head of the Vaccines Field at the Cochrane Collaboration, a highly respected international network of researchers who appraise medical evidence, says: "For a vaccine to reduce mortality by 50 percent and up to 90 percent in some studies means it has to prevent deaths not just from influenza, but also from falls, fires, heart disease, strokes, and car accidents. That's not a vaccine, that's a miracle." [Emphasis added.]
The failure of cohort studies
• So how do the vaccine companies come up with this "50% reduction in death rate" statistic? Through cohort studies.
• Cohort studies compare the death rates of large groups of people who received the vaccine to large groups of people who did NOT receive the vaccine. But there's a fatal flaw in this approach: People self-select for vaccinations. And what kind of people? As it turns out: People who take more precautions with their health!
• [Thus, you automatically have a situation where the more health-cautious people are getting the vaccines because they THINK it's good for them. Meanwhile all the masses of people who don't give a darn about their health tend to skip the seasonal flu vaccines. And these people tend to not take very good of their health in lots of other ways. In other words, in terms of the masses, people who get vaccines are more likely to avoid junk food and live a more health-cautious lifestyle. This explains the differences in the death rates between the two groups! It has nothing to do with the vaccine...]
• There is extreme "cult-like" peer pressure put on doctors and researchers to swallow the vaccine mythology without question. Quoted from the story: Lisa Jackson, a physician and senior investigator with the Group Health Research Center, in Seattle, began wondering aloud to colleagues if maybe something was amiss with the estimate of 50 percent mortality reduction for people who get flu vaccine, the response she got sounded more like doctrine than science. "People told me, 'No good can come of [asking] this,'" she says. "'Potentially a lot of bad could happen' for me professionally by raising any criticism that might dissuade people from getting vaccinated, because of course, 'We know that vaccine works.' This was the prevailing wisdom." [In other words, don't dare question the vaccine, and don't ask tough scientific questions because the vaccine industry runs on dogma, not science... and if you ask any questions, you might find yourself out of a job...].
[Here's where the really good part begins...]
• Lisa Jackson was not deterred. She and three other researchers began to study the widely-quoted vaccine statistics in an attempt to identify this "healthy user effect," if any. They looked through eight years of medical data covering 72,000 people aged 65 or older and recorded who received flu shots and who didn't. Then they compared the death rates for all causes outside the flu season.
The vaccine made no difference in mortality
• What she found blows a hole right through the vaccination industry: She found that even outside the flu season, the death rate was 60 percent higher among those who did not get vaccines than among those who do. [In other words, even when you take the flu season completely out of the equation, elderly people who don't get vaccines have other lifestyle factors that makes them far more likely to die from lots of other causes.]
• She also found that this so-called "healthy user effect" explains the entire apparent benefit that continues to be attributed to vaccines. This finding demonstrates that the flu vaccine may not have any beneficial effect whatsoever in reducing mortality.
• How well done were these particular studies? Quoted from the story: Jackson's papers "are beautiful," says Lone Simonsen, who is a professor of global health at George Washington University, in Washington, D.C., and an internationally recognized expert in influenza and vaccine epidemiology. "They are classic studies in epidemiology, they are so carefully done."
• Many pro-vaccine experts simply refused to believe the results of this study [because it conflicts with their existing belief in vaccine mythology]. The Journal of the American Medical Association refused to publish her research, even stating, "To accept these results would be to say that the earth is flat!" [Which just goes to show you how deeply ingrained the current vaccine mythology is in the minds of conventional medical practitioners. They simply cannot imagine that vaccines don't work, so they dismiss any evidence -- even GOOD evidence -- demonstrating that fact. This is what makes the vaccine industry a CULT rather than a science.]
• Jackson's papers were finally published in 2006, in the International Journal of Epidemiology.
[And here's the really, really juicy part you can't miss...]
Vaccine shortage proves it never worked in the first place
• The history of the flu vaccine reveals some huge gaps in current vaccination mythology, essentially proving they don't work:
• For example: In 2004, vaccine production was low and there was a shortage in vaccines (a 40 percent reduction in vaccinations). And yet mortality rates did not rise during the flu season. [Clearly, if vaccines actually worked, then a year when the vaccine wasn't even administered to 40% of the people who normally get it should have resulted in a huge and statistically significant increase in mortality. It should have spiked the death rates and filled the morgues... but it didn't. You know why? Because flu vaccines don't work in the first place.]
• In the history of flu vaccines, there were two years in which the formulated flu vaccine was a total mismatch to the widely-circulating influenza that made people sick. These years were 1968 and 1997. In both of these years, the vaccine was a completely mismatch for the circulating virus. In effect, nobody was vaccinated! [Knowing this, if the vaccine itself was effective at reducing death rates, then we should have once again seen a huge spike in the death rates during these two years, right? Seriously, if the vaccine reduces death rates by 50% as is claimed by vaccine manufacturers, then these two years in which the vaccine completely missed the mark should have seen huge spikes in the winter death rates, right? But what really happened was... nothing. Not a blip. Not a spike. Nothing. The death rates didn't rise at all.]
• If vaccines really worked to save lives, then the more people you vaccinate, the lower death rates you should see, right? But that's not the case. Back in 1989, only 15 percent of over-65 people got vaccinated against the flu. But today, thanks to the big vaccine push, over 65 percent are vaccinated. And yet, amazingly, death rates among the elderly have not gone down during the flu season. In fact, they've gone up!
• When vaccine promoters (and CDC officials) are challenged about the "50 percent mortality reduction" myth, they invoke dogmatic language and attack the messenger. They are simply not willing to consider the possibility that flu vaccines simply don't work.
• Scientists who question the vaccine mythology are routinely shunned by the medical establishment. Tom Jefferson from the Cochrane Collaboration is an epidemiologist who questions the claimed benefits of flu vaccines. "The reaction [against Jefferson] has been so dogmatic and even hysterical that you'd think he was advocating stealing babies" said a colleague (Majumdar).
• Jefferson is one of the world's best-informed researchers on the flu vaccine. He leads a team of researchers who have examined hundreds of vaccine studies. To quote directly from the article: The vast majority of the studies were deeply flawed, says Jefferson. "Rubbish is not a scientific term, but I think it's the term that applies [to these studies]."
[And here's the real kicker that demonstrates why flu vaccines are useless...]
Flu vaccines only "work" on people who don't need them
• Vaccines supposedly "work" by introducing a weakened viral strain that causes the immune system to respond by building influenza antibodies. However, as Jefferson points out, only healthy people produce a good antibody response to the vaccine. And yet it is precisely the unhealthy people -- the ones who have a poor immune response to the vaccine -- who are most at risk of being harmed or killed by influenza. But the vaccines don't work in them!
• [In other words -- get this -- flu vaccines only "work" in people who don't need them!]
• [At the same time, it's also accurate to say that vaccines don't work at all in the very people who theoretically could benefit from them. They only produce antibodies in people who already have such a strong immune response that they don't need the vaccine in the first place.]
• Jefferson has called for randomized, placebo-controlled studies of the vaccines. But vaccine pushers are resisting these clinical trials! They call the trials "unethical" [but, in reality, they know that a randomized, double-blind placebo-controlled study would reveal the complete failure of flu vaccines, and they will do anything to prevent such a trial from happening. Don't you find it amazing that drug pushers and vaccine advocates claim they have "science" on their side, but they won't submit their vaccines to any real science at all?]
• [No placebo-controlled studies have ever been conducted on flu vaccines because the industry says they would be "unethical." So where do these people get off claiming their vaccines work at all? The whole industry is based on fabricated statistics that are provably false... and the injections continue, year after year, with absolutely no benefit to public health whatsoever...]
Why anti-viral drugs don't work either
• On the anti-viral drug front, hospitals are urged to hand out prescriptions for Tamiflu and Relenza to almost anyone who is symptomatic, whether they actually have swine flu or not. Concern is growing about the emergence of drug-resistant strains of swine flu. " Flu can become resistant to Tamiflu in a matter of days..." says one researcher.
• In 2005, the U.S. government spent $1.8 billion to stockpile antiviral drugs for the military. This decision was made during the time when Donald Rumsfeld was Defense Secretary. Rumsfeld also held millions of dollars worth of stock in Gilead Sciences, the company that holds the patent on Tamiflu. That company saw its stock price rise 50 percent following the government's stockpiling purchase of Tamiflu.
• The evidence supporting Tamiflu's anti-viral benefits is flimsy at best. Even worse, as many as one in five children taking Tamiflu experience neuropsychiatric side effects including hallucinations and suicidal behavior. [In other words, your kid might be "tripping out" on some bad Tamiflu...]
• Tamiflu is already linked to 50 deaths of children in Japan.
• The evidence supporting Tamiflu is based on cohort studies, just like the vaccines, which may distort or exaggerate the apparent benefits of the drug.
• Even supporters of Tamiflu admit it's never been proven to help. A CDC official says that randomized trials to determine the effectiveness of Tamiflu would be "unethical."
• In all, neither vaccines nor anti-viral drugs have any reliable evidence that they work against influenza at all. Both are being promoted based entirely on pure wishful thinking, not hard science.
• The history of pharmaceutical medicine is littered with other examples of drugs that doctors "knew worked" but which later turned out to harm or kill patients. [All along, the proper scientific studies were avoided because, hey, if you already know everything, why bother conducting any actual science to prove anything?]
• The hype about vaccines provides a false sense of security, taking away attention from other things that really do work to prevent influenza deaths. That's why, except for "hand washing," virtually no advice has been offered to the public on preventing influenza beyond vaccines and anti-viral drugs.
• Concluding quote from the author: "By being afraid to do the proper studies now, we may be condemning ourselves to using treatments based on illusion and faith rather than sound science."
A recap of these astonishing points
Let's recap what we just learned here (because it's just mind-boggling):
• There have been no placebo-controlled studies on flu vaccines because the vaccine pushers say such clinical trials would be "unethical." Thus, there is actually no hard scientific evidence that they work at all.
• The "50 percent reduction in mortality" statistic that's tossed around by vaccine pushers is a total fabrication based on "rubbish" studies ("cohort" studies).
• Scrutinizing the existing studies that claim to support vaccines reveals that flu vaccines simply don't work. And when vaccines aren't available or the formulation is wrong, there's no spike in death rates, indicating quite conclusively that these vaccines offer no reduction in mortality.
• Flu vaccines only produce antibodies in people who don't need vaccines. At the same time, they fail to produce antibodies in people who are most vulnerable to flu. Thus, vaccines only work in people who don't need them.
• The entire flu vaccine industry is run like a cult, with dogma ruling over science. Anyone who asks tough, scientific questions is immediately branded a heretic. No one is allowed to question the status quo. (So much for "evidence-based medicine," huh?)
As you can see from all this, the flu vaccine is pure quackery. Those who administer vaccines are, by inference, QUACKS. They claim to have scientific minds, and yet they are the most gullible of all: They will believe almost anything if it's published in a medical journal, even if it's complete quackery.
Today, countless doctors, nurses and pharmacists across North America and around the world are pushing a medically worthless, scientifically-fabricated chemical injection that offers absolutely no benefit to public health... and yet they're convinced it's highly effective! It just goes to show you how easy it is to brainwash people in the field of conventional medicine.
They've abandoned real science long ago, you know. Now the whole industry is just run on the momentum of dogmatic arrogance and the illusion of authority. From the CDC and FDA on down to the local pharmacist at the corner store, the American medical system is run by some seemingly smart people who have been brainwashed into become full-fledged members of the Cult of Pharmacology where vaccine mythology overrules real science.
The vaccine industry is perhaps the greatest medical scam ever pulled off in the history of the world. Don't fall for it.
And don't forget to read the full article in The Atlantic by Shannon Brownlee: http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/2009...
Why people get vaccinated: Superstition
Reading everything you've read here, you might wonder: Why do people get vaccinated at all?
The reason is because no one knows whether they work or not, so people keep on taking them "just in case." It's exactly the kind of superstitious ritual that "science-minded skeptics" rail against on a regular basis... unless, of course, it involves their vaccines, in which case superstition is all okay.
People take vaccines for the same reason they rub a rabbit's foot. It's a good luck ritual that may or may not work, but no one really knows. And besides, what's the harm in it? (They think...)
Personally, I'd rather get some vitamin D and have a healthy, functioning immune system. But for those who prefer to play the lotto, gamble in Vegas or bet their lives on medical superstitions, flu vaccines are readily available.
So what are you waiting for? Shoot up a few flu vaccines, rub your lucky rabbit's foot, then spin around clockwise seven times and you, too, may be able to generate enough luck to avoid the flu this winter.
Hail Hail HIPPIEMOM
Wishlist Foundation-
http://www.wishlistfoundation.org
info@wishlistfoundation.org
this is sarcasm... yes? :?
honestly, it makes me think of the hippocratic oath all doctors take, which in part says "first, do no harm...." so imo, yes, it does indeed suggest that it is up to the healthcare professionals to protect their patients. again, not saying it should be 'forced' on healthcare professionals, but i do believe they hae that obligation.
Let's just breathe...
I am myself like you somehow
Interesting read.
I have a few questions that hopefully you can help me answer:
1. Are there sources for the statements above?
2. Do the flu vaccine studies really claim to reduce the OVERALL death rate (from everything) by 50% or do they only claim to reduce the rate of death attributable to influenza by 50%? It's hard to tell since the article doesn't cite the studies.
3. Have the results of Jackson's study been reproduced?
4. Did flu cases increase in 2004?
Fuck it... this article is too long to read carefully while I'm at work... I'll have to finish reading it later.