Parents talking on the internet forums have expressed some concern about the H1N1 vaccine that will be offered to children and adults with underlying health conditions and pregnant women as priorities.
Fears raised include its safety for pregnant women, whether the vaccine has been tested enough and the fact one of them contains a controversial mercury preservative.

HEALTH officials have warned doctors of possible similarities between the new swine flu vaccine and a jab linked to 25 deaths in America in the 1970s.  The government’s Health Protection Agency (HPA), said in a letter to neurologists that they needed to look out for increases in cases of a brain disorder that might follow the launch of the immunization program.  In 1976, Washington rushed in a mass immunization program against a swine flu outbreak that was confined to a single military base.  Several hundred cases of a rare, lethal, paralyzing neurological disease called Guillain-Barré syndrome (GBS) were reported afterwards, and although no clear link was ever found to the vaccine, the incident made many people mistrustful of immunizations.

The Department of Health said: “Appropriate trials to assess safety and immune responses have been carried out on vaccines very similar to the swine flu vaccine. The vaccines have been shown to have a good safety profile.”

The World Health Organization has also said recently that the public should be “reassured” about the safety of the new vaccine. It acknowledged that “genuine adverse events directly caused by the vaccine may also occur, but cannot be predicted in advance”.

What’s going on here?  Which side of the isle is right and what are we to do in the face of conflicting opinion?  I wish I had the answer.  What I do know is that according to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius a new swine flu vaccine to be available for distribution by mid-October — fully six to seven weeks after American schoolchildren will have flocked back to the germ pools of their classrooms. Sebelius hasn’t formally approved a nationwide vaccination campaign, which would detail which populations should get priority in the use of still-scarce vaccine. But she’s expected to do so soon.

In the mean time five medical centers across the country will begin testing the H1N1 vaccine tomorrow (Wednesday – Aug.18 2008).  I am shocked and bewildered that Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City, Mo. expects to enroll 160 children who, with parental consent, will become human guinea pigs to test this serum.  The study is designed to determine the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine in children 6 months to 17 years old.  Each child will receive two doses of the vaccine against the H1N1 virus.  A second study is to begin next week on another group of children at other medical centers across the country including St. Louis University.

What if I get swine flu?

You can’t know for sure if you have the new H1N1 flu unless you get a test. But rapid flu tests haven’t proven reliable at pinpointing cases of the new disease; only a lab test can confirm whether you have it.
Treatment is similar to that for seasonal flu.  Most people get well by resting, staying hydrated and taking medicines to reduce fever. Stay home and keep your distance from others for at least 24 hours after your fever is gone.

Children under 18 years old shouldn’t be given aspirin due to a risk of Reye’s Syndrome, a rare but potentially life-threatening illness. Don’t give cold medicines to children under four without first talking with a pediatrician.

You should call the doctor if you have trouble breathing, chest or abdominal pain, dizziness, confusion or persistent vomiting, or if your flu symptoms worsen after improving, the CDC says. Call the pediatrician if your child has those symptoms, isn’t drinking enough fluids, or is irritable or sluggish.

Do not Panic!

I have said it before and I will state it again.  Hundreds of millions of people lose their lives to the seasonal flu every year.  I know that every life is very important and I honestly wish that this statistic was not true.  Sadly enough however it is true and in our faces every year.  It is also true that only a small fraction of the world population have been effected by the H1N1 virus and subsequently an even smaller number of people have succumb to it’s effects.

More than two million people are believed to have contracted the new flu in the U.S.; 7,511 had been hospitalized and 477 had died as of Aug. 13, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. World-wide, 177,457 people have been confirmed with the disease, and 1,462 deaths had been reported as of Aug. 12, according to the World Health Organization.

According to the Center for Disease Control (CDC) pregnant women and people with asthma, diabetes, heart disease and other chronic diseases. About 70% of those hospitalized and about 80% of those who have died in the U.S. had underlying medical conditions, according to the CDC. In a study published in the Lancet, CDC scientists found pregnant women were more than four times as likely to be hospitalized with the new flu than the general population.

It isn’t clear whether obesity itself is a risk factor. Morbidly obese patients have had greater complications, but it may be due to diabetes or other chronic diseases they have, health officials say.

Public health officials initially feared a deadly scourge, after reports of dozens of deaths in Mexico. Instead, “what we are seeing looks very much like seasonal flu so far,” Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said earlier this month. Most people suffer unpleasant but not life-threatening symptoms, such as fever, body aches, sore throat and runny nose. Gastrointestinal problems—vomiting and diarrhea—are normally rare for adults with flu, but have been reported globally in as many as 50% of nonhospitalized patients with the virus.

Many people don’t even develop a fever, though they had other symptoms, says Richard Wenzel, chairman of the department of internal medicine at Virginia Commonwealth University’s Medical College, who observed such cases on trips to Latin America. One academic hospital in Chile told Dr. Wenzel that only half of its outpatients infected with H1N1 swine flu had fever; some had only a runny nose, sometimes with a headache, he says.

One unusual thing: Young people are getting sick, while the elderly, who normally account for 90% of annual deaths from flu, have largely been spared. Most of those who died—generally of viral pneumonia and other complications—have ranged from 25 through 64 years old, according to a CDC analysis. CDC officials say people 60 and older may have some immunity to the new virus from exposure to H1N1 viruses that circulated between 1918 and 1957.

If you do opt to take your chances with the new vaccine be sure to tell your doctor that you want the thimerosal-free vaccine .  For those of you who don’t know, Thimerosal is a mercury-containing organic compound widely used as a preservative in a number of biological and drug products, including many vaccines, to help prevent potentially life threatening contamination with harmful microbes.  Over the past several years, because of an increasing awareness of the theoretical potential for neurotoxicity of even low levels of organomercurials and because of the increased number of thimerosal containing vaccines that had been added to the infant immunization schedule, concerns about the use of thimerosal in vaccines and other products have been raised.

The best cure is prevention

Wash your hands often with soap and water, or use hand sanitizer. Avoid touching your eyes, nose or mouth. The virus spreads through respiratory droplets in a cough or sneeze, and people start spreading the virus a day before they develop symptoms. You can also pick it up by touching something that has flu virus on it, then touching your mouth or nose.   In addition it surely can’t hurt to begin to increase your bodies immune system function.  You can do this quite effectively naturally, without the use of drugs or untested vaccines.

Be safe, be healthy, and may good luck be with you all.

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