Officials Say Don't Blame the Swine Flu Shot, You'll Drop Dead Anyway

Don't Blame Flu Shots for All Ills, Officials Say

As soon as swine flu vaccinations start next month, some people getting them will drop dead of heart attacks or strokes, some children will have seizures and some pregnant women will miscarry. But those events will not necessarily have anything to do with the vaccine. That poses a public relations challenge for federal officials, who remember how sensational reports of deaths and illnesses derailed the large-scale flu vaccine drive of 1976. This time they are making plans to respond rapidly to such events and to try to reassure a nervous public -- and headline-hunting journalists -- that the vaccine is not responsible. Every year, there are 1.1 million heart attacks in the United States, 795,000 strokes and 876,000 miscarriages, and 200,000 Americans have their first seizure. Inevitably, officials say, some of these will happen within hours or days of a flu shot...

Washington OKs mercury in swine flu vaccine

The state Health Department will allow more mercury than usual in some of the swine flu vaccine to make sure shots are available to pregnant women and children under age three.

The department says mercury-free swine flu vaccine may not always be in stock, so it wants to give people the choice of using vaccine with the mercury preservative called thimerosal, which is believed to be safe.

The Centers for Disease Control's Web site says the following about thimerosal:

"There is no convincing scientific evidence of harm caused by the low doses of thimerosal in vaccines, except for minor reactions like redness and swelling at the injection site.

"However, in July 1999, the Public Health Service agencies, the American Academy of Pediatrics and vaccine manufacturers agreed that thimerosal should be reduced or eliminated in vaccines as a precautionary measure. Most vaccines for children under six are thimerosal-free."

The suspension of the mercury limit announced Thursday lasts six months and applies only to the swine flu vaccine expected to become available in October...

Here is the priority list of recipients for swine flu shots once the vaccine arrives:

-- Anyone age 6 months to 24 years

-- Pregnant women

-- Healthcare workers

-- People under 50 with chronic illnesses

FDA Approves Vaccines for 2009 H1N1 Influenza Virus

The H1N1 vaccines approved today undergo the same rigorous FDA manufacturing oversight, product quality testing and lot release procedures that apply to seasonal influenza vaccines.

Twenty participants in the trial will get two doses 21 days apart and they'll be monitored in several different ways. Their cord blood will be checked too to see how it's affecting the unborn child.

U.S. officials are launching a large-scale vaccination effort in mid-October to inoculate the population, including those most at risk such as pregnant women and young people ages 6 months to 24 years.

"The H1N1 vaccines approved today undergo the same rigorous FDA manufacturing oversight, product quality testing and lot release procedures that apply to seasonal influenza vaccines," Dr. Jesse Goodman, FDA's acting chief scientist, said in a statement.

The resistance of a group to attack by a disease to which a large proportion of the members are immune.

Mandatory School Vaccinations: The Role of Tort Law

"Religious Communities as Disease "Hot Spots."

Governments traditionally have considered "communities" in relatively broad terms, viewing entire states -- or sometimes even the whole nation -- as a "community" for herd immunity purposes [14]. However, recent experiences have demonstrated that actual communities are far smaller. For instance, although nationwide measles vaccination rates appeared high enough to ensure national herd immunity, disproportionately low vaccination rates among blacks and Hispanics resulted in measles outbreaks in several large urban areas, most notably Los Angeles [15].

Religious communities -- particularly Christian Science, Amish, and Mennonite communities -- have been the source of many preventable disease outbreaks in recent years. Diseases from polio [16] to measles [17] to rubella [18] have resurfaced with increasing frequency in the United States due to herd immunity being lost in such religious ghettos. This comes at a tremendous cost to society, for "vaccine-preventable diseases impose $10 billion worth of healthcare costs and over 30,000 otherwise avoidable deaths in America each year" [19]."

For decades, all 50 states have required that parents vaccinate their children against various diseases, including polio and measles, as a prerequisite to enrolling them in public schools [1]. While virtually all states have tailored their immunization statutes to exempt those with religious (and sometimes philosophical) objections to vaccines from these requirements [2], widespread use of these exemptions threatens to undermine many of the benefits of mandatory vaccinations, such as preserving "herd immunity" [3]. Since it is unlikely that state governments will eliminate such exemptions outright, society must consider other methods of providing incentives for vaccination and compensating those who have suffered due to a disease outbreak caused by a community's loss of herd immunity.

On October 14, [2005] the major media outlets shrieked a report of "the first outbreak of polio in the United States in 26 years," occurring in an Amish community in central Minnesota. The specter of hundreds of children in braces and iron lung machines lining the halls of hospitals immediately danced through the air, and directly into the minds of parents who have chosen to not vaccinate their children.

"First of all, there wasn't an "outbreak of polio." There was only the discovery of an inactivated polio virus in the stool of four children. The first confirmation was in a 7-month old Amish infant, presumably hospitalized, with severe immune deficiency. The "find" prompted screening of other children in the community; four children were confirmed positive. None experienced any type of paralysis.

Part of the panic can be blamed on inaccurate reporting. The virus that was identified was not "wild polio." It was a virus that is found only in the oral polio vaccine (OPV). Oral vaccine-strain viruses are inactivated with formaldehyde and are generally considered by the CDC "too weak" to cause disease. Even though the OPV is still used extensively in Third World countries, it has not been used in the United States since 2000. How did children in an isolated Amish community, with no exposure to foreigners, become exposed to vaccine-strain polio virus? That remains a mystery.

Note: color of law. The appearance or semblance, without the substance, of a legal right. "¢ The term usu. implies a misuse of power made possible because the wrongdoer is clothed with the authority of the state. State action is synonymous with color of [state] law in the context of federal civil-rights statutes or criminal law. See STATE ACTION. [Cases: Civil Rights 1323. C.J.S. Civil Rights §§ 92-94.] BLACK'S LAW DICTIONARY 282 (8th ed. 2004)

N.Y. Health Care Workers Revolt Over H1N1 Vaccine

They're upset over an ultimatum from the health department. Workers are being told to either get the swine flu vaccine or lose their jobs.

New York is the first state in the country to mandate flu vaccinations for its health care workers. The first doses of swine flu vaccine will be available beginning next week. Much of it is reserved for state health care workers, but there is growing opposition to required inoculations.

Health care workers in Hauppauge screamed "No forced shots!" as they rallied Tuesday against the state regulation requiring them to roll up their sleeves.

"I don't even tend to the sick. I am in the nutrition field. They are telling me I must get the shot because I work in a health clinic setting," said Paula Small, a Women, Infants and Children health care worker.

Small said she will refuse, worried the vaccine is untested and unproven, leaving her vulnerable. In 1976, there were some deaths associated with a swine flu vaccination.

Registered nurse Frank Mannino, 50, was also angry. He said the state regulation violates his personal freedom and civil rights. "And now I will lose my job if I don't take the regular flu shot or the swine flu shot."

When asked if he's willing to lose his job, Mannino said, "Absolutely. I will not take it, will not be forced. This is still America."

The protest also shook Albany Tuesday. Hundreds of demonstrators demanded freedom of choice. After all, as health care professionals they argue they're already constantly washing their hands and aren't likely to transmit or contract the flu.

Around 500,000 health care workers are slated to receive the vaccine.

"It's certainly their prerogative to voice their opinion," said Dr. Susan Donelan of Stony Brook University Hospital. Donelan said most in the medical community see the benefits and safety of the shots and welcome them, and that hospitals must obey the law. "Our hospital is committed to following the mandate to have our personnel vaccinated," she said.

The state said change was needed this year to save lives, typically only about 45 percent of health care workers take advantage of voluntary flu vaccines.

More than 150 institutional outbreaks of seasonal and H1N1 flu are expected this year in hospitals, nursing homes and hospice centers. New York and New Jersey will get their first doses of the swine flu vaccine next week. It will be the nasal mist, not a shot.

GM Vaccines Recombine into Unpredictable Hybrid

In what may be the first experiment of its kind, scientists infected cell cultures with two related viruses. One was a genetically engineered poxvirus, (vaccinia virus (VIC) with a transgene from the influenza virus). The other was a naturally occurring relative of the first virus, isolated from Norwegian wildlife. Both were orthopoxviruses. The two viruses interacted and created many new hybrid viruses by recombination. The characteristics of some of the new viruses included traits not expressed in either parent virus. Some viruses, for example, spread faster than either parent, while others produced different, more serious cell culture changes. A single virus multiplied into hundreds of thousands of viruses in a few hours, with unpredictable consequences. Since the marker gene in the transgenic virus was not present in some of the newly formed hybrid viruses, it would not be possible to track transgenic viruses as the origin of the hybrids, if they were found in the wild.