Friday Flu Forum: Your Questions About Swine Flu

By The WBUR Newsroom
Oct 23, 2009, 11:48 AM
9 Comments

Just as the traditional winter flu season gets closer, Massachusetts is experiencing shortages and delays of vaccines for the H1N1 swine flu and the seasonal flu.

WBUR’s Sacha Pfeiffer and state medical director Lauren Smith Friday take your questions about H1N1 swine flu on Friday at noon.

Please follow our community rules when engaging in comment discussion on wbur.org.

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Sacha:
Thee options to discuss:
Flaw in Immunizations
Danger of Flu Shots.
Why Shortage of flu shots.
david
What is the call in number?
Joe

We asked our pediatrician if he recommended we make plans to bring the kids back for an H1N1 vaccine when it arrives. He indicated that the vaccine has not been tested in a pedi trial. Is that true? What does the state recommend for parents weighing the risks?
sfimom

Developmental delay has been cited as a risk factor for severe complicatiuons from this flu.Is autism included in this? Also what reccomendations do you have for children that are at high risk? What if it is the parent that is high risk? Should these families consider homeschooling?
gail

I am the parent of a 23 yr old who was hurt by a vaccine. The flu vaccines contain adjuvants which are extremely toxic. These vaccines have basically NOT been tested. Use your common sense as to what YOU should do.Vaccines will not protect. Do your homework. That is my advice.
Laura

Gail you are mistaken THE US VACCINE DOES NOT CONTAIN ADJUVENT!! Although adjuvant is in the vaccines in Canada and Europe and many other countries the US opted NOT TO PUT IN ADJUVENT unless the pandemic was more severe. I PROMISE this is true. As you know adjuvant stretches the vaccine supply. The US was afraid to use adjuvant becaues it is not approved here by the FDA. THey ordered adjuvant separately but are not using it. The rest of the world was MAD at us because we are not stretching our supply like them…basically we are not ‘concerving” vaccine and the Europeans think we are being selfish to use up so much non-adjunvanted vaccine.

PLEASE don’t spread info that you are not aware of. All over the web people say adjuvant is in this and probably you heard it somewhere there. IT is not true. What IS, however, in SOME Of the vaccine is Thimerisol, which is a mercury copound. this is NOT adjuvant. It is a preservitive and is in ONLy the multi-dose vials. It is NOT in single dose injections so vaccine is available without thimerisol also. Independant scientists looked at thimerisol to see if it caused neuro developmental problems (some parents of autistic kids associate vaccines with thimerisol with the rise of autism). They could NOT find a solid link. Just in case most pediatric vaccines had thimerisol removed within the last decade. Yet the rate of autism did NOT decrease. THey say that the ammount of mercury in a vaccine with thimerisol is the same as in a tuna sandwich. Maybe it was possible that getting MULTIPLE doses of thimersol vaccines all at once in a tiny (infant) body within the first year was too much for some kids. The jury is out on that but it can’t happen in the US now because pediatric vaccines, most of them, don’t have it.

anyway. PLEASE don’t spread rumor. THe USA, again, took FLACK from the rest of the world because they aren’t using adjuvant. And, if we were, there wouldn’t be the vaccine shortage that is the OTHER thing everyone is complaining about. There is some irony there.
if you want to see for yourself, check out info at pandemicflu.gov, the cdc website. Hit link for vaccines
Laura

Oh,I am so worried about the kids of this country with all the misinformation about vaccines. It is good to research things. But please understand, this vaccine was tested. It is true the FDA did an expedited REVIEW of the testing but it was tested even more than the average yearly flu shot. Let me explain. The CDC spokepeople have NOT done a good job explaining. For over a decade, the way flu shots are made each year is the same. IT was approved years ago. Made same way, with same reagents, by same people. Essentially, it is a cut and paste thing and each year they just plug in the bits of the flus that are circulating that year. It is NOT retested every year. Usually, three strains that they anticipate will be circulating are plugged in each year. If the pandemic “swine” flu strain surfaced a few months earlier last spring, it simply would have been one of the three strains in the seasonal vaccine. Genetically, the swine flu strain (h1N1) is closer to one of the usual seasonal strains (which is also an H1N1) than some seasonal flu strains are to eachother (for example there is an H3N2 strain in the seasonal vaccine usually and also a flu B, strain, which is TOTALLY different…all the others I mentioned are flu A).

ANyway, really the pandemic vaccine didn’t need much testing at all…no more than a yearly seasonall flu vaccine which is not tested yearly. Now, I am SO SAD to hear a doctor didn’t know this so said “It’s not tested in kids”. I promise you…scary as it is…docs have been really not following the science around this as well as we would think and like. This doctor is ignorant. I promise if he looked into it, if he had time, he would arrive at same conclussion as above independantly.

Esentially every year millions of people get the (already tested and approved) flu vaccine with differnt strains plugged in each time without it being retested. And each year numerous people do not die or have side effects MORE THAN the side effects of seasonal flu itself. So flu vaccines have been tested over and over in real time.

I am a wary person, a scientist. I have and love kids. I look into everything I put into their little bodies before I act. I promise you I believe in the safety of THIS vaccine MUCH more than many of them out there. THIS IS A GOOD BET.

Especially because this flu, particularly in the young and middle aged, makes those age groups severely ill or worse MUCH more frequently than seasonal flu. It is true that ALL vaccines have side effects for a certain percentage of people. IT only works to give them when the rate of side effects is lower than the risk. About two or three in one hundred are HOSPITALISED with this flu so that is quite a high rate as disease goes.

Please consider this vacccine for your kids. Please look into it on Reputable websites and scientific journals. Scientists ego’s are invested in their reputation with their peers…so there is an internal checks and balances in when they publish an opinion. They are very careful that they are right. THis is a good vaccine.
Pastor Cuenca

Just read this article and emailed it to all my friends. It really makes you feel more at ease.

http://hubpages.com/_webwrite/hub/How-Vitamin-D-Helps-Prevent-Swine-Flu
Laura

I am not sure if this question has been asked yet, but I am really curious if H1N1 can be contracted through someone who has just taken the nasal, life virus vaccination? I am asking because I teach young children. One of my students, aged 2, was just given the nasal vaccine, approximately 3 to 5 hours before coming to my class. Of course she had sneezed and coughed all over me as we were playing, even mouthed some of the instruments that we use. 4 to 5 days later my toddler began to vomit uncontrollably and turn really sluggish. Now, my husband, my 4 year old and I have not been able to stop vomiting. The infant seems fine now, it has been 1 an a half days, but he still refuses to eat or drink. Of course we do not have insurance so I can not visit a doctor unless we go to the ER. I understand, most likely, you are not doctors, but if anyway has any insight please reply, thanks.
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