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Nationwide Shortage In Supply of Swine Flu Vaccine
Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that as the number of swine flu cases grows to levels unprecedented for this time of year, health officials predict a shortfall in the supply of swine flu vaccine. Forty-three children have died from swine flu since August 30 — about the same number that usually die in an entire flu season.' These are very sobering statistics,' says Dr. Anne Schuchat, the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, 'and unfortunately they are likely to increase.' Projections of the supply of swine flu vaccine have widely varied. During the summer, health officials said 120 million doses would be ready in October but later dropped the estimate to 40 million doses. Now officials expect only 28 million to 30 million doses, adding that the exact number is impossible to predict and could change daily as vaccine manufacturers report that production was behind schedule. 'Vaccine production for influenza is pretty complex,' says Schuchat explaining the delay, 'and the complex process this year is taking a bit longer than we had hoped.' Schuchat warned parents with sick children to be alert for signs that medical attention is required including not eating well, difficulties breathing, and turning blue or gray. A particularly important sign is when children start to get better, then have a relapse, usually a sign that pneumonia is developing, and immediate treatment should be sought."
What would your aunt expect to see at the hospital? All the healthy people who had flu shots with no side effects? Nothing is 100% safe.
"I'd rather be a lightning rod than a seismometer." -Ken Kesey
What? That's insane and selfish.
A) Without the vaccine you can develop pretty serious health issues.
B) You will then spread it to others. H1N1 is contagious 3 days before symptoms show up. So you will spread it to someone else, possible someone less healthy then you.
C) the that are vaccinated the smaller the impact of the disease.
Really, two pokes and 5 minutes is better the H1N1.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
...we need to let our immune system do what it does best, figure out problems for itself. One would think that constant vaccine's, medications, antibiotics, etc just make the immune system lazy.
Yeah, humanity got through Bubonic Plague just fine without a vaccine. And that Polio vaccine some wise guy came up with? Useless. Also, you seem to lack an understanding how vaccines work, as they stimulate the immune system into producing specific antibodies, which is essentially the opposite of making it lazy.
The stories and info posted here are artistic works of fiction and falsehood.
Only fools would take it as fact.
Well I do find it interesting that all over the news there are many health care workers who don't care to get the shot.
You may find it interesting that there are pharmacists, doctors, and nurses who feel it is their right to decide whether a patient even has the option of a morning-after pill or abortion. Now how do you feel about whether someone who chose to work in the medical field is permitted to inject their own dogma into your medical treatment?
Medical "professionals" and workers are expected to follow medical science, not superstition or personal beliefs and morals- and look out for the interests of their patient, not themselves or their own dogma. They knew that going in the door. Among other things, the first thing you are expected to do as an employee of a hospital is get all your vaccinations up to date.
Please help metamoderate.
My aunt is a nurse at one of the largest hospitals in Winnipeg and she said she has never gotten the flu shot and refuses too. After she's seen all the complications with them over the years she figures she's safer without.
So your aunt works in health care and refuses to protect herself from becoming a carrier of an easily preventable communicable disease? You mean because she doesn't think she will get sick means she doesn't feel like taking a simple step to ensure she doesn't transmit it to a very young or old patient who would become seriously ill and possibly die? What a bitch!
Sure, the flu isn't highly fatal, but it's not something to ignore. People do die, sometimes unexpectedly, even though it is uncommon. If she doesn't want to take steps to protect other people's health, why the fuck is she a nurse?
Write your representatives! Repeal the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics!
Your Aunt is wrong and she should learn to read studies, understand statistics, and realize she works in a place sick people tend to go to. i.e. sample bias.
"we need to let our immune system do what it does best, figure out problems for itself."
That is exactly what a vaccine does, just without all the nasty sickness and death.
". One would think that constant vaccine's, medications, antibiotics, etc just make the immune system lazy."
One would be wrong. one could read studies. But no, one spouts off nonsense.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
A nurse (or anyone else working in a health care institution) needs to be immunized, because they have constant contact with the segment of the population who is most at risk from the flu. If a nurse gives your newborn the flu because she didn't get the vaccine and your child dies, there would be hell to pay. Seems like a legitimate issue to me, if not for the nurse/doctor's health but for the health of those they care for.
Write your representatives! Repeal the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics!
*facepalm*
All what complications with the flu shot? Feeling queasy for an afternoon? Mild irritation at the injection site? Ok - don't get it if you're allegic to eggs. You're more likely to die from the flu outright than come down with the only major complication, Guillain-Barré Syndrome.
Vaccines are one of the single greatest success stories of modern medicine. Our body is designed to fight off polio and smallpox too, but wasn't quite up to the task before vaccines.
If you or your aunt thinks getting vaccines is counter productive, you're morons.
Our health provider is "limiting" the vaccine to certain risk groups. These include pregnant ladies, children under a certain age, people with asthma or other chronic airway issues, and so forth. In other words, the specific groups they want to get vaccinated for flu every year.
A few comments about this virus and why vaccination is important:
H1N1 is a combination not seen for at least thirty+ years. Therefore, much of the population has never been exposed to the "surface codes" H1 or N1, which means they don't have partial immunity. This worries medical professionals, since that increases the virulence and the spread if this flu mutates into a deadlier form. (Generally, the flu shifts a few points. This is a major antigen shift.)
Vaccines do not have a 100% success rate. Some people's immune systems don't respond, so while they've been vaccinated, they don't have immunity and are still at risk. However, if the percentage of immunes is high enough, the particular disease never has a chance to get to those who are vulnerable. This is why anti-vaccination efforts are anti-social: your un-vaccinated kid can give my infant or elderly grandmother whooping cough or measles. (There have been a number of immune-compromised people in my family, and my parents watched family members and friends die from diseases that are now vaccine-preventable.)
Vaccines in general cover a larger number of diseases BUT have fewer "triggers" in them. For example, the original vaccine, smallpox, basically had to give you the whole disease to get your immune system going. Now we can separate out a few key proteins or antigens that are specific to the disease, rather than the hundreds that comprise it.
The upshot is, if you are in a risk category, get vaccinated. If you're not, practice good hygiene and wash your hands a lot, eat well, and get plenty of rest. And de-stress! Stressed people get sick easier.
Actually I am a lab rat in an elaborate plot to take over the world.
H1N1 does refer to proteins of the viral coat, but there is no inherent reason why we cannot mount an immune response to those proteins.
The flu is either incorrectly refered to as the "Swine Flu" or correctly refered to as the H1N1 flue. It is not refered to as the "Mexican Flu" by anyone other than yourself.
I have no idea what you mean by this:
there is some chance that the mantle of flu would be copied around the much more dangerous virus
But then again, it's obvious that neither do you. If you were capable of packaging the genes for an innocuous flu into the coat of a more virulent flu, it would only increase the chances of infection in the first generation, because the less virulent genes delivered into the infected cell would code for the more mundane viral coat, not the one it had hijacked, becuase it would lack the genes necessary for it's production you moron.
And as to the 1917 flu pandemic, it's not even remotely relevant. Medical science, both prevention as well as treatment of symptoms, has come so far as to make any comparisons nonsensical. For one thing, penecillin wasn't even mass produced until the 1940's. I am aware that the flu is a virus, and not effected by antibiotics, but the flu is also capable of lowering overall immune function such that a significant number of the deaths in the wake of the 1917 flu were as a result of secondary infections resulting from the primary flu infection. Also, the first antiviral drugs were developed in the 1960's so were unavailable in 1917 without a time machine.
Pneumonia is not a disease in and of itself you fuckwit. Pneumonia is an infection of the lungs that can be caused by any number of infectious agents, including bacteria. My wife's aunt has pneumonia and gave the infectious agent to my wife and daughter. They don't have pneumonia because the disease didn't settle in their lungs but in their sinuses. As a result they simply have head colds instead of the more serious pneumonia despite being infected by the same virus.
Please mister FUDster, SHUT THE FUCK UP!
Bureaucracy expands to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.-Oscar Wilde
Rubbish. Society has a significant interest in what you do with your body, because the results of that action may cause harm to others. If, for example, you have extremely drug-resistant tuberculosis, you can expect public health authorities to hold you in isolation, and if necessary, force treatment upon you.
An individual's ignorance should not be to society's detriment. If their ignorance or lack of compliance will cause harm to others, they may be forced to comply with procedures, even when those procedures cause them discomfort, inconvenience, or possible harm.
"It is possible to commit no errors and still lose. That is not a weakness. That is life." -Peak Performance