swine flue true statistics

[Frank E Morel]

Originally Posted by Alexander Kornishev

self-interest, concerned citizen... considering that in the radius of 1 mile from my work place there are at least two clinics which currently advertise H1N1 shots I was wondering what other people think about this whole process and about info from the sites I usually trust (at least vitamin D info from the sites I quoted above).
source is the same link I provided in my previous post. But no one seem to read it
oppps... it was deleted, I probably forgot FWsafe:
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/11/03/Whati-We-Have-Learned-About-the-Great-Swine-Flu-Pandemic.aspx

So the real question alex is.... despite the best efforts of alot people here, is your position going to change? The question to ask your self is... vaccine or no vaccine. That is all that matters... you want it, go get it. If not, fine, dont.

The best thing to do is print off your article and take it to the vaccine clinic in your town and talk to the people there perhaps they have the answer you need to hear.

[Robert Pierce]

Originally Posted by Alexander Kornishev

self-interest, concerned citizen... considering that in the radius of 1 mile from my work place there are at least two clinics which currently advertise H1N1 shots I was wondering what other people think about this whole process and about info from the sites I usually trust (at least vitamin D info from the sites I quoted above).
source is the same link I provided in my previous post. But no one seem to read it
oppps... it was deleted, I probably forgot FWsafe:
http://articles.mercola.com/sites/ar...-Pandemic.aspx

Sorry my friend, that is not a source. You cite an interview with a retired neurosurgeon as a source for information on swine flu.

Now down to the bit about Merck. Read the reference number 26. Nowhere does it suggest that the vaccine was intended to be given to pregnant women. In fact, the numbers suggest that the pregnancy exposures were accidental. It is a pdf so I can't copy the whole thing, but when the numbers were very low (5) at the beginning they suggested possibly a problem. Later, with more numbers, you can see that that early difference was very likely due to chance. From the same reference (wfs) http://www.fda.gov/downloads/Biologi...UCM111285.pdf:

As of 1/25/06 the were 17 congenital anomalies in infants born to Gardasil recipients and 19 to placebo recipients. The pattern of anomalies does not suggest an association with the vaccine.

I guarantee you that many more people with much more sincere intentions are reviewing the "published peer-reviewed" data much more objectively than these guys. You can't believe everything you read on the internet.

[Jared Buffie]

Speaking of research...

Can anyone point me to the well constructed, large scale, double blind RCT's performed on all the age groups that the vaccine has been recommended for that show the vaccine reduces the risk of contractind H1N1 symptoms, being hospitalized from those symptoms, or dying from the symptoms? BTW... I would also like to see those studies on the seasonal flu shot.

Since medicine is "evidence based", I'm sure the studies are out there (but I have been unable to lace them).

Please help.

[Alexander Kornishev]

Originally Posted by Frank E Morel

So the real question alex is.... despite the best efforts of alot people here, is your position going to change? The question to ask your self is... vaccine or no vaccine. That is all that matters... you want it, go get it. If not, fine, dont.

The best thing to do is print off your article and take it to the vaccine clinic in your town and talk to the people there perhaps they have the answer you need to hear.

Frank, how should I put it... i do not have a position. I shared those articles because they made sense to me. I am not a specialist and not in business of statistically processing data so I can not produce any meaningful conclusion to share based on numbers alone. What I find interesting though after all this discussion is that all sources (official and alternative) use the same data but draw completely different conclusions from it. Also I can see their point when they present studies not included in official sources. After looking at some numbers it was very easy for me to see that actually margin for panic is very tiny and there is huge discrepancy between words used to describe the situation in official sources and numbers. As for posts in this thread until now there was nothing posted contradicting anything said in those links. Except discussing personal credentials of individuals involved there was no facts discussion at all. I agree that headlines and the way their information is presented is a bit on hysterical side but not the facts and their logic is pretty obvious.
Personally I am not looking for an argument, but would not mind a good discussion.
It would be interesting to keep this thread alive and see how the situation changes over time. I understand that right now it is all guesswork based on current statistics and as we are probably just in the beginning we will see all kind of predictions of how the future will unfold. Many people will look for an opportunity to use the situation for promoting themselves and earn some credibility in case they guess it right. Why if find these particular guys credible is exactly because of their position in this business. They have nothing to loose and nothing to gain here and mostly express their personal interpretation while official sources have first of all think about safety of population (as they should considering that these kind of events all grow exponentially) and can very easily go in overdrive mode to provide it trying to reach the goal by all means possible. There is also a probability of overreaction to widespread media/population panic and urge to act to keep them happy...
One possible scenario I would hate to see though is that if it turns out to be a very mild infection and then official sources will attribute the results to mass vaccination. Just think what kind of precedent that will set. That is another reason why I want to consider both sides. So it is not a question of getting a shot or not only. You can find plenty of other implications which that scenario might cause. But I do not want to get deflected into conspiracy theories discussion. I am just saying that to show that there can be more on the plate than a personal decision of getting a shot.

Sorry my friend, that is not a source. You cite an interview with a retired neurosurgeon as a source for information on swine flu.

why not? if the guy makes sense and knows the facts I do not see any problem with that. It is again a credentials discussion, not the facts. But I would like to hear what was wrong in what he said.

[Tom Fetter]

I'm a Health policy analyst, in a Canadian province. It might be worth reiterating some comments made in a recent meeting by our Chief Medical Officer of Health ... our public health head honcho.

• H1N1 is more prevalent this year than the seasonal flu. There's lots of it out there.
• You'll come into contact with the virus. No amount of handwashing, or sick people staying home from work or school, or even of vaccination, will stop people from encountering the virus; it's too prevalent. Bear in mind that about 40% of all people who are infected with an influenza virus are asymptomatic, but infectious. Nobody stays home sick from work or school when they don't feel sick. Rest assured, you'll bump into it.
• The vast majority of people who get an H1N1 case will simply have a nasty flu, and then be fine.
• For those who do get a truly ugly dose, it is as bad as anything that most infectious disease workers have ever seen. Very fast progression including things like kidney and liver involvement. While many people who have died from the H1N1 had pre-existing health conditions, some others did not ... or had minor pre-existing conditions like mild obesity, controlled mild athsma or diabetes.
• Based on the cases seen globally since this strain first showed up last Spring, some demographics are showing a greater risk for contracting a truly ugly dose; that's where the "priority group" info comes from.
• The vaccine is as safe as any that have been used. The virus itself is dead, and there's nothing in the injections which hasn't been used countless times over the past decades. The risks, for instance, of anaphylactic shock are precisely what they are for every year's seasonal flu injections ... and if you've never had such a reaction to a "normal" flu shot, you won't to the H1N1 shot either. In fact, statistically your highest risk in getting an H1N1 shot occurs from driving to and from the place where you receive it.
• Vaccination is, barring basic sanitation, the most effective public health intervention we've yet devised. Both from an individual perspective (i.e. protecting you) and a societal perspective (i.e. protecting the population). If the vaccination rate is highenough, the practice protects even the people who've been frightened by anti-vaccination advocates into not receiving one themselves. But bear in mind ... we're starting to see a resurgence in deaths from things like measles ... because anti-vaccination advocates have convinced enough people to not get shots for their kids. Worth pondering.

My wife and kids are in the priority groups; they've had their shots. I'll have mine when it becomes available for the general population in my health region.

[Jared Buffie]

Originally Posted by Tom Fetter

I'm a Health policy analyst, in a Canadian province. It might be worth reiterating some comments made in a recent meeting by our Chief Medical Officer of Health ... our public health head honcho.

• H1N1 is more prevalent this year than the seasonal flu. There's lots of it out there.
• You'll come into contact with the virus. No amount of handwashing, or sick people staying home from work or school, or even of vaccination, will stop people from encountering the virus; it's too prevalent. Bear in mind that about 40% of all people who are infected with an influenza virus are asymptomatic, but infectious. Nobody stays home sick from work or school when they don't feel sick. Rest assured, you'll bump into it.
• The vast majority of people who get an H1N1 case will simply have a nasty flu, and then be fine.
• For those who do get a truly ugly dose, it is as bad as anything that most infectious disease workers have ever seen. Very fast progression including things like kidney and liver involvement. While many people who have died from the H1N1 had pre-existing health conditions, some others did not ... or had minor pre-existing conditions like mild obesity, controlled mild athsma or diabetes.
• Based on the cases seen globally since this strain first showed up last Spring, some demographics are showing a greater risk for contracting a truly ugly dose; that's where the "priority group" info comes from.
  
• The vaccine is as safe as any that have been used. The virus itself is dead, and there's nothing in the injections which hasn't been used countless times over the past decades. The risks, for instance, of anaphylactic shock are precisely what they are for every year's seasonal flu injections ... and if you've never had such a reaction to a "normal" flu shot, you won't to the H1N1 shot either. In fact, statistically your highest risk in getting an H1N1 shot occurs from driving to and from the place where you receive it.
• Vaccination is, barring basic sanitation, the most effective public health intervention we've yet devised. Both from an individual perspective (i.e. protecting you) and a societal perspective (i.e. protecting the population). If the vaccination rate is highenough, the practice protects even the people who've been frightened by anti-vaccination advocates into not receiving one themselves. But bear in mind ... we're starting to see a resurgence in deaths from things like measles ... because anti-vaccination advocates have convinced enough people to not get shots for their kids. Worth pondering.

My wife and kids are in the priority groups; they've had their shots. I'll have mine when it becomes available for the general population in my health region.

The vaccine in Canada was tested on 63 people (I have the package insert) and they were followed for 3 days for adverse reactions. In fact, the vaccine safety data has been extrapolated from another experimental pandemic vaccine, the H5N1 (bird flu) version. So are you saying that the vaccine is safe based on the n=63 test results, or the results from another, non-approved vaccine?

Also, you say that the vaccine is the most effective way of preventing illness. What is that based on? As I asked before, where are the studies that show that vaccinated people are less likely to get sick than non-vaccinated (and I don't want to see the poorly constructed cohort studies, I want the "gold standard" stuff).

As for waning vaccine rates causing resurgence in disease rates, please explain the mumps outbreak in Nova Scotia two years ago that occurred in a 100% vaccinated population where every person who became ill was fully vaccinated. Whose fault was that one (since you seem to laying blame on us non-vaccinators)?

[Tom Fetter]

Influenza vaccinations have been in use since WW2; the technology used to produce todays vaccines was developed in the 1950s. Now, it is true that as this particular H1N1 strain emerged last Spring, there were not vast numbers of people involved in double-blind studies testing the effectiveness or the safety of this particular vaccine. But it is manifestly untrue to say that the total scientific legitimation of influenza vaccination is limited to a sample of n=63.

In fact, we've got use of this particular vaccination technology dating back 60 years, on a population-wide scale. Hundreds of millions of doses, across decades ... across age groups ... across racial and other strata. As far as the safety and efficacy of using this vaccine technology goes, the results have been "in" for decades. That is, if the very promiscuous and mutable influenza virus is still substantially similar by the time the vaccine's administered to what it was when the strain had been cultured to start the particular vaccine's development, it will be both safe and effective.

As to the mumps outbreak? I dunno. Perhaps strain variability? Perhaps resistance degrades over time, in some groups? I know that as a child I wasn't vaccinated against mumps ... and I got them. 3 times. That shouldn't have happened either.

[Mike Mallory]

I'm not concerned with having seizures or something, but I am concerned with sublte negative health concerns with the vaccinations.

I eat Paleo, exercise, drink water, control my stress, and I haven't been sick in years and years......I have zero concerns about swine flu.

In my opinion, if you aren;t supporting your immune system very well, and set yourself up for virus' to walk right in, then maybe the shot is for you.

Anyways, its a case-by-case personal choice.

[Jared Buffie]

Originally Posted by Tom Fetter

Influenza vaccinations have been in use since WW2; the technology used to produce todays vaccines was developed in the 1950s. Now, it is true that as this particular H1N1 strain emerged last Spring, there were not vast numbers of people involved in double-blind studies testing the effectiveness or the safety of this particular vaccine. But it is manifestly untrue to say that the total scientific legitimation of influenza vaccination is limited to a sample of n=63.

In fact, we've got use of this particular vaccination technology dating back 60 years, on a population-wide scale. Hundreds of millions of doses, across decades ... across age groups ... across racial and other strata. As far as the safety and efficacy of using this vaccine technology goes, the results have been "in" for decades. That is, if the very promiscuous and mutable influenza virus is still substantially similar by the time the vaccine's administered to what it was when the strain had been cultured to start the particular vaccine's development, it will be both safe and effective.

As to the mumps outbreak? I dunno. Perhaps strain variability? Perhaps resistance degrades over time, in some groups? I know that as a child I wasn't vaccinated against mumps ... and I got them. 3 times. That shouldn't have happened either.

Tom , thanks for the answer. I always appreciate when someone takes an honest stab at addressing my questions.

I have a problem with the "we do it because we've always done it" mentality. What if it does no good? When the science behind recommending shots on a large scale is studied closely, it doesn't hold up. Here's a good article from BMJ (wfs) that outlines why:

http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/333/7574/912

This explains it a little better in layperson terms for anyone else wondering (wfs):

http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200911/brownlee-h1n1

[Drake Deming]

This is just one of those issues where no matter how much evidence and science you present people will just continue to be ignorant of the facts. Much like the ones that believe the earth is 6000 years old.

I vote for thread closing.