Swine flu: plans to vaccinate (whole of) UK

[dipsydoodle]

Source: Yahoo News

In what would be the biggest vaccination programme of the last 50 years, experts are already drawing up a priority list of patients to be given immunity before the bug becomes more virulent.

It comes after the first British patient without underlying health problems died after contracting swine flu, taking the number of swine flu-linked deaths in the UK to 15.

Peter Holden, the British Medical Association's lead negotiator on swine flu, told a Sunday paper: "The high risk groups will be done at GPs' surgeries.

"People are still making decisions over this, but we want to get cracking before we get a second wave, which is traditionally far more virulent.

Read more: http://uk.news.yahoo.com/4/20090712/tuk-swine-flu-plans-to-vaccinate-uk-dba1618.html

[Warpy]

1. Swine flu is still big news in Mexico

where the wet season is in full swing and that means it's flu season. It will be back in the fall.

Contrast the UK with the US, where we can expect to be offered the vaccination only if we can pay for it.

[Sigh Sister]

2. The vaccine will be free in the US

But if all goes well, the federal government will buy vaccine from manufacturers and share it for free among the states, which must then "try and get this in the arms of the targeted population as soon as possible," Sebelius said.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hXFe712UD7TL1akfJ1qCC6SEs1hQD99B59G02

[Warpy]

5. Bullshit, NOTHING is free in the US

especially when public health is at stake.

[muriel_volestrangler]

15. Is there anyway we can persuade you it isn't 'bullshit'?

I mean, it was the Health and Human Services Secretary who said it. If you think she's got it wrong, who would you believe?

http://www.reuters.com/article/healthNews/idUSTRE56669020090709

[Warpy]

20. I'm sure she has all the best intentions in the world

It's just not going to happen and we all know it.

[AngryOldDem]

7. Memories of the flu vaccine debacle of 1976 arise....

And it may be free to a limited number in the population (elderly, most likely), but count on it not being free to everybody. And even if it is, I think I'll pass and take my chances.

[Warpy]

8. I'm not sure vaccinating healthy young adults every year for flu

is a great idea, anyway. Flu sucks, but it also helps us build up our immune systems.

It's why we catch fewer colds and flu as we age. We're immune for life to anything we've already had.

[stray cat]

10. herd vaccination - the goal is to protect vulnerable people from exposure

to people who get the disease and spread it around including to nursing home and hospitals. Protecting the vulnerable should make vaccination a progressive act and part of a good public health system to provide economical coverage for all.

[Warpy]

12. That makes a great deal of sense for deadly diseases

like whooping cough and measles. It makes no sense at all for relatively mild diseases like the flu. Targeted immunization of health care workers and vulnerable populations like the very young and very old make much more sense for us as a species.

[AngryOldDem]

13. I think it's being considered near where I live.

Authorities haven't come right out and said it, but this week a 19-year-old died from it, his sister is hospitalized with it, and an 11-year-old at some kind of "international camp" is sick with it. A local public health official was on the TV noting that this is an unusual age demographic for flu, and also the time of year is suspect. So I think that as we head into flu season the push for mass vaccinations of younger people will grow.

That said, I work at a social service agency and this spring vaccinations were offered free to our clientele. Staff had to pay something like $11 for it. I think it makes sense there because a lot of the people we work with are immuniocompromised, have serious diseases like cancer and diabetes, and other poor health issues. Plus, if the flu would hit us, it would take off like wildfire and some people would indeed die.

If mass vaccinations are done with some forethought, it could be useful. But 1976 should provide an object lesson about that.

[Sigh Sister]

14. I read about the 19 year-old and his sister

Very sad. I know a man who has been in intensive care for 3 weeks now after getting it. He is in his 40's and was very healthy. He was vacationing in Europe with his family, felt sick when he got on the plane home, and by the time the plane landed, he was so sick they had to immediately take him to the hospital. They have not been able to wean him off of the vent. Prognosis is poor.

[WriteDown]

17. Its not like influenza has ever caused a massive pandemic...

:sarcasm:

[uppityperson]

23. So the elderly rarely get colds or influenza?

Oh kay.

[Sigh Sister]

9. There probably won't be enough vaccine for everyone

but the target population won't be the elderly as for the most part, they aren't the ones getting sick and dying from H1N1. Here's a link from CDC:

http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/vaccination/statelocal/planning.htm

I think I'm going to pass on the vaccine as well.

[Mojorabbit]

16. It won't be the elderly

it will be those that this flu is targeting which is the younguns and people in their prime. I am glad they are preparing just in case it evolves into a more virulent form. I hear you on feeling wary about a new vaccine with little testing time. Time will tell if benefits outweigh the risks come fall.

[dipsydoodle]

3. That's an oddity over your side.

Id'a thunk that doing it free was in the actual interest of your government same as it is so here.

My daughter told me that her friends now hold parties for as many as possible if one of them gets it to spread it around early while it seems to be less harmful.

I'm truly amazed I have yet to get it. I go dancing a lot to swing music and the temperature and humidity really fly in the dance venues which I'da thought would be condusive to spreading it more easily. :shrug:

Dunno why but I thought you were UK ? Not sure why.

[Warpy]

4. The US has neglected public health for decades

which is why we're getting shorter and dying younger. The system here combines the least efficiency with the most short sighted cruelty on the planet. Botswana does a better job than the US does given their resources.

As for my being UK, perhaps you're picking up on the turn of phrase I inherited from an Irish granny.

[dipsydoodle]

6. Did she use

divvy too ?

[WriteDown]

18. Shorter and dying younger?

Link to that please?

[demoleft]

11. some 20 cases in Teramo italy, abruzzo, where a world handball tournament is going on

it spread from unaware guys from the cyprus team.
the team was now exluded from the competition and the authorities are trying to isolate the cases at the town hospital.

[liberal_rxstudent]

19. What scares me...

is that the vaccines are being produced by companies that have shown a propensity towards contaminating vaccines {lately} (think Novartis, Baxter). I've been following news regarding Baxter since the heparin debacle a while back, and needless to say, there was very little mention in the media whenever something happened. There is something fishy going on, not that I'm trying to sound like a conspiracy theorist (lol...which I've been called recently). We'll have to take our chances with the vaccine come flu season :yoiks:

[arikara]

24. And Baxter just recently did this...

Baxter: Product contained live bird flu virus

http://www.torontosun.com/news/canada/2009/02/27/8560781.html

My Mr got some of that tainted heparin, it made him really sick. I'll take my chances no vaccine too. Bastards.

[midnight]

21. Donald Rumsfeld was Tamiflu(Gilead) Chairman. Now only stockholder.

The company which gets the drug’s royalties (Gilead) has as a major stockholder- -previously Chairman–one Donald Rumsfeld.

Connect these dots.

http://uk.reuters. com/article/ governmentFiling sNews/idUKN24452 16420090424
http://health. howstuffworks. com/health- illness/treatmen t/medicine/ medications/ tamiflu-psych. htm

As far as our office prescribing Tamiflu, we would rather not, but we will if you insist. I promise you that I personally am purchasing none for my family and would recommend the same to you.http://allaboutbobbimillermoro.wordpress.com/2009/04/29/dr-jay-gordon-exposes-swine-flu-tamiflu-vaccine-rumsfeld-connection/

The following is from an article by Stephen Lendman 10 June 2009 on the Global Research
The industry-run US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) notoriously rushes inadequately tested drugs to market, putting their efficacy and safety into question, and turning those who use them into lab rats. It includes everyone if a mass vaccination is ordered on the mere claim of a public emergency – no proof required.
If mass vaccinations are ordered, millions of Americans may ask: Why have you willfully and maliciously ruined my health?

MassvacDangerous side effects of flu vaccinations due to vaccine adjuvant squalene
Imunologist Dr. Pamela Asa first recognized autoimmune diseases showing up in GIs that mirrored those in lab animals injected with oil formulated squalene adjuvants.

According to Matsumoto, today, “Squalene adjuvants are a key ingredient in a whole new generation of vaccines intended for mass immunization around the globe. Squalene is not just a molecule found in a knee or elbow – it is found throughout the nervous system and the brain.” When injected in the body, the immune system attacks it as an enemy to be eliminated. Eating and digesting squalene isn’t a problem. But injecting it “galvanize(s) the immune system into attacking it, which can produce self-destructive cross reactions against the same molecule in the places where it occurs naturally in the body – and where it is critical to the health of the nervous system.” Once self-destruction begins, it doesn’t stop as the body keeps making the molecule that the immune system is trained to attack and destroy.

Matsumoto says “Squalene is a kind of trigger for (a) real biological weapon,” what Soviet researchers called “a biological time bomb!!” He and Dr. Pam Asa conclude that “Oil adjuvants are the most insidious chemical weapon ever devised,” including ones with squalene. So what American scientists conceived as a vaccine booster (or what’s now being developed in labs) was another ‘nano-bomb,’ instigating chronic, unpredictable and debilitating disease. GULF-WAR-SYNDROME-740740Using squalene in vaccines is outlandish and criminal.

Gary Matsumoto is a New York-based award-winning investigative journalist. His 2004 book, “Vaccine A: The Covert Government Experiment That’s Killing Our Soldiers and Why GIs are Only the First Victims” took sharp issue with IOM results and the Pentagon’s denial of Gulf War syndrome.

Investigating the shadowy vaccination development world, he discovered US military-employed doctors and scientists conducted secret medical experiments on US citizens in violation of the Nuremberg Code and fundamental medical ethics.

[premiumblend]

22. I hope it is at least free to all the vulnerable here in the US>

[Bushknew]

25. 60 Minutes report on the "Swine Flu".....

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=385x336118