Here’s another perspective on the swine flu vaccine. In this Oct. 12 article, New Yorker writer Michael Specter argues in favor of the shot.

… The new H1N1 virus is similar to seasonal flu in its severity. In the United States, influenza regularly ranks among the ten leading causes of death, infecting up to twenty per cent of the population. It kills roughly thirty-five thousand Americans every year and sends hundreds of thousands to the hospital. Even relatively mild pandemics, like those of 1957 and 1968, have been health-care disasters: the first killed two million people and the second a million.

We are more fortunate than our predecessors, though. Scientists produced a vaccine rapidly; it will be available within weeks. And, though this H1N1 virus is novel, the vaccine is not. It was made and tested in exactly the same way that flu vaccines are always made and tested. Had this strain of flu emerged just a few months earlier, there would not have been any need for two vaccines this year; 2009 H1N1 would simply have been included as one of the components in the annual vaccine.

Meanwhile, the virus has now appeared in a hundred and ninety-one countries. It has killed almost four thousand people and infected millions of others. The risks are clear and so are the facts. But, while scientists and public-health officials have dealt effectively with the disease, they increasingly confront a different kind of contagion: the spurious alarms spread by those who would make us fear vaccines more than the illnesses they prevent. Read the full article here.

Lynn Westberg, director for the San Juan Basin Health Department, makes a similar case in a column in today’s newspaper.

The H1N1 vaccine is safe. It’s made the same way seasonal flu vaccine is made, which normally changes every year. H1N1 just happens to be a virus that wasn’t predicted when manufacture of the seasonal flu vaccine began, so it was made separately. Read her full column here.

Read an earlier Kid Row post and poll on swine flu, or H1N1, here.

It’s not just Durango. A recent AP poll showed that more than a third of parents don’t want their kids vaccinated against swine flu. An informal Kid Row poll, meanwhile, showed that a full 66 percent of respondents did not plan to have their children vaccinated against H1N1.

The AP poll found that 38 percent of parents said they were unlikely to give permission for their kids to be vaccinated at school. Read the full story here. In response, the government has launched an information campaign to try to allay concerns, noting that the new vaccine is made using the same proven technique as shots for seasonal flu. But some parents’ questions focus on thimerosal, a mercury-based preservative that will be in roughly 60 percent of the 225 million swine flu doses ordered for Americans. Founded or not, the concerns appear likely to complicate the government’s strategy to beat back the novel virus through widespread inoculation. 

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Interesting article just up on the New York Times site about the swine flu vaccine …

In Vaccine Additive, Both Benefit and Doubt

By ANDREW POLLACK

Are Americans obligated to use an unproven vaccine to help protect people in other countries from the flu pandemic?

That is the crux of a debate over adjuvants — a class of substances that somewhat mysteriously increase the potency of vaccines. Early studies suggest that adjuvants (pronounced AD-joo-vants) could allow four times as many people to be immunized against the H1N1 pandemic influenza with a given amount of vaccine. So with the world facing possibly severe shortages of vaccine, the World Health Organization and some health experts have been calling for the use of adjuvants to stretch the vaccine supply.

“We have always argued that using adjuvanted vaccine would leave more vaccine for poor people,” said Marie-Paule Kieny, director of the World Health Organization’s initiative for vaccine research.

Wealthy nations have contracted for much of the expected pandemic vaccine production, leaving little for poorer countries.

But while Canada and some European nations will use vaccines containing adjuvants, American officials have decided against it for now. They say that they have enough vaccine and that the safety of the additives has not been proved … (read more)

With a definite chill in the morning air, there’s no question summer will soon be a distant memory. I’ve found with small children that I don’t have much use for winter. Going outside takes the coordination of a military operation and the days end far too soon. Worst all all is the bugs, the kind that cause noses to run, throats to ache and ears to clog. Having the nebulous, nefarious H1N1, commonly known as swine flu, out there doesn’t help. Other people’s children, formerly delightful potential playmates, become fearsome agents of infection. Or if your child is the afflicted, family life comes to a grinding halt, derailing work schedules or any other plans you were foolish enough to make in the height of flu season. And no matter the precautions, the bug inevitably hits every member of the family. Then, just as one has had its way with us and moved on, the next one creeps in. Already we’ve weathered a round of colds …

Despite all this trepidation, I’m still undecided about the flu shots. The shot for H1N1 is supposed to be available in mid-October and apparantly officials now say one shot is expected to be sufficient instead of two. It appears that many of you have concerns about the vaccine as a Kid Row poll conducted last month showed that 65 percent, or 15 of you, would not have your children vaccinated against swine flu. With cases popping up around the country, including one in La Plata County, I’m curious if this is still the prevailing feeling. Click here to vote in the poll. What are you doing as an alternative to stay healthy?

A vaccine for swine flu is expected this fall and the CDC is recommending that pregnant women, young people 6 months to 24 years old and people who live with or care for children younger than 6 months old be the first to get it.

This is likely to add heat to the ongoing debate about the safety of vaccines. While most children will have received dozens of vaccine injections by the time they are 18, questions about potential side effects persist. Health officials swear by vaccines’ safety, but the number of parents who decline to have their children vaccinated has doubled in recent decades, according to a 2008 article in the the New York Times.  

Despite my inclination toward natural parenting, I have to admit vaccines are one of the issues I have least scrutinized and so far my children have followed the recommended schedule (although we’ve skipped the flu shots). A recent article in Mothering magazine does a good job of presenting both sides of the debate, concluding in the end that there is reason to believe the medical establishment may have swung toward excessive inoculation, while ignoring the potential negative side effects and questionable effectiveness of some vaccines (a previous swine flu outbreak in 1976 sparked a mass vaccination effort that was later aborted after the shot was linked with rare but serious side effects). Personally, I’m beginning to think in the future I’d like to do some more research before simply following CDC recommendations. Like everything, more information never hurts.

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