A place for the discussion of all things not closely related to the sport and its competitive side. (Locked down several times a year during the major championships)
BisonHurdler wrote:It was supposed to be easily available to all medical students here at the beginning of this month. We're 2/3 of the way through October and we're still receiving emails from Health Services stating "still no word on those H1N1 vaccines yet, sorry guys . . . "
It's in our local schools now. They start vaccinating next week.
They started vaccinating in the schools this week, but we got a message yesterday saying that not all kids would get the vaccine as scheduled because they are low; apparently they only have the nasal/live variant (which is fine with me, although my first grader prefers the shot -- not my 8th grader!). Tuesday is the scheduled day; they will send a note home with every child that does not get the vaccine that has signed up.
<<Public health authorities have been lecturing people for months to get the swine flu vaccine, but to those who actually listened: Good luck finding it.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for months has said that the vaccine would be widely available - with about 50 million doses - by mid-October. But as the end of the month approaches, fewer than 13 million doses have been delivered to states.....>>
A month ago, Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, warned that the flu vaccination drive soon to begin would be “a little bumpy.”
talked to an ER doc I know the other day; his department has seen "about a thousand" flu patient so far this fall.
He says they're 99.9% swine. Not cost-effective to test them all clinically, but ongoing random sampling isn't turning up any seasonal flu.
In the worst case they had, 7-month-pregnant woman had severe lung issues; function diminished to point that she was compromising the fetus with lack of oxygen, so they had to do a C-section to save the baby. Shortly thereafter the mother died (not because of the surgery).
This is consistent with the numbers we've been given from the Infectious Disease docs and the Institute for Human Virology folks who have been lecturing for our Virology course.
Our office received 200 doses of the injectable and 200 doses of the nasal spray version of the H1N1 vaccine this week, from the State Health Department. My kids' pediatrician hasn't even gotten any, and we didn't even request any of the nasal spray formulation.
While the peds offices and the ERs and urgent care centers have been full-on busy with kids with respiratory infections, a lot of it H1N1, we have seen an average amount of viral respiratory infections for this time of year, and very few cases that seemed like classic influenza, with high fevers, terrible body aches, and terrible cough. Almost zero among the elderly.
26mi235 wrote:They started vaccinating in the schools this week, but we got a message yesterday saying that not all kids would get the vaccine as scheduled because they are low; apparently they only have the nasal/live variant (which is fine with me, although my first grader prefers the shot -- not my 8th grader!). Tuesday is the scheduled day; they will send a note home with every child that does not get the vaccine that has signed up.
They got to my sons class and most of the way through but ran out before they got to him. He came down sick two days later but it has developed slowly (slight fever briefly for a couple of days, then 103 at night and 101-104.0 the next day (today) and if he goes back to 104 they said to bring him in (and now my throat is feeling iffy (an my wife departs for 6 days on Sunday).
Finally got my shot ($18 at CVS) over the weekend, but it sure seems like the cycle has run its course here. Is it possible the vaccines kept it down, or was this the Y2K Hype all over again?
Marlow wrote:. . . or was this the Y2K Hype all over again?
The Y2K thing was no hype. As someone in the computer trenches I know that tons of work was done by tons of folks in the years leading up to 2000 to make sure it was a non-event.
Marlow wrote:. . . or was this the Y2K Hype all over again?
The Y2K thing was no hype. As someone in the computer trenches I know that tons of work was done by tons of folks in the years leading up to 2000 to make sure it was a non-event.
Then my question stands, did the vaccines and the Health Alerts (quintupling the profits of th Purell people) actually make the difference?
My guess would be the hygiene precautions reduced a lot of cases. My sons class room has a policy of washing hands before entering the classroom. They have a soap dispenser right at the door that was installed at the beginning of the semester. Where I work, people who were ill were actively encouraged to stay at home. For once people acted on the advice.
- Overall infection rate is 8%, lower than average flu season(20%), much lower than typical "pandemic"(25-50%)
- Death rate has been less than 1 in 2000 of those who contract H1N1, lower than average flu season, much lower than "experts" predicted(1 in every 100)
Well its official, another bogus threat of possible human disaster nothing more than B.S.. In today's paper a health expert called the Swine Flu threat dead. The boy cried wolf again. I was basically called an idiot for not getting a shot. I know people who got the shot and came down sick.
Here ismy 2nd post on this massive thread.
SQUACKEE
I'll take my chances, dont trust some big agency sticking some crap in me, just dont.
I'd like to see where everyone comes down on this.
Healthy, athletic males, or people with known immunity (indolence) to influenza could opt out of immunization and get away with it.
I wonder, if SQUACKEE and mcgato were just as cocky in a smallpox epidemics. Actually, no, I don't wonder, I know, what they would do, sensible people as they are.
Pego wrote:I wonder, if SQUACKEE and mcgato were just as cocky in a smallpox epidemics. Actually, no, I don't wonder, I know, what they would do, sensible people as they are.
Pego wrote:Healthy, athletic males, or people with known immunity (indolence) to influenza could opt out of immunization and get away with it.
I wonder, if SQUACKEE and mcgato were just as cocky in a smallpox epidemics. Actually, no, I don't wonder, I know, what they would do, sensible people as they are.
Im not cocky against real threats, only false alarms.
While the situation surely could've been handled better, my fear is that this will only fuel America's bizarre obsession with distrusting the medical community (who, you know, had all the facts out there on the CDC website and such for people to make reasonably informed opinions) rather than the media who regularly sensationalized and distorted many of the facts.
Pego wrote:I wonder, if SQUACKEE and mcgato were just as cocky in a smallpox epidemics. Actually, no, I don't wonder, I know, what they would do, sensible people as they are.
Smallpox is not the flu, and you know it.
Yes, I do. Just as you know perfectly well a difference between trace metals and poisoning, which did not prevent you from a gratuitous low blow against me. Your unsupported attack on physicians and hospitals was not too endearing either.
Continue with your antiscience and there will be a like response.
Except no one is equating smallpox with the flu. A lot of people are concerned about the health effects of Thimersol. So much so that the CDC and AAP requested removal from infant vaccines in 1999(which makers did).
Not quite. Short term - I agree. You are less likely to get the disease you are being innoculated against. Long term is not so black and white.
There is no substantive evidence that your immune system is or is not compromised by the FLU shot, so I repeat, the odds are WITH you if you get the shot.
guru wrote:Except no one is equating smallpox with the flu. A lot of people are concerned about the health effects of Thimersol. So much so that the CDC and AAP requested removal from infant vaccines in 1999(which makers did).
This deserves an answer. First, "people are concerned about the health effects of Thimersol". You quoted one article in this regard on the other thread. While I have neither the tools, nor the time to evaluate their statistics, I read carefully the clinical part. It is erroneous at best, outright nonsense at worst. If this is representative of "people that are concerned about the health effects of Thimersol", you need to do better.
Secondly, the change in vaccines. While I am not familiar with the process, I would dare to bet that the reason for change would be the elimination of fear the crackpots caused to the parents as well as legal issues, rather than the merits of your argument.
Marlow wrote:It all comes down to cold logic and the odds. You are more likely to stay healthy if you get the shot. Period.
Are you sure, my bet is that the odds are that I have been exposed to something similar enough in my lifetime to not have to worry about it, as most people over 40. Odds are probably better that I would have a greater risk for something going wrong in getting a vaccination than to let mother nature take its course.
In other words, I think for me the odds of having any serious problems from this were very low and I would rather take that chance than to have any chance of something going wrong with a vaccination.
I know people who get flu shots every year and always seem to get sick, or at least far sicker than I do.
