Swine Flu bologna

I almost divorced Matt yesterday. He almost gave in to the need for the flu shot. I looked him squarely in the eye, put my maternal back up and said "if you want to put that in to your own body, go ahead. But this is one area I feel VERY strongly about when it comes to the kids. We don't have a right to put thimeresol in to them and it's not worth it. They aren't going to die from getting the flu and I'm not giving in". He, being a good and smart husband, smiled & let it go.

Now McKenna is sick. With some Swine Flu symptoms. And some regular flu symptoms. So I reluctantly looked up the symptoms of Swine Flu this morning. And?

"Most U.S. swine flu patients have made a full recovery without antiviral drugs." My point exactly.

When the Swine Flu thing hit, I wondered what all the hubub was about. Sure, some people died, but we get the flu, a different strain, every year. And people die every year from the flu. Usually because they have other contributing factors.

And every year we hear about how the flu vaccine may not be the one for the exact type of flu you get. So what's the point of the shot? We stopped getting the flu shot years ago and we make it through every winter.

The Swine Flu quickly gets labeled a pandemic by the WHO (who?), which quickly gets funding from the government to the pharmaceutical companies (who are our friends right? - I mean they have not interest in profit...) to come up with a vaccine.

The media combines with the government to create a panic or "deep concern" among the general population so that we are ready to line up when the vaccination is released.

Then the testing begins... I shudder to think of using myself or my child as a test subject (knowingly) for a new vaccine.

2 weeks ago I hear an ad on the radio about the "flu" and what you can do, blah blah blah - never have I heard so much attention paid to this annual event. I go home and mention it to Matt and then I say to him "ahhhhh, the Swine Flu vaccine is going to be released I bet and they are ramping up the "cause" so people will be "ready" with fear to be injected".

Sure enough, the very next day (maybe it was two), the news report is released that the Swine Flu Vaccine is coming to Seattle.

So for 6 months they will inject this in to people, something that is still at question to serious adverse effects. Just this morning I woke to a news report about 600 kids have been used for testing the vaccine and it'll be years before we know what adverse effects will come of it. Shame on us for allowing the medical industry to use our children as guinea pigs.

Do we really think the pharmaceutical companies will EVER allow a link to be made between vaccines and mental disorders? Do we have any idea how much money they make off of their product? This is probably just as big an issue as the Tobacco companies hiding for years the fact their product was made to be addictive, to ensure their financial survival. The same with the pain killer addiction epidemic that has overtaken our country and teenagers, as pain killers are made readily available for any condition and prescribed and pushed by doctors and the pharmaceutical companies without accountability or responsibility, because it is a revenue generating industry.

So below is a Seattle Times report on the vaccination, followed by a very interesting reader's response.

My family will be staying put. It'll be interesting to see if this "pandemic" of epic proportions creates the need to force citizens to line up anyway.

State lifts limit on mercury preservative in swine-flu shots
By Sandi Doughton

Seattle Times science reporter

In preparation for swine-flu vaccinations next month, Washington's Health Department on Thursday temporarily suspended a rule that limits the amount of a mercury preservative in vaccines given to pregnant women and children under the age of 3.

The preservative, thimerosal, has never been linked to any health problems, said Secretary of Health Mary Selecky. But a vocal minority believes the compound could be linked to autism. The state Legislature adopted the limit in 2006.

Thimerosal has been eliminated from most vaccines in the United States, but it will be added to the bulk of the swine-flu vaccine being produced to stem a pandemic that health officials estimate could sicken more than a third of the state's residents.

Pregnant women and young children are considered at high risk for swine flu, and lifting the mercury limits will give them quicker access to the vaccine, Selecky said.

"It's vital that everyone in a high-risk group has the choice to be vaccinated when swine-flu vaccine becomes available," she said.

About 15 percent of the vaccine supply will be mercury-free, but people may have to wait longer for it to become available.

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Thursday that 6 million to 7 million doses of the vaccine will be available the first week in October, mainly in the form of a nasal spray called FluMist.

About 40 million flu shots should be ready by the middle of October, with an additional 10 million to 20 million doses rolling off the assembly lines every week after that for a total of 250 million doses.

"We will have enough vaccine to immunize every American who wants to be immunized," Sebelius said in a briefing. "But it won't all be available at the same time."

The vaccine itself will be free, Sebelius said, but health-care providers can charge to administer it.

Thimerosal will be added to the vaccine because it is being produced in vials that contain enough medication for 10 shots. The mercury compound kills bacteria, lowering the risk that the drug will be contaminated by needles used to withdraw separate doses.

"Every time you introduce a needle, you run a risk of introducing a potential contaminant," said Dr. Tony Marfin, state epidemiologist for infectious disease.

Mercury-free vaccine will be produced in single-dose vials. Nasal sprays do not contain mercury but are not recommended for children under the age of 2 and pregnant women, because they contain live, weakened virus.

An analysis published Thursday also found that the nasal spray is less effective than shots in adults under 50.

Selecky said the law limiting the mercury preservative will be suspended for six months and applies only to the swine-flu vaccines.

Once common in vaccines, thimerosal has been largely phased out in most wealthy nations. Children's vaccines in the United States are almost exclusively mercury-free, single-dose injections.

However, numerous studies have found no link between thimerosal and disorders in children.

Early results with the new vaccine against swine flu, technically known as H1N1, show it quickly induces a strong immune response, and most people over the age of 10 will require only a single dose.

The rate of side effects also appears to be low. Out of nearly 44,000 people inoculated in China, 14 "adverse events" have been reported, all very mild, said Dr. Marie-Paule Kieny, director of the World Health Organization's (WHO) Initiative for Vaccine Research.

WHO and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will carefully monitor side effects, she said.

After 1976's mass vaccination against a different swine-flu strain, about 500 people developed a neurological disorder called Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS), and some died.

Scientists still haven't figured out why, but there has never again been a connection between flu vaccine and GBS, Marfin said.

Americans are often blasé about flu, with less than half of people — including health-care workers — bothering to get annual shots.

One reason may be that flu shots are not as effective as many other vaccines, offering about 60 to 70 percent protection against the seasonal virus. That's largely because scientists have to guess which strains will be circulating each year.

With swine flu, they know exactly which strain is involved, said Dr. Anne Schuchat, chief health officer for the CDC's H1N1 response. "We would expect the vaccine to be very effective against the disease we are seeing."

But will it be ready in time?

"Right now we're in a race with the virus and the vaccine," she said.

Flu usually peaks in Washington in February and March, but the new swine-flu strain is already hitting the region. Both Washington State University and the University of Washington have reported outbreaks, and absenteeism exceeds 10 percent at some local schools.

The state is working with clinics, doctors, hospitals and others to set up inoculation programs — and bracing for crowds.

"We are expecting high interest," Selecky said.

Sandi Doughton: 206-464-2491 or sdoughton@seattletimes.com

Readers Comment (not mine):

"I don't know. The whole thimerosal-autism issue smells bad to me. It's curious to me how everyone in the media and politics is very careful not to mention the stakes involved for the pharmaceutical companies if it was determined that their vaccines were causing autism and the lengths they might go to to protect themselves.

Before 1989 children routinely received only 3 vaccines before first grade. In 1989 the rate of autism was 1 in 2,500 children.

Ten years later in 1999, after much lobbying from the drug companies, the CDC started recommending 22 vaccines before the first grade. By 2003, with the dramatically increased rates of vaccinations, 1 in 166 children were inflicted with autism. It should have been a national crisis.

The CDC and their partner research communities denied the link between vaccines and autism and at first produced a study in 2001 that said the link could be neither accepted or rejected. By 2004, they managed to come up with another test that said evidence seemed to "favor" a rejection of a link.

Even though they were are continuing to strongly claim that thimerosal is harmless, the CDC and the drug companies decided that they should remove thimerosal from vaccines "just in case."

http://www.autismcoach.com/Autism%20Declines%20When%20Mercur

So there *might* be some evidence that after thimerosal was removed or discouraged in child vaccines that the rate of autism dropped by 35%.

I don't know if this is true or not, or if proper scientific research methods were use. What is fishy to me is how swift and vigorous the CDC and the medical establishment is to smear researchers who find anything suggesting a link between thimerosal and autism. It is also fishy that the data is being guarded so closely and denied to the research community.

Did the autism rate in fact drop significantly after thimerosal was removed? This is a very important question. It can't be that hard to get a rough but scientifically valid measure of the autism rate. We are talking about a 35% drop...that should be easy to accept or reject.

The CDC, who owns the data, remains silent. This is fishy.

Instead of finding the truth and real answers, the efforts appear to be applied to building walls around the data and destroying researchers who suggest any kind of a link.

I don't really know one way or the other, but from my remote vantage point, there is something very disingenuous going on.

And now, years after removing thimerosal from vaccines, they are approving it for swine flu vaccinations? For children as well?"