Swine Flu Shot Is Good? Maybe Not (page 2)

JimmyPage

I've had the swine flu shot. No side effects noted yet.

I've had all my shots all my life. Never thought much about it. I was talking to a male nurse a few years ago, though, and he insisted that his child was autistic because of vaccines. It's made me paranoid. I've brought my child along slowly when it comes to shots.

I've seen the Dateline episode that talked about the man who started the vaccine/autism controversy. I know vaccines do a great amount of good. But I'm not discounting the possibility that a small part of the population may be more susceptible to terrible side effects.

WTWizard

First, swine flu is not very dangerous. You get a few dying, usually of complications (and mostly those with pre-existing disease). But, remember 1976 when one person died from the flu, but 25 died from the flu shot.

Second, it is probably too late. By the time swine flu shots are around, chances are excellent that you have already been exposed to it. That being the case, it is a complete waste of time, money, energy, and exposure to toxic ingredients.

t33ap80c

Elsewhere,

You said, "I just do not understand the ethics of discouraging vaccinations. More people die when vaccinations are not taken."

Here is another interesting article that you may not have seen…

THE SPANISH INFLUENZA EPIDEMIC OF 1918
WAS CAUSED BY VACCINATIONS

http://www.whale.to/vaccine/sf1.html

Don Cameron

leavingwt

My employer will have the vaccine for us next week.

t33ap80c

Here are some more thoughts about the Spanish Flu of 1918.. "The Spa nish flu of 1918 didn’t cross Greece border"

"20,000,000 died of that flu epidemic, worldwide, and it seemed to be almost
universal or as far away as the vaccinations reached. Greece and a few
other countries which did not accept the vaccines were the only ones which
were not hit by the flu. Doesn’t that prove something?"

See http://www.godlikeproductions.com/forum1/message852138/pg1

Don

JWoods

I believe I saw a doctor on the news (Rosenfeld IIRC) who quoted statistics:

Only 13% of people who had the H1N1 vaccine got a mild form of the this flu, and not a one of them died from it.

A doctor in my local Ferrari club told me last week that he thought having the ordinary vaccine might be of some limited value in making the H1N1 a little less severe.

LongHairGal

I have never had a flu shot in my life and don't know what to think about this latest one. I think I'll pass.

daniel-p

The CDC's basis for encouraging H1N1 vaccines for pregnant women is a report (available on their own website) of three pregnant women who presented with moderate flu symptoms, with one later dying.

So yeah, not much evidence, much less statistically valid evidence backing the hysteria.

Fact: There is no concesus in the medical community over the efficacy of the regular flu vaccine. In fact, most recent research supports the conclusion that the flu vaccine does not reduce mortality rates. Older research is littered with false causal claims, confusing correlation with causation, and inference based on non-statistically valid samples. Also, only healthy people will produce antibodies to the virus (what the vaccine is meant to do), and unhealthy people (with weakened immune systems) don't produce the antibodies. In order words, it doesn't work for people who need it.

Fact: Vaccines eventually render a population more susceptable to mutating viruses. The better approach, ecologically, is to let a virus run its course throughout a given population to build natural immunity. But of course, such a policy is untenable, since it would mean humans would have to accept evolutionary processes.

Here are some legitimate critiques:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/02/health/02flu.html?partner=rssnyt&emc=rss

http://stanford.wellsphere.com/general-medicine-article/new-studies-confirm-the-flu-shot-still-doesn-t-work/543199

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

daniel-p

Here's an interesting tidbit from The Atlantic article:

Such side effects might be worth risking if the antivirals prevented serious complications of flu, such as pneumonia, hospitalization, and death. Roche Laboratories, the company licensed to manufacture and market Tamiflu, says its drug does just that. In two September2006 press releases, the company announced, “Tamiflu significantly reduces the risk of death from influenza: New data shows treatment was associated with more than a two third reduction in deaths,” and “Children with influenza [are] 53 percent less likely to contract pneumonia when treated with Tamiflu.” Once again cohort studies (the same kind of potentially biased research that led to the conclusion that flu vaccine cuts mortality by 50 percent) are behind these claims. Tamiflu costs $10 a pill. It is possible that people who take it are more likely to be insured and affluent, or at least middle-class, than those who do not, and a large body of evidence shows that the well-off nearly always fare better than the poor when stricken with an infectious disease, including flu. In both 2003 and 2009, reviews of randomized placebo-controlled studies found that the study populations simply weren’t large enough to answer the question: Does Tamiflu prevent pneumonia?
As late as this August, the company’s own Web site contained the following statement, which was written under the direction of the FDA: “Tamiflu has not been proven to have a positive impact on the potential consequences (such as hospitalizations, mortality, or economic impact) of seasonal, avian, or pandemic influenza.” An FDA spokesperson said recently that the agency is unaware of any data submitted by Roche that would support the claims in the company’s September 2006 news release about the drug’s reducing flu deaths.

Perhaps we should not be so eager to accept falsely-reassuring claims when we first hear them.

JWoods

I personally no longer take flu shots (our company even offers them to employees for free) - simply because back when I used to take them I almost always got some kind of flu anyway.

Swine Flu Shot Is Good? Maybe Not

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