The Swine Flu vaccine has arrived, a little food for thought following my monthly news letter for the Arnica Group, worth a read if you are considering vacinating yourself or your family….
At the Kingston NHS AGM they assured the audience that it is safe to inject both the SW and the seasonal flu vaccine at the same time (as long as they are in different arms) even though the seasonal flu is being suspended in Canada, see below.
Here is a great little video to send to your friends on vaccines generally and the swine flu vaccine
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jw43QDiaDnE
What is happening in the rest of the world? Are all governments promoting this vaccine? How are the Drs reacting?
With Caution..
Poland’s Prime Minister Donald Tusk on Friday slammed drug companies selling swine flu vaccines for allegedly refusing to take legal responsibility for any of their possible side effects. And Polish Health Ministry rejects Swine Flu vaccine
www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhZesZe33cw
Italian family physicians refuse to prescribe the A/H1N1 vaccine for their patients, claiming that the risks of the vaccine outweigh its benefits. Italian media outlets claimed that many of the 48 million doses of the A/H1N1 vaccine ordered would be useless as the majority of Italians including the Deputy Health Minister Ferruccio Fazio and the Mayor of Rome Gianni Alemanno have decided against vaccination.
A nationwide CNN poll found that only 49 percent of those asked consider the H1N1 vaccine safe. Bob Sears, of Orange County, California, said: “What bothers me is pretty much every doctor in the country is jumping on the bandwagon and saying, ‘This vaccine is completely safe’ — even for the pregnant woman and the unborn baby, but they can’t give you a single study that backs up that statement.”
New York state health officials have suspended a ruling that would have forced health care workers across the state to get vaccinated against the swine flu by the end of November or risk losing their jobs, saying in a decision issued Thursday that they did so because the vaccine is in short supply. (I am sure that the mass rally of nurses and the legal challenge to the ruling played a part too!)
According to the French mainstream newspaper Le Monde, the number of people in France who are planning to take the swine flu jab has dropped dramatically in the last month, falling from 55% in the middle of September to just 17 % today. Link to article here (in French)
http://www.lemonde.fr/planete/article/2009/10/25/seuls-17-des-francais-envisageraient-le-vaccin-contre-la-grippe-h1n1_1258524_3244.html
Critics warned the vaccinations campaign could be a “million-euro flop” as many people might refuse to participate after learning they would receive a different shot than one being given to politicians, high-ranking government employees and soldiers…… Most Germans will be getting Pandemrix, a vaccine by GlaxoSmithKline PLC that contains an adjuvant, while Germany’s politicians, government employees and troops will get Celvapan, made by Baxter International without an adjuvant.
The Czech Health Ministry has explained it is stopping the talks with Baxter due to the firm’s inability to guarantee that the vaccine is safe and to confirm who will bear the risks for possible side-effects. “It is a pity, but, unfortunately when we accepted the bids, Baxter was unable to confirm that it will deliver a registered vaccine,”
Health Minister Dana Juraskova said.
Some Canadian provinces have suspended the ‘normal’ seasonal flu shots for anyone under 65 in response to a recent study there which suggests that people vaccinated against seasonal flu are actually twice as likely to catch swine flu.
With force.. Greece has become the latest country to announce it will enforce a mandatory swine flu vaccination program despite the fact that there have been no deaths whatsoever from swine flu in the Mediterranean country. “We decided that the entire population, all citizens and residents, without any exception, will be vaccinated against the flu,” Health Minister Dimitris Avramopoulos said after a ministerial meeting.
The US will be making the Swine Flu vaccine mandatory for its armed forces.
HEALTH NEWS - Underlying health issues among swine flu deaths
Pregnant Women NOT at Special Risk from Swine Flu -
Healthy non smokers are at such a low risk from flu complications!
As we shall see in
the American study, a significant number of these pregnant women with swine flu complications were either obese or morbidly obese and most had underlying medical problems (and insulin dependence). Smoking should also be considered as a factor in possible flu complications.