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H1N1 Flu Shot
I teach as many of you know. Our school district was able to get a very limited quantity of the vaccine for the most fragile students with compromised immune systems. This morning the shots were administered by the county health nurse (an RN). They had an extra shot available and I was given the chance at the shot since I have asthma and it is not unusual for me to experience respiratory issues in the winter months. I had been on the fence about getting the vaccine, but since the opportunity to get the shot at no cost I went ahead and took it.
Anyone else going to or has received the vaccine?
Anyone else going to or has received the vaccine?
Views: 63
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by BeeAsleep on
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I have asthma as well. My family doc told me to go in right away and get the shot, but when I called for an appt they had changed the requirements. Only pregnant women, small children and health care workers were being given the shot. So I will try again maybe later in the month.
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Permalink Reply by dave foster on
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I would like to get the shot, but since the vaccine is in such short supply, ill have to wait. it does seem a little ironic that the folks w the bad immune systems are being given the 1st shots. hell of a way to find out about safety/ efficacy. I would remind everyone that swine flu is not the only flu out there. if you can get the regular flu shot, i think you should. best advice: wash your hands frequently during the day, and don't touch your face, eyes, mouth or nose. this disrupts the viral pathway to you and your loved ones, its cheap and effective. and if you do get sick, STAY HOME.
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Permalink Reply by sleepycarol on
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I had the regular flu shot last month. So I should have both covered.
I know that my one granddaughter had the H1N1 flu last week. Many of the schools around here are having attendance in the low 80%. But they don't want to shut the school unless it get worse so they are encouraging kids to wash their hands and to use the hand sanitizers.
So far our school hasn't been hit, have had only a handful of cases. Hope it continues to miss us.
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Colorado has been hit pretty hard. My bosses' twin girls both had H1N1 and ended up in the hospital for a day. A co-workers day care was shut down and his daughter came down with the H1N1 flu the same day. It is pretty rampant....
I just make sure I eat right, get good sleep, wash my hands like Dave said, take my asthma medication and then I don't worry about it any more. Not everyone who is exposed is going to get sick.
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Permalink Reply by 99 on
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Guide to a good hand washing technique
• Always wet hands thoroughly under warm running water before applying soap
• Apply liquid soap and lather well, following the technique shown above for at least 30 seconds
• Make sure your hands are slippery all over, palms, back of hands and in-between fingers using the six’s steps outlined above
• Rinse well using warm or hot making sure water is running from your wrists down to your finger tips to rinse all the slippery off your palms, back of hand and also from in-between fingers using the six’s steps outlined above
• Dry hands thoroughly with disposable paper towels
• If the taps are not elbow-operated, use the paper towels to turn off the taps
• Do not use a nail brush at any time as they harbour more bacteria than was previously realised
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Permalink Reply by Saz RPSGT on
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I never pass on a chance to get stabbed with a needle. Plus our Employee Health Dept. was giving out candy!!!! CANDY!!!!
I'm one of those people who got the flu every year so bad that I actually hoped I would die. I haven't had the flu since I started working in healthcare 9 years ago...when I started getting the flu shot every year.
I can't wait to have that needle shoved into my deltoid. Once the H1N1 is available to us I'll get it too.
Especially if they're passing out more candy....
Saz
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Permalink Reply by susan mccord on
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LOL Candy-Man !!
McCord
Saz RPSGT said:I never pass on a chance to get stabbed with a needle. Plus our Employee Health Dept. was giving out candy!!!! CANDY!!!!
I'm one of those people who got the flu every year so bad that I actually hoped I would die. I haven't had the flu since I started working in healthcare 9 years ago...when I started getting the flu shot every year.
I can't wait to have that needle shoved into my deltoid. Once the H1N1 is available to us I'll get it too.
Especially if they're passing out more candy....
Saz
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I always get a flu shot--had mine in early October, maybe a week before that. My cardiologist is recommending that his heart patients get regular flu shots and not the other unless we have COPD.
There's not a regular flu shot to be had in Indy. My son took his two boys 12 and 17 to Sam's Club last Saturday and stood in line for 2/5 hours for 3 shots. My younger grandson (12) HAD swine flu a month or so ago--a LOT of kids in Indy are out of school with it. No schools have closed though.
None of my MDs have any and when they do, it's going primarily to small kids, healthcare workers, and serious respiratory patients. I'm not crazy about the way they've scared most of the population half to death, promised "plenty of vaccine wil be available", and now they can't seem to get it distributed. B.S., IMHO.....
Susan McCord
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I know that the vast majority won't have it so bad that it ends up killing them. It seems there is always the scare tactics to get people to comply. I think it has been hyped so much that to save face the government will continue the hype, but I have my doubts that it is any worse than any other flu.
Not so long ago, they were saying all the anti-bacterial items being used around the home and public areas that our immune systems were actually not as strong as generations past. I have gotten where I don't use as many anti-bacterial soaps, etc. here around the house.
Now they are telling us to use use use them. I think plain soap and water as 99 said are probably the best defense. Although if our school is hit harder, we will probably start a more extensive sanitizing routine.
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Permalink Reply by Martin on
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A lady who works for me has a child in a private school that offers small class sizes (less than 20 students), very good teachers, good discipline and a very nice facility.
In spite of flu shots given to many students, three weeks ago (the second week in October) the attendance rate was down to 80% and falling. So they took advantage of a teachers conference (day off for the student body) to sanitize the school with bleach and some other disinfectant.
I offered them an alternative which they saw as an opportunity to make a real difference.
Using vary low levels of chlorine dioxide gas (.003 to .01 PPM) and chlorine dioxide gas dissolved in water (50 to 200 PPM) which are both extremely effective at killing bacteria and viruses, they used the ClO2 dissolved in water to wipe down all the hard surfaces in the elementary school section and placed 4 small packets that produce small amounts of ClO2 gas for 20 to 30 days high on the walls of the 2 main hallways of the school.
The net result has been a turn around in the decline in attendance. After just 2 weeks the attendance rate is over 90% and climbing as the children who were off sick return to school and fewer students were becoming sick.
Contact me if you are interested in this type of flu prevention.
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bacterier hide in dust on ledges on top of doors
what martin describes i would imagine is a normal course of events about increase in attendance because they had the flu and are now returning
good nutrution and good hygene are important
Martin said:A lady who works for me has a child in a private school that offers small class sizes (less than 20 students), very good teachers, good discipline and a very nice facility.
In spite of flu shots given to many students, three weeks ago (the second week in October) the attendance rate was down to 80% and falling. So they took advantage of a teachers conference (day off for the student body) to sanitize the school with bleach and some other disinfectant.
I offered them an alternative which they saw as an opportunity to make a real difference.
Using vary low levels of chlorine dioxide gas (.003 to .01 PPM) and chlorine dioxide gas dissolved in water (50 to 200 PPM) which are both extremely effective at killing bacteria and viruses, they used the ClO2 dissolved in water to wipe down all the hard surfaces in the elementary school section and placed 4 small packets that produce small amounts of ClO2 gas for 20 to 30 days high on the walls of the 2 main hallways of the school.
The net result has been a turn around in the decline in attendance. After just 2 weeks the attendance rate is over 90% and climbing as the children who were off sick return to school and fewer students were becoming sick.
Contact me if you are interested in this type of flu prevention.
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Tom Nolan on what every doctor should know about the swine flu vaccine
30 Oct, 09 | by BMJ Group
The H1N1 vaccination programme is underway in the UK and many other countries across the globe. In Sweden a million people have already been vaccinated. One swine flu vaccine manufacturer, GlaxoSmithKline, expects to produce 440 million doses over the next few months. With newspapers, television and the internet raising doubts about the safety of the vaccine, many doctors will be consulted by anxious patients wanting to know whether the vaccine is safe and effective.Yesterday, the Department of Health published a briefing for health professionals which responds to many of these concerns. This blog draws from this document and other sources such as the WHO, European Medicines Agency and BMJ Learning to provide answers to common questions that the public have on the H1N1 vaccine in the hope that they will be of some use during consultations. The answers are not meant to be exhaustive and many readers will have more up-to-date and comprehensive answers. If so please write them below to help other readers get the best information.
Is the vaccine safe?How can the swine flu vaccine be safe if the vaccine was only created a couple of months ago and there haven’t been any large scale clinical trials yet?
The problem is that large scale trials take months to conduct and would therefore only be published after the pandemic is over. To get around this problem the European Medicines Agency (EMEA) approves pandemic vaccines under the so called “mock-up dossier route“. The WHO Director of the Initiative for Vaccine Research, Dr Marie Kieny, explained the process during a press conference last month.
“Adjuvanted vaccines have been tested extensively at the time when all manufacturers were preparing vaccines for a potential H5N1 pandemic. In view of the potential gravity of an H5N1 vaccine, the European Regulatory Agency had designed a special process by which manufacturers would test extensively in clinical trials, prototypes of H5N1 vaccines, including with adjuvants, which submit all the safety data of clinical trials to the regulatory agency and obtain what is called a “mock-up registration”. So this is a registration for a prototype.”
For example, the Baxter mock-up licence was granted after data from five trials involving over 1300 people. A small trial of the H1N1 vaccine was undertaken to determine the immune response to the vaccine, and further trials are under way to monitor side effects as the vaccination programme gets under way.
Does the vaccine cause autism?
Concerns centre on Thimerosal which is added to vaccines to prevent contamination and keep the vaccine sterile. It is present in the GSK vaccine but not the one made by Baxter (Celvapan). It extends the time window in which the vaccine can be used to 24 hours after the adjuvant has been added (compared to just three hours in the case of Celvapan). Thimerosal contains mercury and there have been concerns that it may cause neurodevelopmental disorders including autism. According to Professor David Salisbury, the Department of Health’s director of immunisation speaking on the BMJ Learning Pandemic Flu podcast, large studies have been done to investigate this link, including two in the UK, which have not shown any association between Thimerosal and neurodevelopmental disorders. In addition, he says, in the United States autism continued to increase when thimerosal was removed from vaccines there. The Commission on Health Medicines in the UK state that the “balance of risks and benefits of thiomersal-containing vaccines is overwhelmingly positive.”
Is it safe in pregnancy?
H1N1 influenza has a higher prevalence in pregnant women than in the general public - around four times more common according to a study in The Lancet, which also highlighted an apparently higher mortality amongst this group.
Information on the possible harms of the vaccine is again based on assumptions from mock-up viruses and other inactivated virus vaccines. However, the Department of Health’s Clinical Professionals Brief on Swine Flu Vaccination recommends the Pandemrix vaccine for pregnant women. They quote the summary of product characteristics on the EMEA website:
“There are currently no data available on the use of Pandemrix in pregnancy. Data from pregnant women vaccinated with different inactivated non-adjuvanted seasonal vaccines do not suggest malformations or fetal or neonatal toxicity. Animal studies with Pandemrix do not indicate reproductive toxicity.”
Does it cause Guillain-Barré syndrome?
The H1N1 pandemic vaccination programme in 1976 led to a surge of cases of Guillain-Barré syndrome. Could the same happen this time around?
Professor Salisbury, speaking on the BMJ Learning Pandemic Flu podcast says: “The seasonal vaccine protects against Guillain-Barré. The situation is that there has been no robust evidence since 1976 between seasonal H1N1 vaccine and Guillain-Barré. There is good evidence that influenza itself is a risk for Guillain-Barré and we have got in place many different strands of surveillance that if there were a risk we would pick it up as early as possible.”
That evidence comes from a self-controlled case series using cases from the UK GP research database from 1990 to 2005.
“The relative incidence of Guillain-Barré syndrome within 90 days of vaccination was 0.76 (95% confidence interval: 0.41, 1.40). In contrast, the relative incidence of Guillain-Barré syndrome within 90 days of an influenza-like illness was 7.35 (95% confidence interval: 4.36, 12.38), with the greatest relative incidence (16.64, 95% confidence interval: 9.37, 29.54) within 30 days.”
Is it effective?
According to the EMEA, both vaccines have been shown to be effective in producing antibodies in mock-up and H1N1 versions.
“In the 61 subjects who received the marketed formulation Pandemrix, the vaccine was shown after the first dose to trigger immunity to a satisfactory level. The percentage of subjects who have a level of antibodies in their blood that is high enough to neutralise the H1N1 virus (seroprotection rate) was 100%.”
However, a recent editorial in BMJ Clinical Evidence cast doubt over the true effectiveness of flu vaccines. During a normal season flu period only a small proportion (around 11%) of those with influenza-like illness actually have influenza. In a pandemic this proportion may be expected to be higher, perhaps making the vaccine more effective at reducing the incidence of influenza-like illness. The effect of vaccination on mortality during seasonal flu outbreaks is unclear. Estimates range from a 48% drop in mortality to under 5%.
The true effectiveness of the H1N1 vaccine won’t be known until long after the pandemic has passed. In the meantime it’s up to patients, with the help of medical professionals, to decide whether it’s worth taking
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