Swine-Flu Vaccine: 11 Things You Need to Know

Why many people may need two shots, and other essential information.

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By Anne Underwood | Newsweek Web Exclusive

Sep 3, 2009

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Federal officials are planning for an H1N1 swine-flu pandemic that could infect 30 to 50 percent of the population this flu season, with the first cases possibly beginning this month. A vaccine will be crucial for protecting people ... when it's ready. But will it be too late? Who should get the shot? And how safe and effective will it be?

Fortunately, the new H1N1 virus has been mild so far. Though it has infected a million Americans, only 556 deaths have been reported to date, versus 36,000 a year for the normal seasonal flu. But H1N1 also arrived very late in the last flu season and did not spread through the whole country. This year the vulnerable population will be much larger. The CDC produced a video last year called Why Flu Vaccination Matters. It features interviews with parents who have lost healthy children to the seasonal flu. Officials plan to update it this year with information on swine flu.

NEWSWEEK's Anne Underwood recently attended a two-day workshop on swine flu, including panels on vaccine preparedness and safety, at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. She answers important questions about the vaccine.

I'm a healthy adult. Do I need to be vaccinated?
Federal officials do not want to discourage anyone from getting the shot. But the CDC is only specifically recommending vaccinations for people at high risk for complications. "More than half the U.S. population is in these risks groups," says Dr. Anne Schuchat, director of CDC's National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases (NCIRD). The groups are:

1) Health-care and emergency workers
2) Pregnant women
3) Children and young adults, from 6 months to 24 years of age
4) Parents and caretakers of babies under 6 months old (since infants under 6 months have a poor vaccine response, the best defense is having parents who are flu-free)
5) Adults ages 25 to 64 who have underlying medical conditions, including diabetes, asthma, and chronic lung disease or heart disease

So the answer to the question is generally no. As a healthy adult with no underlying conditions, you do not need a shot. But according to Schuchat, "Most adults don't think of themselves as having risk factors, even when they do. They feel fine, they go to work." If you have diabetes, consider getting a shot. If you have asthma, consider the shot.

When will the vaccine be available?
The government has ordered 195 million doses of vaccine, 45 million of which will be delivered by mid-October. But because most people lack prior immunity to the new H1N1 virus, officials expect that two injections will probably be necessary, spaced three weeks apart. Clinical trials are currently underway to confirm whether two shots are actually needed and to determine the optimal dose. Re-sults from those trials will be available in late September or early October. But even after receiving the vaccine, a person will take at least five weeks to develop full immunity. (Preliminary reports from some drugmakers suggest that there may be swine-flu vaccines that work with just a single shot, but it's unclear how that would af-fect the global vaccine supply; the World Health Organization has yet to review the data.)

So even if I get the shots right away, I won't have proper immunity until December. Isn't the swine-flu season supposed to peak in October?
Officials don't know how the swine flu will behave this year. "The only thing that's certain is uncertainty," says Dr. Thomas Frieden, director of the CDC. Officials suspect that the flu season will strike early this year because—in contrast to seasonal flu—H1N1 continued circulating in the United States during the summer. The fact that school is coming back into session will likely fuel the spread. But it's common for flu to continue infecting people through March or April.

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Posted By: lacklenj @ 11/02/2009 10:57:50 AM

The Washington Post article below certifies that experimental adjuvants, or boosters, are being used in the H1N1 flu shot.

This can only be done if a national health emergency is declared, and President Obama declared such an emergency on Oct 23. This allows the use of experimental substances on the public, something the administration explanation of the effect of the emergency declaration failed to mention.

Yet, the administration and medical talking heads on TV have assured us this flu shot is made "just like past flu shots" that caused no problems. Somehow they missed the story that illegal substances are in some of the current flu shots that were not in previous such shots with the possible exception of 1976.

The FDA has never approved adjuvant MF59, yet it is in the Novartis vaccine. It is no more safe than it was on Oct 22, but on Oct 23 it became legal. How could the media have been totally bamboozled on this story?

From the WaPo:

"Independent experts to study safety data on H1N1 vaccine

By Rob Stein
Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, November 2, 2009

An independent panel of experts will meet Monday to review the safety of the swine flu vaccine as part of the government's efforts to monitor the unprecedented immunization campaign.

The National Vaccine Advisory Committee's H1N1 Vaccine Safety Working Group will review the results of data being collected by the government to detect any problems with the vaccine as soon as possible.

According to a summary of data the panel will review, about 10,352 people have received the injected vaccine and 501 have gotten the FluMist nasal spray in 13 studies funded by the Health and Human Services Department's Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority.

Of those who received the injections, 6,098 got standard vaccine while 4,254 received shots containing a substance known as an "adjuvant," which is designed to boost the effectiveness but is not being used widely. That included 5,776 adults and 4,576 children..."
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Posted By: poet108 @ 09/12/2009 10:36:30 AM

Flu drugs inappropriate for healthy adults: study
Aug 22, 2009
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The flu drugs Tamiflu and Relenza may not be worthwhile to treat seasonal influenza in healthy adults, British researchers reported on Friday.
"Recommending the use of antiviral drugs for the treatment of people presenting with symptoms is unlikely to be the most appropriate course of action," wrote Jane Burch of the University of York and colleagues.
Their study, published in the Lancet Infectious Diseases, supports an advisory from the World Health Organization that says healthy patients who get H1N1 swine flu without suffering complications do not need to be treated with antivirals.
Tamiflu, made by Switzerland's Roche under license from Gilead Sciences Inc., is a pill that can both treat and prevent influenza A viruses of all kinds. Zanamivir, made by GlaxoSmithKline under license from Australia's Biota and sold under the brand name Relenza, is an inhaled drug in the same class.
WHO strongly recommends both drugs for pregnant women, patients with underlying medical conditions and children under 5, as they are at increased risk of more severe illness.
Burch's team reviewed many different published studies on Tamiflu and Relenza. "We present the results for healthy adults and people at-risk of influenza-related complications," they wrote.
Both drugs shaved about half a day, on average, off the time patients were ill, they found. Influenza usually affects people for about a week.
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Posted By: poet108 @ 09/12/2009 10:35:52 AM

Industry Versus Independent Research Findings -- Who are You Going to Believe?
Dr. Blaylock reports that the human test studies that claimed the vaccine safe were all done by the pharmaceutical companies.
However, a great number of the studies done by independent research facilities all found a strong link between squalene or MF-59 (which contains squalene) and autoimmune diseases.
Dr. Blaylock warns,
???Studies of other immune adjuvants using careful tracer techniques have shown that they routinely enter your brain following vaccination.
What most people do not know, even the doctors who recommend the vaccines, is that most such studies by pharmaceutical companies observe the patients for only one to two weeks following vaccination???these types of reactions may take months or even years to manifest.???
If you were to develop an autoimmune disease years down the line, how would you ever be able to prove that your disease originated in a needle?
And worse, even if you could prove it, it wouldn???t do you any good, because vaccine manufacturers have cleverly manipulated government into granting them immunity against lawsuits, should any harm be caused by this experimental vaccine.

Why You Should Avoid Other Anti-Virals as Well
British researchers recently warned that the antiviral medication Tamiflu is ???inappropriate for healthy adults.???
"Recommending the use of antiviral drugs for the treatment of people presenting with [flu] symptoms is unlikely to be the most appropriate course of action," they concluded.
The study, published in the Lancet Infectious Diseases, recommends that healthy people who get the swine flu should NOT be treated with antivirals like Tamiflu or Relenza, unless they suffer complications from the flu.
Based on their findings, either drug will reduce your illness by about HALF A DAY.
For people with health conditions like diabetes or asthma, Relenza was able to cut sickness by just under one full day, and Tamiflu by three-quarters of a day, on average.