Swine Flu Vaccine

melancholly

patchwork_cat wrote: »

Who is this section directed at? If you are talking about qualifications on this board then you are making assumptions and if about me, for one, they are incorrect. Never make assumptions about qualifications on people you do not know.

This highlights something that I often feel on forums and is highlighted at the top by Martin. Everyone can comment on a forum without anything to back it up, so always do your own research first and come to your own conclusions. I always look at vaccinations on their own merits and like someone else commented this is like the MMR debate. Do not wildly assume that because the government supports it it is a good thing.

The government looks at the bigger picture with all vaccinations. Vaccinations have risks and they vary from one vaccination to another as to the severity and from one person to another. If the ultimate side effect,death, is rare and the reduction of morbidity is great then the govt. will support the vaccination, but if you are the one that dies it is a very high price to pay. Incidentally I am not suggesting that this swine flu vaccination will result in any deaths. I also doubt that we will see the rates of Guillain Barre that the US did in the '70's, although they are watching for this side effect, the vaccine is different to the '76 one.

I for one am not for or against this vaccination, the jury is still out! Personally unless the virus mutates into a worse strain then I doubt I will advise my family to vaccinate, however that might be different answer if we had serious underlying health conditions. I have been approached for advice by my SIL and advised her to talk through her concerns with her GP, personally I would not have had my niece vaccinated atm( with her asthma)if she was mine, but it is not my call.

not everything is about you! in general, these discussions are influenced by the media, where science correspondents often have no science experience. feel free to feel personally attacked (which i certainly didn't intend, despite what i think about your opinion of government health provision and its motivation), but my points stand - most people discussing this are not capable of understanding the science (myself included - i at least know enough about immunology to know my limit!) and the massive mistrust in qualfiied scientists makes it impossible to convince some people of anything.

that mmr hoax (and btw, for that i blame the media and not the scientists btw - they publish a single result, the media turned it into a massive story without properly reporting the consensus of opinion) has a lot to answer for!

WestonDave

500 cases and 25 deaths from GB syndrome in 1976 sounds a lot, but its in the context of 24% of the US population being vaccinated. If you transpose the rates over to the UK, if every man, woman and child in the UK were vaccinated and the rates of effect were the same as 1976, we would expect 20 cases and possibly one death. If as being stated the current virus is less likely to cause GB effects, then the risk is almost non existant. Clearly we don't know what the current vaccine will do entirely but it is based on the regular annual flu vaccine, tailored as it always is for the particular strain of flu prevalent at the time.

patchwork_cat

melancholly wrote: »

not everything is about you! in general, these discussions are influenced by the media, where science correspondents often have no science experience. feel free to feel personally attacked (which i certainly didn't intend, despite what i think about your opinion of government health provision and its motivation), but my points stand - most people discussing this are not capable of understanding the science (myself included - i at least know enough about immunology to know my limit!) and the massive mistrust in qualfiied scientists makes it impossible to convince some people of anything.

that mmr hoax (and btw, for that i blame the media and not the scientists btw - they publish a single result, the media turned it into a massive story without properly reporting the consensus of opinion) has a lot to answer for!

Not feeling personally attacked, just pointing out don't assume anything, as your assumption may well be flawed. You are still making assumptions that most people discussing this are not capable of understanding the science, how do you know? Just because you don't understand it do not assume the same of others.

The government have a differnet set of criteria for making a descion to an individual. Do you trust everything they say without question? Remember Thaolidamide? Even Dr's believed it was safe - ( my mum and dad both Dr's had my mum take Thalodamide briefly whilst pregnant with my brother)

Just for clarification I am not against the swine flu jab, as I say the jury is out in our particular circumstances, if we were severly immunocompromised then my descion would be different, I would have it.

Katie-Kat-Kins

Having watched a relative struggle with complications of flu in intensive care a few years ago I would do anything to prevent someone I love going through that.

A vaccine seems worthwhile.

Further we must remember the the quicker this virus is stopped in its tracks the less chance there is of it mutating. There are already tamiflu resistant strains about - beware!

melancholly

patchwork_cat wrote: »

Not feeling personally attacked, just pointing out don't assume anything, as your assumption may well be flawed. You are still making assumptions that most people discussing this are not capable of understanding the science, how do you know? Just because you don't understand it do not assume the same of others.

The government have a differnet set of criteria for making a descion to an individual. Do you trust everything they say without question? Remember Thaolidamide? Even Dr's believed it was safe - ( my mum and dad both Dr's had my mum take Thalodamide briefly whilst pregnant with my brother)

Just for clarification I am not against the swine flu jab, as I say the jury is out in our particular circumstances, if we were severly immunocompromised then my descion would be different, I would have it.

i certainly trust the committee of people from doctors and nurses to journalists and epidemiologists and scientists who approved the vaccine over anyone posting on an anonymous forum. anyone who thinks they know better than them is, in my opinion, ignorant of the processes that go on to approve drugs in the uk today.

giantmutantbroccoli

As far as I know there is no advantage to catching diseases "naturally" over getting vaccinated against them. If it were more dangerous to get the vaccine than it is to get the disease there would be no need for vaccines, and the government could save a tonne of money!

Also, wikipedia is not an unbiased source. If you go to an article page and want to see what people think of it, click the "discussion" button on the top of the page. There you'll see all the many arguments/discussions people who contribute are currently having about the article. I mentioned that because the talk page for the 1976 flu outbreak has several people suggesting that the source for the numbers of people who caught GBS is not necessarily accurate.

@melancholly - Lol, diplomacy! I think I agree with the gist of what you're saying, though. There is a general air of mistrust where science is concerned, and a heck of a lot of people who think that their opinions should carry as much weight as actual experimental results. Part of it is that it's hard to recognise a good source versus a bad source of scientific information if you're not a scientist. If you do a science degree you spend a fair bit of your time learning how to spot good and bad sources, but not everyone gets taught that.

My personal opinion is that the arguments I've seen so far that are against the vaccine are bad science. As far as I know, no one has pointed out a good source of evidence that suggests the vaccine is unsafe.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

48 hours - and I'm still here... my legs ached more than usual on the way home from the shops, and I felt a bit weedy. But I'm alright.

Unlike bloke on the train today. He was pure grey, waxy and sweating. Hope he's alright, but nobody was going to get too near to him. He looked like the archetypal plague carrier in movies.

Whatever he has, I certainly don't want it.