H1N1 "Pandemic"

[wyly]

And the risk and death rate from this swine flu h1n1 is extremely low when you look at overall flu statistics and deaths. Canada has had under 100 deatsh related to it. Regular flu takes care of that amount of people almost every hour. So really why are people all in a panic?

100 per hour? lets see what my calculator says... 24 x 365x100=876,000...so you're claiming 876,000 Canadians die from seasonal flu every year?

according to an article in today's Calgary Herald last year Alberta recorded 17 deaths from all seasonal flu varieties, H1N1 has already killed 12 here and the flu season has just begun...

Edited October 29, 2009 by wyly

[wyly]

High risk groups should not be first in line?

that's what not what we're seeing here, it's first come, first served....it's stupid...take care of kids, pregnant women, those with medical conditions first(plus medical personel)...then the rest of us...

[bush_cheney2004]

..... I'm wondering what other strategy she was considering. Go to the grocery store, get infected by someone else who was maybe too stupid to get immunized when they should have been or doesn't care about infecting others and then take the disease home to her kid? Jeez.

This doesn't make any sense. How are all Canadians suppose to get immunized as a step function given supply, access, and rationing?

You can still transmit the virus even when vaccinated.

[wyly]

This doesn't make any sense. How are all Canadians suppose to get immunized as a step function given supply, access, and rationing?

You can still transmit the virus even when vaccinated.

there are different stages of illness and different levels of infectiousness...a person is vaccinated could spread the illness but much much less then someone who is actually ill spewing out millions of viruses everywhere...

[bush_cheney2004]

there are different stages of illness and different levels of infectiousness...a person is vaccinated could spread the illness but much much less then someone who is actually ill spewing out millions of viruses everywhere...

Infection is infection......why keep spouting this nonsense about H1N1 Kryptonite?

[GostHacked]

100 per hour? lets see what my calculator says... 24 x 365x100=876,000...so you're claiming 876,000 Canadians die from seasonal flu every year?

I should be more specific. I'll say 100/hour worldwide. Generalizations are always hijacked to mean and say something that was never the intention in the first place.

according to an article in today's Calgary Herald last year Alberta recorded 17 deaths from all seasonal flu varieties, H1N1 has already killed 12 here and the flu season has just begun...

When N1H1 starts killing on the scale of regular flu then we might call it a pandemic. Regular flu kills way more people than Swine Flu/Bird Flu/West Nile Virus combined, so why is not regular flu considered a pandemic every single year?

[wyly]

I should be more specific. I'll say 100/hour worldwide. Generalizations are always hijacked to mean and say something that was never the intention in the first place.

I didn't hijack anything, you posted in relation to Canada's death rate...

When N1H1 starts killing on the scale of regular flu then we might call it a pandemic. Regular flu kills way more people than Swine Flu/Bird Flu/West Nile Virus combined, so why is not regular flu considered a pandemic every single year?

medical definition of Pandemic....Pandemic: An epidemic (a sudden outbreak) that becomes very widespread and affects a whole region, a continent, or the world.pandemic does not indicate the severity of the illness just how widespread it is...

I guess it's a pandemic after all...

and as I posted earlier but of course you never bothered to inform yourself with the link to the CDC....of 11 identified pediatric flu deaths in the USA, 9 were H1N1-2 were Influenza-A(no influenza B's or C's) so that's a confirmed death toll 4 times all seasonal flu varieties combined...

seasonal flus are not pandemic because there are many varities, a Influenza B could strike one region or country and not another where Influenza A or C is at work or a combination of the three...plus each type has sub types, the entire world does not get overwhelmed by the same variety of seasonal flu..as well we all to varying degrees have some resistance to Influenza A, B and C and whatever mutation they may take...H1N1 is hitting everywhere which makes it Pandemic......

[bush_cheney2004]

....and as I posted earlier but of course you never bothered to inform yourself with the link to the CDC....of 11 identified pediatric flu deaths in the USA, 9 were H1N1-2 were Influenza-A(no influenza B's or C's) so that's a confirmed death toll 4 times all seasonal flu varieties combined...

Very small sample not applicable to Canada.

[fellowtraveller]

Almost 30% absenteeism today at my spouses elementary school, up from about 5 % a week ago.

Nobody knows if it is H1N1, takes a few days to confirm the strain.

[Dave_ON]

Interesting article on the CBC. I think it demonstrates the obfuscation that is occuring in the media. Yes it's pandemic, but that only means it's widespread. That doesn't mean it's the end of the world and society as we know it.

Worst case

The theory of vaccines is that they are like a firebreak to a forest fire: If enough people are immunized, a virus doesn't get to pick up the head of steam it needs to do its worst.

Proponents say that we need mass vaccination now because, even though this particular strain might not be so terrible, if it mutates into something more potent then at least large numbers of Canadians will have acquired some protection.

But Dr. Wright says that even considering a worst-case scenario, using that as the rationale for vaccination now makes no sense since this current vaccine probably wouldn't work against a future strain in any event.

He says the world's seen H1N1 play out in Australia, Argentina, and New Zealand and that it's clear the swine flu isn't that bad.

"We're giving the vaccine for something that isn't that severe and we don't know if it is effective. That's the story."

Dr. Alison McGeer, the head of infection control at Mount Sinai Hospital in Toronto, agrees about the flu not being that bad.

As a frontline health worker who expects to be regularly exposed to the virus, she's getting vaccinated. But she's not overly concerned if most Canadians decide not to go for it.

"In a worst-case scenario," she says, "if we didn't have the (H1N1) vaccine our ICUs would be stressed, we'd have to cancel surgeries because our systems would be overloaded, there'd be stress on family doctors but we'd get through it.

"Australia got through its first wave and there's no reason to think it would be much different here."

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2009/10/28/...ion-debate.html

As I have maintained, it's just the flu with media hype.

[wyly]

Almost 30% absenteeism today at my spouses elementary school, up from about 5 % a week ago.

Nobody knows if it is H1N1, takes a few days to confirm the strain.

last summer identification of the virus was stopped in some regions as a waste of resources because it was nearly all coming back H1N1...there's not much point to identifying it now unless you're very ill or dead...so chances are good if a school has been hit with an epidemic now it's a good assumption that it's H1N1...

[segnosaur]

Almost 30% absenteeism today at my spouses elementary school, up from about 5 % a week ago.

Your spouse is in elementary school? Cradle robber!

Wouldn't happen to be Roman Polanski Public School, would it?

(Ok, sorry for the bad joke...)

[Wilber]

Infection is infection......why keep spouting this nonsense about H1N1 Kryptonite?

So you are saying that a person next to you who is immune because they have been vaccinated is just as likely to infect you as the sick person next to you spewing the virus all over the place.

[segnosaur]

Interesting article on the CBC. I think it demonstrates the obfuscation that is occuring in the media. Yes it's pandemic, but that only means it's widespread. That doesn't mean it's the end of the world and society as we know it.

Proponents say that we need mass vaccination now because, even though this particular strain might not be so terrible, if it mutates into something more potent then at least large numbers of Canadians will have acquired some protection.

But Dr. Wright says that even considering a worst-case scenario, using that as the rationale for vaccination now makes no sense since this current vaccine probably wouldn't work against a future strain in any event.

Not to say that there isn't a certain amount of panic. However, I am curious about who this Dr. Wright is.... Some of the stuff he's saying seems a little, well, strange. (He seems to be insinuating that they don't ever do double-blind studies regarding effectiveness, which is untrue.) Maybe I'm misunderstanding the point he was trying to make.

He says the world's seen H1N1 play out in Australia, Argentina, and New Zealand and that it's clear the swine flu isn't that bad.

"We're giving the vaccine for something that isn't that severe and we don't know if it is effective. That's the story."

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2009/10/28/...ion-debate.html

There's a lot we can tell about the upcoming H1N1 pandemic (and, especially what will happen in an unvaaccinated population) from what's happened in places like Australia. But, its not a perfect model.

The H1N1 strain emerged relatively recently, and didn't start to spread until fairly close to the start of the flu season in Australia. Plus, given the geographic distance and relative isolation of Australia from the source, it may not have spread as quickly as it might otherwise.

But then, that is just a guess.

[Bryan]

Not to say that there isn't a certain amount of panic. However, I am curious about who this Dr. Wright is.... Some of the stuff he's saying seems a little, well, strange. (He seems to be insinuating that they don't ever do double-blind studies regarding effectiveness, which is untrue.) Maybe I'm misunderstanding the point he was trying to make.

It's not the first time I've seen that claim made. I've read several sources that have claimed outright that no randomized placebo controlled double blind studies have ever been done on flu vaccines. They made a point of emphasizing "ever".

I've seen health officials claim the opposite, but what's curious to me is is the studies they link to are very short term, small sample size, and not randomized placebo controlled double blind. The kinds of studies that are usually dismissed as irrelevant when a supplement maker or "natural heath remedy" type of outfit is using it to bolster their claims.

[segnosaur]

It's not the first time I've seen that claim made. I've read several sources that have claimed outright that no randomized placebo controlled double blind studies have ever been done on flu vaccines. They made a point of emphasizing "ever".

And, of course, they're wrong. It is true that its impractical to do a full double-blind study regarding overall ability to stop infections before distribution to the public. (They are tested that way for side effects however, and for their ability to create antibodies in the body.)

However, there have been plenty of proper double blind studies done after various flu vaccines are released to the public in previous years. (And that track record gives me confidence that the current H1N1 vaccine will have similar success.)

I've seen health officials claim the opposite, but what's curious to me is is the studies they link to are very short term, small sample size, and not randomized placebo controlled double blind. The kinds of studies that are usually dismissed as irrelevant when a supplement maker or "natural heath remedy" type of outfit is using it to bolster their claims.

Well, here's one: http://nejm.highwire.org/cgi/content/abstract/333/14/889

we recruited working adults from 18 to 64 years of age from in and around the Minneapolis–St. Paul area and randomly assigned them to receive either influenza vaccine or placebo injections..We enrolled a total of 849 subjects...those who received the vaccine reported 25 percent fewer episodes of upper respiratory illness than those who received the placebo

Is 849 a large enough group?

[Wilber]

It's not the first time I've seen that claim made. I've read several sources that have claimed outright that no randomized placebo controlled double blind studies have ever been done on flu vaccines. They made a point of emphasizing "ever".

I've seen health officials claim the opposite, but what's curious to me is is the studies they link to are very short term, small sample size, and not randomized placebo controlled double blind. The kinds of studies that are usually dismissed as irrelevant when a supplement maker or "natural heath remedy" type of outfit is using it to bolster their claims.

My question is how do you do such studies when a flu vaccine has such a short effective life? By the time you finished the study on this years vaccine, it would be out of date and you would need the vaccine for next years batch of viruses. It's a bit of a crap shoot. If they guess wrong about what strains are going to be the biggest threat in a flu season, we wind up with a vaccine that can be much less effective. As the strains are always changing and a one size fits all vaccine doesn't seem possible, I don't see how you get around that.

[Bryan]

Well, here's one: http://nejm.highwire.org/cgi/content/abstract/333/14/889

Is 849 a large enough group?

It's still pretty small, but fact that the abstract clearly does state the study was randomized, double-blind, and placebo-controlled, certainly refutes the "ever" claims. Makes one wonder why people like Dr. Wright who is a professor of pharmacology claim the opposite. If anyone would know what is and is not legit, he would. I could see why he would not be moved by one small study 15 years ago (when the flu vaccine is based on a new strain each year), but that doesn't explain why he'd claim "never". Perhaps what he actually meant got garbled by the reporter?

[Bryan]

My question is how do you do such studies when a flu vaccine has such a short effective life? By the time you finished the study on this years vaccine, it would be out of date and you would need the vaccine for next years batch of viruses. It's a bit of a crap shoot. If they guess wrong about what strains are going to be the biggest threat in a flu season, we wind up with a vaccine that can be much less effective. As the strains are always changing and a one size fits all vaccine doesn't seem possible, I don't see how you get around that.

From the other articles I've read, that appears to be the point they are actually trying to make. Not that they have any knowledge that the flu vaccine is bad, rather that it's impossible to have the kind of certainty that public health officials are telling us that they have.

[bush_cheney2004]

So you are saying that a person next to you who is immune because they have been vaccinated is just as likely to infect you as the sick person next to you spewing the virus all over the place.

No, I am saying that the immunized person can transmit the virus in several direct and indirect ways, without any dramatic (and laughable) "spewing" of virus at all. Furthermore, an immunized person may take fewer precautions when it comes to hygiene, and be more likely to spread the virus indirectly.

Edited October 30, 2009 by bush_cheney2004

[segnosaur]

It's still pretty small, but fact that the abstract clearly does state the study was randomized, double-blind, and placebo-controlled, certainly refutes the "ever" claims.

Well, keep in mind that this was only one study. Give me a couple of minutes and I can probably find a bunch more.

Here's another study with over 4000 people (also double-blind/placebo)

http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=A...300bc050da5d011

Here's another one with over 1000 elderly people (also double-blind/placebo)

http://jama.ama-assn.org/cgi/content/abstract/272/21/1661

Makes one wonder why people like Dr. Wright who is a professor of pharmacology claim the opposite. If anyone would know what is and is not legit, he would. I could see why he would not be moved by one small study 15 years ago (when the flu vaccine is based on a new strain each year), but that doesn't explain why he'd claim "never". Perhaps what he actually meant got garbled by the reporter?

When I saw that article, I did some research. There are a lot of 'quack' doctors who's qualifications are rather suspect that are making a lot of false claims. But Wright seems to be a legitimate doctor/researcher.

I also found a letter that he had co-written which made pretty much the same claims though. If the letter is legitimate, looks like that is his opinion (that there are 'no studies')

[segnosaur]

No, I am saying that the immunized person can transmit the virus in several direct and indirect ways, without any dramatic (and laughable) "spewing" of virus at all. Furthermore, an immunized person may take fewer precautions when it comes to hygiene, and be more likely to spread the virus indirectly.

There are only 3 situations when an immunized person may transmit the virus...

- If the individual did not build up the required antibodies (happens in perhaps 5% of cases) and gets infected 'naturally'

- If the individual catches the flu immediately after vaccination (it takes a week or 2 for antibodies to build up to allow immunity) and gets infected 'naturally'

- If the individual 'catches' a strain of flu that's not contained in the vaccine

In each of these cases, the individual will be no worse off than if they didn't have the vaccine.

The chance of actually passing on the flu via the shot is zero. The virus in the vaccine is dead. It cannot be passed on.

And once immunity is built up (via the vaccine) that person cannot catch or pass on that strain of flu, regardless of exposure.

[bush_cheney2004]

.....And once immunity is built up (via the vaccine) that person cannot catch or pass on that strain of flu, regardless of exposure.

This is false, as the immunized person can transmit the virus by indirect methods.

Also, viruses are never "alive" in the truest sense of the word.

This pandemic (H1N1) 2009 influenza virus is thought to be spread from person to person in the same way as seasonal influenza where transmission occurs predominantly through coughing or sneezing. Indirect transmission can also occur through self-inoculation after contact with surfaces and objects contaminated with the virus from infected persons.

http://www.phac-aspc.gc.ca/alert-alerte/h1...s/psili-eng.php

[Bryan]

When I saw that article, I did some research. There are a lot of 'quack' doctors who's qualifications are rather suspect that are making a lot of false claims. But Wright seems to be a legitimate doctor/researcher.

I also found a letter that he had co-written which made pretty much the same claims though. If the letter is legitimate, looks like that is his opinion (that there are 'no studies')

Like I said, he's not the only one I've seen with what appear to be legitimate credentials making similar claims. I'd really like to see more insight as to what they're getting at. My only guess is that they are referring to something more specific than "all flu vaccines". Perhaps it's H1N1 specifically they are referring to, or maybe even adjuvanted vs not?

[segnosaur]

This is false, as the immunized person can transmit the virus by indirect methods.

Let me get this straight...

Are you suggesting that you can have an immunized person touch a surface containing a virus, then touch another surface, leaving the virus there to be picked up by someone (without ever getting sick themselves)?

Also, viruses are never "alive" in the truest sense of the word.

True, but a virus (well, one that can infect people) is never actually dead either. I doubt you'd find many biologists who wouldn't say that a virus is 'live' though.

If you really want to split hairs, I could say "the vaccine used in influenza vaccinations has been deactivated to a point where it can no longer infect a host".