Children and teenagers have joined the volunteers testing a swine flu vaccine in our area – one of eight places around the country doing the test trials.One thousand adults are already being tested around the city. But now it’s time to see how kids react to the different doses.Fourteen-year-old Anna Bennett was one of those young people who took a shot to the arm in the fight to knock out the swine flu.She’s one of about 120 young people in the Seattle area – ages 6 months to 17 years old – who are part of a trial to test the new H1N1 vaccine.”It affects a lot of people, and I know that a lot of people have died, and tons of people are getting infected,” Anna says. “So it’s important to do the studies.”The vaccine itself is already being stockpiled for distribution around the nation, even though the Centers for Disease Control say it’s a month behind schedule making it.The testing focuses on the amount of the vaccine to give people. Experts say that’s why it’s important to have specific studies involving children and teenagers.
Found by Eric Anderson.
There is an excessive amount of media hype scaring people. I am not sure, who to fault, the media, or the many gullible people.
From what I can find, it seems the Mortality Rate of Novel H1N1 is ~5X that of the death rates of the seasonal flu. That is a 0.57% death rate for Novel H1N1 vs. 0.12 % for seasonal flu.
Given as JD noted, vaccine-makers are indemnified, why would anyone, allow their kid(s), to be used as a human guinea pig??
It’s hard for me to believe she really understands and has any perspective of what she is saying “”It affects a lot of people, and I know that a lot of people have died, and tons of people are getting infected,””
More young children life’s could be saved if Over-Exposure to Dihydrogen monoxide (“a potentially lethal chemical if not respected”) could be effectively regulated by the FDA.
Check out the comments on the KOMO website for the article, very interesting. Need to get all of them to listen to No Agenda.
Bobbo – just plain flushed: Shame right back at you. Yes, the virus does resemble the Spanish flu. So much so that conspiracists are having a field day. But one thing to remember is that even the nasty ole Spanish flu would not have the effects today it had in 1906. You don’t die of the flu, you die of secondary illnesses picked up while you are sick with the flu.
Today, we are better nourished (no McDs or KFC or Taco Bell back then) and still have access to health care. A jab of penicillin won’t help with the flu but it will certainly help with the secondary pneumonia.
So, if you have to indemnify the manufacturers against nosocomial sequellae in a bid to rush a vaccine to market before the disease itself has been proven to be any more severe than “ordinary” flu, then I say you are over reacting.
I believe they should approach this from another angle: start a massive campaign urging better hand washing hygiene and isolation at the first symptoms – i.e. stay home from school/ work. Here is SE Asia, everywhere you go, you run into dispensers of alcohol gel for your hands. And mask, though I think masks are not a good idea except that you wearing a mask protects me from you.
While a public health campaign is underway, proceed with proper and adequate testing of the vaccines. In fact, give the company that provides a safe vaccine with a bonus in the form of a high price or guaranteed sales. But do not indemnify them against making a dangerous vaccine.
My nephew in Iraq has it. Seven days off and a little under the weather.
I think the fear and panic is not related to what has happened in the current flu outbreaks, but what might happen as the flu spreads exponentially. The 1918 pandemic started small, crested, declined, and then exploded in a second wave–bodies literally piled up in the streets of New York and Philadelphia. Healthy young adults were dead within 48 hours of first noticing symptoms. (The virus had mutated into something more deadly than before.)
Few were concerned in the early stages and little effort was made to restrict its spread–there was a war to conduct and troops to move.
Today, with people even more mobile, controlling the spread of a contagious disease is nearly impossible.
#21
.57%???
1% of USA population would be 3,000,000.
1/2 of that(0.50%) would probably be about 1,500,000.
Good number.
As a few have noticed/noted. Its not the flu that will kill you, its the ADDED features. And there is better care, and more hospitals NOW then in 1906.
The main problems I see is the spread of the flu. HOW MANY low paid employees can take a day OFF.. How many understand that the FLU isnt INSTANTANEOUS.. You carry it about 2 weeks before it gets BAD. After the first 7-10 days you are infectious. WHO would let you take 14-20 days OFF work, and NOT fire you?
So those that aren’t worry, who’s up first! And remember, bring your family and friends along too! I want names listed below my post here so we can all track who’s in, and possibly who’s dying sometime later. Thanks!
1. Your Name Her ^^