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Swine Flu Vaccination + general swine flu chat thread

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13567…25

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    #62
    nesf
    Registered Users Posts: 27,645 ✭✭✭✭nesf


    kadman wrote: »
    If tamiflu is safe , why has Japan banned it for all teens. Does Ireland intend to use it for teenagers here.:confused:

    kadman

    What has that got to do with my post? :confused:


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    #63
    GuanYin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 15,552 ✭✭✭✭GuanYin


    The biggest problem with predicting the impact of outbreaks is that they're based on past, largely unrelated data.

    It's kinda like trying to predict the outcome of a game between two teams that last played in 1920 when all the players and staff were different. Reputation of the club will tell you something, but then professional training improvements and financing in sports have changed so drastically that the prediction is always going to center on best or worst case scenario rather than an educated guess.

    Likewise, the conditions of health, mortality healthcare, hygiene, epidemiological practice, physician education and vaccine and medicine quality during the last real lethal outbreak of a mutated superflu were SO different that they tell us very little about who such an outbreak would challenge our current population.

    Even with fast changing influenza viruses, the chances of the right evolution required to jump species AND retain human to human infection capability AND retain the level of virulence required to cause global level casualties are slim. Of course, it *could* happen... but I'd be more worried about drunk drivers or lightening strikes as threats to my life right now.

    Avian flu is a case in point, it turns out that the basic physiology of the human respiratory system would prevent Avian flu ever becoming a major human-to-human transmission health risk. The human nose is just too cold for the virus to survive and remain virulent. Similarly, there are usually numerous key changes that ALL need to occur before a virus can effectively jump and be dangerous. Imagine a door with 50 keyholes that you have to turn in a correct randomly generated order to open. Each time you turn the key incorrectly, it may unturn previous key turns, requiring you to start again. That's kinda analogous to the process required for such a mutation.

    Unfortunately, most of the people writing the papers are the same ones who think that the biology of Aliens is a plausible one (how does an extraterrestial species evolve to survive in a human body when many organisms that have evolved to do so, can't?).


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    #64
    LeotheLion
    Closed Accounts Posts: 126 ✭✭LeotheLion


    Supercell wrote: »
    Have a couple of questions that maybe can be answered here :-

    1) Do pregnant women pass on immunity to their unborn child post innoculation?
    2) Is inoculation safe at all stages of pregnancy? (is innoculation the right word to use here?), and are there mother/child specific concerns?

    Is it accurate to say that everyone on earth will get this if they come into contact with it without inoculation's?
    Surely some people will naturally be able to fight it off/ not be infected without even noticing?
    Reason I ask is that i only ever had one case of the flu and that was about 30 years ago now afaik..yet i have been exposed to many more and never ever had flu like symptoms again which would lead me to believe i have some immunity to variants I have not encountered before?

    Is immunity always inherited?

    Are you assuming that a relative in the past got the spanish Flu,and some form of immunity was passed to you?I doubt it,In the early days of this H1N1 swine flu did they not say that people with strong immune systmes were worst effected?now they say its the immunosupressed.


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    #65
    CathyMoran
    Moderators, Society & Culture Moderators Posts: 7,458 Mod ✭✭✭✭CathyMoran


    I am a type 1 diabetic so would be in the so called "high risk group" - I will get the vacine when it comes available - I have been getting the regular flu jab for the past few years but I mainly decided to get it because I got (and survived) the regular flu one year and it was a horrible week.


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    #66
    Turtwig
    Registered Users Posts: 26,578 ✭✭✭✭Turtwig


    GuanYin wrote: »
    The biggest problem with predicting the impact of outbreaks is that they're based on past, largely unrelated data.

    It's kinda like trying to predict the outcome of a game between two teams that last played in 1920 when all the players and staff were different. Reputation of the club will tell you something, but then professional training improvements and financing in sports have changed so drastically that the prediction is always going to center on best or worst case scenario rather than an educated guess.

    Likewise, the conditions of health, mortality healthcare, hygiene, epidemiological practice, physician education and vaccine and medicine quality during the last real lethal outbreak of a mutated superflu were SO different that they tell us very little about who such an outbreak would challenge our current population.

    Even with fast changing influenza viruses, the chances of the right evolution required to jump species AND retain human to human infection capability AND retain the level of virulence required to cause global level casualties are slim. Of course, it *could* happen... but I'd be more worried about drunk drivers or lightening strikes as threats to my life right now.

    Avian flu is a case in point, it turns out that the basic physiology of the human respiratory system would prevent Avian flu ever becoming a major human-to-human transmission health risk. The human nose is just too cold for the virus to survive and remain virulent. Similarly, there are usually numerous key changes that ALL need to occur before a virus can effectively jump and be dangerous. Imagine a door with 50 keyholes that you have to turn in a correct randomly generated order to open. Each time you turn the key incorrectly, it may unturn previous key turns, requiring you to start again. That's kinda analogous to the process required for such a mutation.

    Unfortunately, most of the people writing the papers are the same ones who think that the biology of Aliens is a plausible one (how does an extraterrestial species evolve to survive in a human body when many organisms that have evolved to do so, can't?).



    How is the data unrelated? Human Beings Physiology hasn't really changed all that much in the last Hundred or so years [I think - There may be evidence to support it has changed....but I doubt it would have been anything major : personal opinion, maybe, but eitherway I'd imagine the data is still useful.] . Also, who said we were basing everything we know on 1918, there were other flu (some in humans, others in animals) outbreaks as well. Albeit none of them were as severe as the 1918 pandemic, we were still able to learn quite a lot from them. The pandemic has already happened, so what you're saying doesn't really make sense about humans not being affected : the fact is they are!!

    So called Swine Flu is different from Avian Flu because it can in fact survive in the human body, and it's been reported that it can make it's way to the small intestine. A feat regular flu is seemingly incapable of.

    What has aliens got to do with this?


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    #67
    LeotheLion
    Closed Accounts Posts: 126 ✭✭LeotheLion


    WHO website say's more tamiflu resistant cases of H1N1 virus has been reported,.,.,.,.


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    #68
    GuanYin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 15,552 ✭✭✭✭GuanYin


    Malty_T wrote: »
    How is the data unrelated? Human Beings Physiology hasn't really changed all that much in the last Hundred or so years [I think - There may be evidence to support it has changed....but I doubt it would have been anything major : personal opinion, maybe, but eitherway I'd imagine the data is still useful.] . Also, who said we were basing everything we know on 1918, there were other flu (some in humans, others in animals) outbreaks as well. Albeit none of them were as severe as the 1918 pandemic, we were still able to learn quite a lot from them. The pandemic has already happened, so what you're saying doesn't really make sense about humans not being affected : the fact is they are!!
    Physiology would be one of the few baselines. Modern medicine, education, hygiene, environment, technology and global temperature all make arguably great impact to outbreaks.

    Quite simply, our understanding of modern immunology, our practices in intensive care and our medicines mean that it is unlikely that an influenza virus would or could have such a global impact again.
    So called Swine Flu is different from Avian Flu because it can in fact survive in the human body, and it's been reported that it can make it's way to the small intestine. A feat regular flu is seemingly incapable of.
    My point about the avian flu was the changes required for an effective jump are usually numerous and not a step-wise process. Often with mutations in viruses, a single change can have many downstream factors.

    Swine flu has a relatively lower transmission rate and while the GI involvement is an extra complication, it isn't an untreatable one.

    What has aliens got to do with this?
    It was an example of how uneducated most of the commentators on the topic are. Their scaremongering is little better than science fiction.


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    #69
    tallaght01
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,778 ✭✭✭tallaght01


    samson and derry..I said I wouldn't moderate this thread, so I'll leave it up to DrIndy.

    But you do both realise this is a science forum, don't you?

    Samson you've been warned before about linking to quack websites as your evidence.


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    #70
    Dr Galen
    Registered Users Posts: 7,373 ✭✭✭Dr Galen


    there are other places for you to spread your version of "truth" samson09


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    #71
    DrIndy
    Registered Users Posts: 3,461 ✭✭✭DrIndy


    Folks - this is a scientific thread - not a conspiracy thread.

    There is a conspiracy forum for this - which is not suited here. Please refrain from posting unsubstantiated rumour or I will need to start banning again.


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    #72
    eth0_
    Registered Users Posts: 10,846 ✭✭✭✭eth0_


    I personally won't be availing of the vaccine. There is far too much hysteria over swine-flu and none of it seems warranted. I've never had a regular flu shot, i'm not in any risk groups. Also, I am hesitant to have a vaccine injected into me that was rushed through regulatory testing in (apparently) under one week.

    I also find it highly odd that the UK government made a kneejerk reaction to mass vaccinate the population after two "healthy" people died from it at the weekend - before they had even autopsied the bodies, and now it turns out that one had tonsilitis and a suspected heart problem, and the other died from an unrelated blood clot!


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    #73
    eth0_
    Registered Users Posts: 10,846 ✭✭✭✭eth0_


    tallaght01 wrote: »
    It's not winter in the states yet.

    Why does the flu virus spread more rapidly in the winter months? You'd think it would be the opposite, with cold temperatures killing off some bugs. Is it simply because we spend more times indoors in groups in the winter?


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    #74
    LeotheLion
    Closed Accounts Posts: 126 ✭✭LeotheLion


    eth0_ wrote: »
    Why does the flu virus spread more rapidly in the winter months? You'd think it would be the opposite, with cold temperatures killing off some bugs. Is it simply because we spend more times indoors in groups in the winter?


    I believe its because a lack of Vitamin D due to decreased sun/daylight,which in turn contributes to lower immune defences?
    But dont believe me i'm expert.


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    #75
    Vorsprung
    Registered Users Posts: 2,814 ✭✭✭Vorsprung


    It's cold in the winter so people tend to stay inside more - higher risk of cross infection.


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    #76
    forkassed
    Closed Accounts Posts: 311 ✭✭forkassed


    We're doomed:(

    http://www.dohc.ie/issues/swine_influenza/letter_med_pract_140709.pdf?direct=1


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    #77
    tallaght01
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,778 ✭✭✭tallaght01


    forkassed wrote: »
    We're doomed:(

    http://www.dohc.ie/issues/swine_influenza/letter_med_pract_140709.pdf?direct=1

    I think this is a pretty sensible way to go. Much more efficient than trying to treat and contact6 trace every single person.


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    #78
    nesf
    Registered Users Posts: 27,645 ✭✭✭✭nesf


    tallaght01 wrote: »
    I think this is a pretty sensible way to go. Much more efficient than trying to treat and contact6 trace every single person.

    Logistically the latter approach could kill more than it would save. :/


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    #79
    eth0_
    Registered Users Posts: 10,846 ✭✭✭✭eth0_


    http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article6714709.ece

    "Dr Margaret Chan, director-general of the World Health Organisation, cast doubt on minister's claims that the UK would start receiving its first stocks of swine flu vaccine this summer.

    Dr Chan told the Guardian that a vaccine could be available as early as August. "But having a vaccine available is not the same as having a vaccine that has been proven safe," she added. "Clinical trial data will not be available for another two or three months."


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    #80
    Mr.Nice Guy
    Registered Users Posts: 45,535 ✭✭✭✭Mr.Nice Guy


    I'll be honest I'm quite worried now. :(

    'It is better to walk alone in the right direction than follow the herd walking in the wrong direction.'



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    #81
    eth0_
    Registered Users Posts: 10,846 ✭✭✭✭eth0_


    Mr.Nice Guy wrote: »
    I'll be honest I'm quite worried now. :(

    WHY? Not ONE healthy person has died from swine flu in the UK and Ireland.
    Don't be taken in by media hysteria.


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    #82
    Mr.Nice Guy
    Registered Users Posts: 45,535 ✭✭✭✭Mr.Nice Guy


    eth0_ wrote: »
    WHY? Not ONE healthy person has died from swine flu in the UK and Ireland.
    Don't be taken in by media hysteria.

    Yeah I think I need to stay away from Sky News.

    'It is better to walk alone in the right direction than follow the herd walking in the wrong direction.'



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    #83
    jumpguy
    Registered Users Posts: 7,962 ✭✭✭jumpguy


    Is this vaccine they're talking about a regular flu vaccine that's been tried and tested for ages or a new specifically designed for swine flu vaccine? If so, is anyone else abit hasty about this? I'm not too pushed on getting injected with something rushed through a laboratory? How's this going to be tested, or will it be tested at all?
    This is on my mind ever since I read about the anthrax vaccines in America in the 1970's.


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    #84
    eth0_
    Registered Users Posts: 10,846 ✭✭✭✭eth0_


    Well the 'regular' flu vaccine changes quite regularly because the strains of flu virus change often.

    But clinical trials on the swine flu vaccine won't be complete for another 2-3 months...and i'm not taking a vaccine that hasn't been proven to be safe. How can they even release a vaccine that hasn't passed clinical trials yet?


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    #85
    tallaght01
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,778 ✭✭✭tallaght01


    eth0_ wrote: »
    But clinical trials on the swine flu vaccine won't be complete for another 2-3 months...and i'm not taking a vaccine that hasn't been proven to be safe. How can they even release a vaccine that hasn't passed clinical trials yet?

    Do you need to scaremonger? The swine flu vaccine trials are happening at the minute. That's what's delaying it's release.

    And the UK had a death in a previously healthy adult a few days ago.


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    #86
    LeotheLion
    Closed Accounts Posts: 126 ✭✭LeotheLion


    tallaght01 wrote: »
    Do you need to scaremonger? The swine flu vaccine trials are happening at the minute. That's what's delaying it's release.

    And the UK had a death in a previously healthy adult a few days ago.

    tallaght01
    what do you think the chance's are of it coming in contact with a avian flu virus and mutating into deadlier strain?


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    #87
    tallaght01
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,778 ✭✭✭tallaght01


    LeotheLion wrote: »
    tallaght01
    what do you think the chance's are of it coming in contact with a avian flu virus and mutating into deadlier strain?

    Pretty tiny. I'm not losing any sleep over that scenario :P


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    #88
    WIZE
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,597 ✭✭✭WIZE


    My niece got swine flu today


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    #89
    eth0_
    Registered Users Posts: 10,846 ✭✭✭✭eth0_


    tallaght01 wrote: »
    Do you need to scaremonger? The swine flu vaccine trials are happening at the minute. That's what's delaying it's release.

    And the UK had a death in a previously healthy adult a few days ago.

    The adult male died from a blood clot to the lungs. He also had viral pneumonia and heart disease.

    The little girl had tonsilitis so her immune system was already compromised, and I also read an article where a family member said she had heart problems.

    Meanwhile...how many people have died from the 'normal' flu in the last couple of days?


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    #90
    tallaght01
    Closed Accounts Posts: 5,778 ✭✭✭tallaght01


    eth0_ wrote: »
    The adult male died from a blood clot to the lungs. He also had viral pneumonia and heart disease.

    The little girl had tonsilitis so her immune system was already compromised, and I also read an article where a family member said she had heart problems.

    Meanwhile...how many people have died from the 'normal' flu in the last couple of days?

    A) It's pretty certain the viral pneumonia was primary, so that's caused directly by the flu. The blood clot is likely caused by being unwell, which was caused by the flu. Many cases in other countries, too. Not sure where you're getting the info about him having pre-existing cardiac disease.

    B) I never mentioned the little girl. I don't know anything about her. BUt tonsillitis does not lead to immunocompromise.

    C) I'm not sure why you're comparing crude numbers, as there's more normal flu in Ireland than swine flu. Normal flu doesn't seem to have a higher mortality RATE than swine flu. Though we'll know for sure in winter.

    D) I'm not sure why you're only talking about Ireland and the UK, where it's far from peaked. Look at the states and canada and australia for llots of previously well people who've died (in the case of canada/USA) or ended up on life support (all 3 countries).


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    #91
    GuanYin
    Closed Accounts Posts: 15,552 ✭✭✭✭GuanYin


    LeotheLion wrote: »
    tallaght01
    what do you think the chance's are of it coming in contact with a avian flu virus and mutating into deadlier strain?

    Around the same odds as you being killed by a T Rex.


    Seriously, if you want to know the risks and state of the current panademic, ignore news channel reports. Ignore newpapers. Listen to and follow guidelines on official channels only.

    http://www.who.int/csr/disease/swineflu/guidance/individuals/en/index.html
    http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/

    Honestly, I know it can be concerning, but sometimes the global media does more harm than good.

    And frankly, they want you to be concerned, because they're paid to make you concerned.

    Was it Dawkins or Gould who said that Science journalism is too important to be left to journalists?


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