Swine flu injection

feoilseantoir

Are any vegans planning to get the injection? Eggs are used in the production of it.

sweet-rasmus

Interesting to know. All medicines have to be tested on animals by law and too many of them contain 'gelatinised starch' or such the like. And shellac as something to coat the tablet. It's a minefield for conscious veggies and vegans and up to individual choice.

For veggies with weakened immune systems, the choice might be healthy life and to do something you would rather not (eat an animal derived ingredient) or risk it. It is a personal choice and no one can really comment on that.

On another note, welcome to the forum feoilseantoir good to see the irish use of vegetarian. Did they even decide on a derivative for a vegan?!

flikflak

No thank you. Even if I did eat eggs I would not touch this with a barge pole. I dont believe in injecting the body with a synthetic vaccine when its such an alien way to introduce a virus to the body.

Would not take Tamiflu either.

I think you need to do your own research and make your own decision.

feoilseantoir

Thanks. I've since got a reply from the HSE saying that vegans and people with egg allergies can avail of the Celvapan H1N1 vaccine. Still tested on animals no doubt but at least it doesn't contain eggs!

sweet-rasmus

Oh wow! Glad you wrote and got a response. Out of curiosity, how did you know who to contact for the HSE? Thanks for letting us know

feoilseantoir

If you go onto www.swineflu.ie you'll see at the top there's a "your comments" section. It says "your service, your say" and that you can email yoursay@hse.ie. Not being an expert, I'd imagine they mean that the vaccine is the most vegan-friendly vaccine rather than pledging that it's 100% vegan! It was good to get a reply though!

sweet-rasmus

yes, very good of them indeed. plus, egg allergies aren't to be messed with, so i'm glad those who suffer have a choice.

Tar.Aldarion

flikflak wrote: »

No thank you. Even if I did eat eggs I would not touch this with a barge pole. I dont believe in injecting the body with a synthetic vaccine when its such an alien way to introduce a virus to the body.

Would not take Tamiflu either.

I think you need to do your own research and make your own decision.

Are you against all vaccines? Or this one in particular? Was just wondering what reasons you have in particular if it is one or all!

Because of people not taking vaccines even their children can die...take measles as an example. Ireland has a bad record with this I believe, people not taking the MMR.

The_Joker

flikflak wrote: »

No thank you. Even if I did eat eggs I would not touch this with a barge pole. I dont believe in injecting the body with a synthetic vaccine when its such an alien way to introduce a virus to the body.

Would not take Tamiflu either.

I think you need to do your own research and make your own decision.

Have you any underlying ailments?

What gets me is they make these vaccines in batches of 10 so 10 people have to be in the doctors surgery at the same time, going by my experience of GP surgerys and hospitals 1 person arrives for treatment and brings 1 or 2 with them!

So you waltz in the door expecting 9 other people and you see possibly up to 20 or more waiting around and only 9 of them for the piggy injection! not to mention the rest of the people looking for certs for work! geez.

I reckon they should give the army dart guns and let em loose on the streets!
Only problem is someone could get the piggy shot a few more times than they need "Sarge are you sure I didn't fire the dart at him already?"

Censorsh!t

I think I have already had swine flu. I don't get why it is advised that people who've already had it, get the vaccine anyway I mean....if you've had it once, you're not gonna get it again, and the vaccine won't protect against any mutated form of it.

I've been advised to get it because of my asthma.

Orby

On radio yesterday, woman was on saying there are two vaccines- one is egg free. Think she mentioned name Baxter but can't be 100%

axel rose

What a choice! Pandemrix is derived rom chicken eggs and contains mercury while clevapan is derived from monkey cells. I cant find a link on the 2nd point but got it from a medical source. Its meant to be the better vaccine but YUK!


Please don't go crazy with smiley advertising here. Thank you.

ztoical

Censorsh!t wrote: »

I think I have already had swine flu. I don't get why it is advised that people who've already had it, get the vaccine anyway I mean....if you've had it once, you're not gonna get it again.

You might not have built up an immunity to it so you may get it a second time.

Mentalmiss

Better than a Flu Shot!

This is my attempt to add some humour to a serious topic.

Miss Beatrice, The church organist was in her eighties and had never been married.
She was admired for her sweetness and kindness to all.
One afternoon the pastor came to call on her and she showed him into her quaint sitting room.
She invited him to have a seat while she prepared tea.
As he sat facing her old Hammond organ,
The young minister noticed a cute glass bowl sitting on top of it.
The bowl was filled with water, and in the waterFloated, of all things, a condom!
When she returned with tea and scones, they began to chat.
The pastor tried to stifle his curiosity about the bowl of water and its strange floater, but soon it got the better of him and he could no longer resist.
'Miss Beatrice', he said,
'I wonder if you would tell me about this?' pointing to the bowl.
'Oh, yes,' she replied, 'Isn't it wonderful?
I was walking through the park a few months ago and I found this little package on the ground.
The directions said to place it on the organ, keep it wet and that it would prevent the spread of disease.
Do you know I haven't had the flu All winter.

Bottle_of_Smoke

Censorsh!t wrote: »

I think I have already had swine flu. I don't get why it is advised that people who've already had it, get the vaccine anyway I mean....if you've had it once, you're not gonna get it again, and the vaccine won't protect against any mutated form of it.

I've been advised to get it because of my asthma.

Its advised because they aren't lab testing for swine flu. You don't know for sure if you had it so you might not be immune to it.

carolinespring

Mentalmiss wrote: »

Better than a Flu Shot!

This is my attempt to add some humour to a serious topic.

Miss Beatrice, The church organist was in her eighties and had never been married.
She was admired for her sweetness and kindness to all.
One afternoon the pastor came to call on her and she showed him into her quaint sitting room.
She invited him to have a seat while she prepared tea.
As he sat facing her old Hammond organ,
The young minister noticed a cute glass bowl sitting on top of it.
The bowl was filled with water, and in the waterFloated, of all things, a condom!
When she returned with tea and scones, they began to chat.
The pastor tried to stifle his curiosity about the bowl of water and its strange floater, but soon it got the better of him and he could no longer resist.
'Miss Beatrice', he said,
'I wonder if you would tell me about this?' pointing to the bowl.
'Oh, yes,' she replied, 'Isn't it wonderful?
I was walking through the park a few months ago and I found this little package on the ground.
The directions said to place it on the organ, keep it wet and that it would prevent the spread of disease.
Do you know I haven't had the flu All winter.

That is so funny!!!

tatli_lokma

Tar.Aldarion wrote: »

Are you against all vaccines? Or this one in particular? Was just wondering what reasons you have in particular if it is one or all!

Because of people not taking vaccines even their children can die...take measles as an example. Ireland has a bad record with this I believe, people not taking the MMR.

I never got the MMR, nor the BCG. I was prone to ear infections when i was a baby, and as a result often had a high temp, even when not apparently 'sick'. Every time my mum took me for a vaccine, I had a temp and the wouldn't do it. By the time I was 4 and ready for school they said there was no point to give it to me.
So I never had it and I didn't suffer adversely due to it.
There is a lot of evidence on both sides, for and against vaccinations. I think before you make blanket statments about children dying you need to be aware of both sides. The response to your argument may be that many people refuse the MMR due to its possible link with autism. Nothing is that black and white, and a parent is not necessarily a neglectful horrible person for not having their child vaccinated!

Absurdum

I have no intention of getting the vaccine. If I do get the swine flu then I'll deal with it.

entropi

I personally see no point in getting a "vaccine" for something i may not get or already have? It is my belief that the shot may actually cause more damage through unknown side effects. I will not be queueing up for it anywhere. A girl in my class has gotten it as she is type 1 diabetic...said it hurts your arm for a day or two afterwards.

Tar.Aldarion

Cincikchick wrote: »

I never got the MMR, nor the BCG. I was prone to ear infections when i was a baby, and as a result often had a high temp, even when not apparently 'sick'. Every time my mum took me for a vaccine, I had a temp and the wouldn't do it. By the time I was 4 and ready for school they said there was no point to give it to me.
So I never had it and I didn't suffer adversely due to it.

That is lucky for you, others are not so fortunate I'm afraid. It is not a huge mortality percentage so you were likely to be OK...but... Ireland has a bad record on MMR vaccination and we are one of the worst countries in Europe for immunity to measles. Measles accounts for 10% of all deaths under the age of 5 worldwide, killing over a million a year. And it kills children who get it before they are old enough to get the MMR (<1yr) because we don't have herd immunity in this country because of people not vaccinating their children. The herd immunity rate for measles ia about 95%.

There is a lot of evidence on both sides, for and against vaccinations. I think before you make blanket statments about children dying you need to be aware of both sides. The response to your argument may be that many people refuse the MMR due to its possible link with autism. Nothing is that black and white, and a parent is not necessarily a neglectful horrible person for not having their child vaccinated!

I did read up about this, there is no link to autism as far as I know.
It's a shame when people put their child at risk (and other children) due to the ridiculous reporting of one little *now* (I stress that) completely discredited tiny study by a guy who, it appears, actually made some of the crap up in the report and was paid to.

Here's a good article about vaccinations actually:
http://www.wired.com/magazine/2009/10/ff_waronscience/

The development of autism can and does happen in exactly the same way in a child who did not recieve the MMR. Symptoms that can lead to a definite diagnosis of autism don't appear until a child is two or three. Although there are usually warning signs before this, sometimes they are not noticable.

There is no link between autism and vaccination. There has been no reduction in autism rates in the last 10 years, despite the reduction in vaccination rates. There has been no reduction in autism rates since thimerosal was removed from vaccinations.

There is significant evidence to suggest that the reason we see such greatly increased diagnoses of autism since the mid to late 80's is for two reasons:

That the techniques for diagnosis of all kinds of mental disorders have been greatly improved and refined, particularly in the autism spectrum.

That the general acceptance of psychology as a genuine medical field in society has greatly increased.

This means that children that would previously have been written off as stupid, slow or simple, are now taken to child psychiatrists and diagnosed with a specific disorder. These days they receive targeted treatment and support. In the past they would have been left to rot in a home. This is a good thing.

Even if it were true that vaccines can cause autism or some random affect, vaccinations greatly improve our infant mortality rates. If there was a tiny % chance that something could go wrong after a vaccine has been delivered, the greatest benefit to society would still be obtained by vaccinating everyone. For every child who experiences a vaccine-related problem, there would have been many children who would have died without the vaccine. In fact a theory as to why humans have not evolved to get rid of disorders such as epilepsy etc is that although the gene affects a small amount of people adversely, it also gives the vast majority of people a great benefit, such as immunity to malaria for example.

Tar.Aldarion

Master of Nothing wrote: »

I personally see no point in getting a "vaccine" for something i may not get or already have? It is my belief that the shot may actually cause more damage through unknown side effects. I will not be queueing up for it anywhere. A girl in my class has gotten it as she is type 1 diabetic...said it hurts your arm for a day or two afterwards.

The priority with the vaccine is not that it will protect all the people who get the vaccine from nasty illness. Most healthy people will have a mild form of the disease. So, they will carry on their normal day to day business. But you will be contagious for 6-7 days.

So, you'll be in contact with people, like your elderly parents or grandparents, your pregnant sister, or your newborn niece.

It's these people who are at very high risk from swine flu.

So, the reason that we're trying to stop people getting swine flu is to stop them giving it to vulnerable people.
he differance between normal flu isn't the severity of the illness, it's the fact that no-one has any immunity at all.

During winter we're all exposed to flu but only a few of us get it whereas everyone who comes in contact with swine flu will contract it becasue we have no immunity for it, unlike normal flu, thus making it a huge concern for any in the risk group of the very young, old, sick or pregnant.


Also, even though mostly vulnerable people have died, some completely healthy people have.

There's this vulnerable population who can't be vaccinated for medical reasons, and none of their friends and family are immune to the virus, which puts them all at higher risk of getting it, and passing it on to people who are more likely to become unwell.

The reality is that the public don't understand this, because it's not been explained to them. Plus a lot of people are only interested in getting a vaccine if it helps them. A lot of healthy people know swine flu is unlikely to kill them, so they won't get the vaccine just to protect babies and sick people.

The issue here is that we don't know what swine flu is capable of - it's a new flu and every new flu has the capacity to become spanish flu which killed more people than world war one. Let's hope that doesn't happen eh!

Absurdum

There is so much contradictory news on the vaccine though. I know some GPs are refusing to administer it because they aren't convinced that it is safe, yet all we hear from the HSE and in the media is that it's perfectly safe. It's hard to know what to believe, from a layperson's point of view anyway.

ztoical

There is no connection between MMR and autism - we see higher numbers of kids with autism because we've become better at diagnosing it. The majority of the MMR/Autism controversy is based on the paper by Andrew Wakefield which has been proven to be so full of holes it could be swiss cheese.

eth0_

Cincikchick wrote: »

a parent is not necessarily a neglectful horrible person for not having their child vaccinated!

Actually, yes, yes they are. Their child could DIE if they contracted any of the MMR illnesses. Not to mention that, even if the child gets say, measles and recovers from it, they may have passed the measles virus on to someone with a compromised immune system (cancer sufferer for example), or a pregnant woman who could find her child has birth defects because of the selfishness of parents who believe everything they read in the tabloids and do no research of their own. If they did, they'd see there is NO clinical evidence of these jabs causing autism, for example.

Censorsh!t

I never got the MMR, I made up some excuse to the teachers because I was scared that it would hurt, and they never followed through with it.

Dozen Wicked Words

Absurdum wrote: »

There is so much contradictory news on the vaccine though. I know some GPs are refusing to administer it because they aren't convinced that it is safe, yet all we hear from the HSE and in the media is that it's perfectly safe. It's hard to know what to believe, from a layperson's point of view anyway.

Would be interested to see a link RE: GPs refusing to administer because of safety. AFAIK GPs were mainly complaining about how the HSE were rolling the vaccine out, what was expected of them and what payment they would receive for doing it.

ztoical

dooferoaks wrote: »

Would be interested to see a link RE: GPs refusing to administer because of safety. AFAIK GPs were mainly complaining about how the HSE were rolling the vaccine out, what was expected of them and what payment they would receive for doing it.

+ 1 I'd like to see a link as well cus my mums a GP and both her and her partner are working extra hours to give out the vaccine - they've no issue with it and no other GP in the area does either. My mum told me to get it so if she's willing to give it to her own children that's good enough for me.

eth0_

I just moved back to Ireland - are they giving this vaccine for free or does everyone have to pay 50 euro to see their doctor plus the cost of the vacc?

feoilseantoir

Sweet-rasmus, the Irish for vegan is veigeán! www.focal.ie It says though that the Irish for vegetarian is veigeatóir. Irishdictionary.ie says vegetarian is feoilséantóir. focal.ie is the best I think!

sweet-rasmus

feoilseantoir wrote: »

Sweet-rasmus, the Irish for vegan is veigeán! www.focal.ie It says though that the Irish for vegetarian is veigeatóir. Irishdictionary.ie says vegetarian is feoilséantóir. focal.ie is the best I think!

interesting