Swine Flu Vaccine and Side Affects

donaghs

Any thoughts on this people? Haven't seen any discussion of it here since beginning of 2012, but I do recall some lively discussion when the vaccine was first released. There was a lot of talk here about the urgency of getting kids and pregnant women vaccinated, and the how a swine flu pandemic was basically inevitable.

Even at the end of this thread in 2010 some regular posters here were still saying that another wave was definitely on the way: http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2055611526&page=48

The narcolepsy connection is certainly very disappointing and worrying to hear about: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/ireland/2012/0419/1224314925694.html

So looking back from it all, do you think we got the balance right between preparing for an potentially imminent major health disaster, and scaring people into prematurely taking drugs which haven't been rigorously tested?

ChocolateChip

The Swine flu issue was a complete over-reaction. Nobody was in danger except people with weakened immune systems/undergoing treatment etc. Those are the only people who should have been considered for the vaccine.

Parents didn't do appropriate research and vaccinated their children despite not knowing the effects. They are partially to blame. In my school, every child got vaccinated, but I refused due to research which I had done.

It was an over-reaction on behalf of the government, and a poor-sighted reaction by many parents.

Dave!

Parents rightly acted on the advice of the WHO, national health organisations and their healthcare providers, all of which assured them the vaccine was safe and necessary. Parents can hardly be blamed for relying on the recommendation of trained healthcare professionals.

anotherlostie

The thing with mass vaccinations is that if nothing happens, people always react by saying it was an overreaction and the vaccine was not needed. Whereas in fact, had many more people gone down the route of not getting vaccinated, there could have been consequences. I'm a very mild asthmatic and I didn't want to take the risk.

So you (WHO, Dept of Health etc) can be proactive and act to minimise risk and for this you will be criticized. Or you can adapt a laissez faire attitude and wait as long as you can to make a decision. If it's the wrong one you will again be criticized, and harshly.

As I always say, it is so much easier to critique the decisions of others than to make real decisions yourself.

donaghs

anotherlostie wrote: »

The thing with mass vaccinations is that if nothing happens, people always react by saying it was an overreaction and the vaccine was not needed. Whereas in fact, had many more people gone down the route of not getting vaccinated, there could have been consequences. I'm a very mild asthmatic and I didn't want to take the risk.

So you (WHO, Dept of Health etc) can be proactive and act to minimise risk and for this you will be criticized. Or you can adapt a laissez faire attitude and wait as long as you can to make a decision. If it's the wrong one you will again be criticized, and harshly.

As I always say, it is so much easier to critique the decisions of others than to make real decisions yourself.

I think the real questions though were (1) if there was a real urgency here?
(2) was it really bad enough to justify mass use of drugs with potential long-term effects which were not fully tested?

Its the second point which is most worrying. I think there has to be some kind of better justification/proof for a mass vaccination campaign than occurred with swine flu. Otherwise we have learned nothing from previous problems with new drugs (BTW I have nothing against vaccination per se, e.g. MMR, unless the balance of evidence changed...)