Posted on 10/07/2009 8:58:06 AM PDT by fujimoh
WASHINGTON (AP) - Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius appealed anew Wednesday for widespread inoculation against a surging swine flu threat, calling the vaccine "safe and secure." Sebelius unconditionally vouched for the safety of the vaccine, saying it "has been made exactly the same way seasonal vaccine has been made, year in and year out." Appearing on morning news shows to step up the Obama administration's campaign for vaccinations, Sebelius said that "the adverse effects are minimal. ... We know it's safe and secure. ... This is definitely is a safe vaccine for people to get."
(Excerpt) Read more at apnews.myway.com ...
Monday, May 27, 2002; Page A09
Twenty-six years ago, the United States government got word that a deadly virus nobody had seen for years – and which experts thought was gone forever – was possibly circulating again.
There wasn’t any proof it was back, just a few worrisome hints. However, the microbe had killed millions of people earlier in the century, so even a small amount of evidence had to be taken seriously. So, at great effort and expense, the government launched a plan to vaccinate the American population against the virus.
It seemed like a good idea at the time. But it turned into one of the biggest public health debacles in memory.
The disease was swine flu, whose appearance in 1976 was believed to be a reincarnation of the infection that killed tens of millions of people in 1918 and 1919. Today, the U.S. government is engaged in similar deliberations about smallpox, a disease officially eradicated in 1980 but whose virus some experts believe may be possessed by terrorists.
Over the next month, a panel of scientific experts convened by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will debate the value – and hazards – of making the smallpox vaccine available in the United States for the first time in 30 years. Universal vaccination is out of the question, but widespread distribution is possible. By the end of June, the experts will recommend a course of action to the Bush administration.
Influenza and smallpox – and their vaccines – differ in innumerable ways, making comparisons tricky. Influenza occurs naturally and spreads quickly. Smallpox hasn’t existed outside of laboratory freezers since 1978, but might be in terrorist arsenals. The flu vaccine has few serious side effects, while the smallpox vaccine has many.
Nevertheless, the swine flu campaign is the one recent example of a large, government-sponsored emergency immunization program, and as such may offer lessons for today.
Events began with the death, on Feb. 4, 1976, of an Army recruit at Fort Dix, N.J., during an outbreak of respiratory infections following the holidays. Throat washings were taken from 19 ill soldiers, and a majority tested positive for that winter’s dominant strain of the influenza virus, which was called A/Victoria. But four samples were different, and New Jersey public health officials sent them to the CDC to be identified.
On Feb. 12, the CDC delivered a chilling report. The four samples – which included one from the dead soldier – were swine flu. As the name suggests, swine flu was endemic to pigs. However, the devastating pandemic of the Spanish flu in 1918 and 1919 is believed to have been caused by a strain of swine flu that, through mutation, gained the ability to infect people.
In 1927, a scholar put the Spanish flu’s global mortality at 21.5 million. In 1991, a systematic recalculation raised it to 30 million. The latest estimate, published in the current Bulletin of the History of Medicine, sets the minimum mortality at 50 million, with an upper limit of 100 million.
The possibility that the Spanish flu had reemerged was a matter whose importance is hard to overstate – and wasn’t missed by anyone in 1976. Within days of identifying the strain, federal health officials were meeting at the CDC to discuss what to do.
According to various accounts, the idea that a swine flu epidemic was quite unlikely never received a full airing or a fair hearing, although numerous experts apparently held that view. Instead, the notion that an epidemic was likely enough to warrant population-wide vaccination grew from dominant opinion to unquestioned gospel.
At the same time, the rhetoric of risk suffered steady inflation as the topic moved from the mouths of scientists to the mouths of government officials. In a memo prepared for his superiors at the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW), David Sencer, head of the CDC, talked about the “strong possibility” of a swine flu epidemic. Later, HEW’s general counsel commented that “the chances seem to be 1 in 2.” A memo from the HEW secretary to the head of the Office of Management and Budget noted that “the projections are that this virus will kill one million Americans in 1976.”
A few experts suggested the vaccine be made and stockpiled but used only if there was more evidence of an epidemic. This was considered but rejected early on. The argument was that the influenza vaccine had few, if any, serious side effects, and that it would be far easier (and more defensible) to get it into people’s bodies before people started dying.
On March 24, President Gerald Ford announced on television that he was asking Congress for $135 million “to inoculate every man, woman and child in the United States” against swine flu.
Over the next nine months, very little went right – or as planned.
Pharmaceutical companies undertook crash programs to make enough of the vaccine by the start of flu season in October. But it turned out the Fort Dix bug grew poorly in chicken eggs, the growth medium for the influenza virus. This meant that yields were going to be about half of what was planned. In addition, one company used the wrong virus and had to start over.
The insurance industry announced it wouldn’t insure manufacturers against liability arising from the vaccine. An act of Congress shifted most of the liability to the government.
Studies of Fort Dix’s soldiers showed that about 500 had been infected with swine flu. But with only one death, this called into question the deadliness of the strain. In addition, swine flu didn’t appear that summer in the Southern Hemisphere, as would be expected if a pandemic were starting.
Tests showed that single injections of some vaccine formulations didn’t protect children. This required time-consuming studies of a two-shot regimen.
Albert Sabin, the father of the oral polio vaccine and a high-profile advocate, broke with the party line and called for stockpiling, but not immediate use, of the vaccine.
Three elderly people in Pittsburgh died on the same day within hours of getting swine flu shots. It was a chance event, but just the sort of guilt by association that arises whenever a public health intervention is done on a mass scale.
What killed the program, though, was the observation in early December that people given the swine flu vaccine had an increased risk of developing Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare, usually reversible but occasionally fatal form of paralysis. Research showed that while the actual risk for Guillain-Barre was only about 1 in 1,000 among people who had received the vaccine, that was about seven times higher than for people who didn’t get the shot.
On Dec. 16, the swine flu vaccine campaign was halted. About 45 million people had been immunized. The federal government eventually paid out $90 million in damages to people who developed Guillain-Barre. The total bill for the program was more than $400 million.
There are a lot of lessons to draw, said Harvey Fineberg, a former dean of Harvard’s School of Public Health, who co-authored an analysis of the “swine flu affair” for Joseph A. Califano, HEW secretary under President Jimmy Carter, who succeeded Ford in January 1977.
Among them: Don’t over-promise; think carefully about what needs to be decided when; don’t expect the consensus of experts to hold in the face of changing events. The biggest, he said recently, was perhaps the most obvious: Expect the unexpected at all times
Must? Must?
They can say I “must” get it, but that doesn’t mean I will.
Just the fact that they said “must” makes me more inclined to NOT get it.
I never get flu shots and Sebelius is not going to order me to do so,
What's bothering me....That they're not giving it to seniors because they supposedly have an immunity. I suspect there will be a lot of sick seniors who will die of pneumonia from the swine flu.....
This whole thing bothers me. This is small pox or polio or measles...this is a mild flu which has not mutated.
Someone is making MILLIONS on this. All the "time" on these shots. Imagine how many people could actually be served.
I wonder what she will say when the vaccine kills a bunch of people? Death is fairly unconditional...
...I took a flu shot once when I was young and foolish..I about died.....I ain't going to make that mistake again.
I’ll be getting mine right after Ms. Sebelius takes hers in her left butt cheek on national TV.
My sister in law just had the swine flu and she recovered just fine.
The reason the flu doesn’t hit us as badly as the third world is the access to excellent nutrition and over the counter cold and flu medicine to minimize the impact of they symptoms.
Dumb ass Seibelius.
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Legal immunity set for swine flu vaccine makers: What are the implications?
AP Medical Writer Mike Stobbe got a swine flu vaccine scoop—yet the news is
four weeks old. It turns out that DHHS Secretary Sibelius has not only given
immunity to the makers of Tamiflu and Relenza for injuries stemming from
their use against swine flu. She also granted immunity to future swine flu
vaccines and “any associated adjuvants,” which was published in the June 25,
2009 Federal Register. Here is the start of his story:
The last time the government embarked on a major vaccine campaign
against a new swine flu, thousands filed claims contending they suffered
side effects from the shots. This time, the government has already taken teps to head that off.
Vaccine makers and federal officials will be immune from lawsuits that
result from any new swine flu vaccine, under a document signed by Secretary
of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, government health officials
said Friday.
Since the 1980s, the government has protected vaccine makers against
lawsuits over the use of childhood vaccines. Instead, a federal court
handles claims and decides who will be paid from a special fund.
The document signed by Sebelius last month grants immunity to those
making a swine flu vaccine, under the provisions of a 2006 law for public
health emergencies. It allows for a compensation fund, if needed...
However, the compensation issue is more difficult than portrayed by Stobbe.
The special vaccine court to which Stobbe refers applies only to specially
designated vaccines, excludes most adult vaccines, and swine flu is not a
designated vaccine for which compensation can be paid.
The 2006 Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (PREPA) allows the
DHHS Secretary to invoke almost complete immunity from liability for
manufacturers of vaccines and drugs used to combat a declared public health
emergency. PREPA removes the right to a jury trial for persons injured by a
covered vaccine, unless a plaintiff can provide clear evidence of willful
misconduct that resulted in death or serious physical injury, and gets
permission to sue from the DHHS Secretary. There has been no government
funding of its potential compensation mechanism, to date. Furthermore, a
PREPA declaration explicitly shields “government program planners” who
arranged for the liability waiver.
Pharmaceutical companies making swine flu vaccine today may have demanded
immunity from liability before agreeing to begin a crash program to
manufacture H1N1 vaccine for the government.
http://www.ahrp.org/cms/content/view/619/9/
I say we go by the research on the safety of the shot. However, they did not have time to run appropriate research studies on the shot. So, should you take the shot based on your deep faith in HHS and CDC government workers? What about getting it because “everybody does it” on Tee Vee? Not me.
Oh, and how about making yourself personally liable (not your office or the government) for any injuries or deaths resulting from the shot? You that sure of yourself?
No, I didn't think so.
Sit down and shup up, whore.
None for me thanks..I’m driving..
Limbaugh just said “Screw you Sebilius. I’m not taking the shot just because you told me to!”
I’m not getting it either and she can’t make me. I want to see her try!
Sebelius can’t be sued. She’ll probably unconditionally vouch for Obamacare, too!’
She already has been doing so.
Every time I see her on the screen, I think she looks more and more like a Stepford wife.
People I know in Kansas say she never behaved like this when she was there.
I believe the deal with the vaccine manufacturers is that they also cannot be sued. A deal put together by HHS and/or WH.
Now I know why the price of eggs has gone up.
The eggs are being used to grow the vaccine.
While in the US Navy, I received an annual flu shot (3 years straight). Each time, within 48 hours, I was down sick with tonsillitis, and running a consistent/persistent fever in the 103/104 range. I have since sworn off flu shots. My employers since have always suggested we get them, and in the 16 years since, I have never gotten a flu shot, and got the flu once. I have seen my previously annual bouts of tonsillitis go away completely. I don’t think me and mine will worry about this ‘flu shot’.
You first Kate. And take the REAL thing. Not a placebo.
I don’t believe a word out of the mouth of anyone working for the Liar in Chief, Obama.
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