Nationwide Shortage In Supply of Swine Flu Vaccine 579
Hugh Pickens writes "The NY Times reports that as the number of swine flu cases grows to levels unprecedented for this time of year, health officials predict a shortfall in the supply of swine flu vaccine. Forty-three children have died from swine flu since August 30 — about the same number that usually die in an entire flu season.' These are very sobering statistics,' says Dr. Anne Schuchat, the director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, 'and unfortunately they are likely to increase.' Projections of the supply of swine flu vaccine have widely varied. During the summer, health officials said 120 million doses would be ready in October but later dropped the estimate to 40 million doses. Now officials expect only 28 million to 30 million doses, adding that the exact number is impossible to predict and could change daily as vaccine manufacturers report that production was behind schedule. 'Vaccine production for influenza is pretty complex,' says Schuchat explaining the delay, 'and the complex process this year is taking a bit longer than we had hoped.' Schuchat warned parents with sick children to be alert for signs that medical attention is required including not eating well, difficulties breathing, and turning blue or gray. A particularly important sign is when children start to get better, then have a relapse, usually a sign that pneumonia is developing, and immediate treatment should be sought."
Which nation? (Score:1, Insightful)
Who was it the other week saying there wasn't an American lean to this site?
Same News Cycle Every Year (Score:2, Insightful)
1) Summer: This flu is the WORST flu we've seen in years. Better get a vaccine!
2) October: We're running out of flu vaccine!
3) November-January: Oops, soorry, it turns out the flu vaccine we were using? It didn't do much against the flu outbreak that happened
4) ?
5) Profit
Re:Do not want (Score:2, Insightful)
My girlfriend had swine flu earlier this year, she was fine. Just sick for a week then back to her normal self.
My aunt is a nurse at one of the largest hospitals in Winnipeg and she said she has never gotten the flu shot and refuses too. After she's seen all the complications with them over the years she figures she's safer without. I agree with her. Our bodies are designed to fight infections, we need to let our immune system do what it does best, figure out problems for itself. One would think that constant vaccine's, medications, antibiotics, etc just make the immune system lazy.
Obviously it's time for... (Score:1, Insightful)
PANIC and Irrational fear!!! Run for your lives!
Re:43 healthy children? Or 43 total children? (Score:3, Insightful)
Where's the profit in that?
As an experiment, the New York Times once ran the headline "Everything Is Fine, Nothing To Worry About" on their front page. For some reason that day's sales were way lower than either the Daily News or the New York Post, whose front pages both predicted imminent doom.
Go figure.
Re:Do not want (Score:5, Insightful)
What would your aunt expect to see at the hospital? All the healthy people who had flu shots with no side effects? Nothing is 100% safe.
Re:Do not want (Score:5, Insightful)
What? That's insane and selfish.
A) Without the vaccine you can develop pretty serious health issues.
B) You will then spread it to others. H1N1 is contagious 3 days before symptoms show up. So you will spread it to someone else, possible someone less healthy then you.
C) the that are vaccinated the smaller the impact of the disease.
Really, two pokes and 5 minutes is better the H1N1.
Re:Do not want (Score:5, Insightful)
...we need to let our immune system do what it does best, figure out problems for itself. One would think that constant vaccine's, medications, antibiotics, etc just make the immune system lazy.
Yeah, humanity got through Bubonic Plague just fine without a vaccine. And that Polio vaccine some wise guy came up with? Useless. Also, you seem to lack an understanding how vaccines work, as they stimulate the immune system into producing specific antibodies, which is essentially the opposite of making it lazy.
Re:43 healthy children? Or 43 total children? (Score:2, Insightful)
As an experiment, the New York Times once ran the headline "Everything Is Fine, Nothing To Worry About" on their front page. For some reason that day's sales were way lower than either the Daily News or the New York Post, whose front pages both predicted imminent doom.
[citation needed]
Re:Do not want (Score:2, Insightful)
Let's not go throwing a strawman situation around. We're talking about a strain of influenza.
No, I was talking about an ill-thought-out blanket statement.
pregnant wife + fear (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Do not want (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Die Die Die (Score:2, Insightful)
Do you seriously believe that if we had socialized medicine that hundreds of millions of vaccine doses would suddenly appear and 'save' everyone? The conclusion does not follow. Government is not the solution; government is the problem. Get rid of the FDA and take a billion dollars out of the cost of every new medicine produced.
So you want people to die, die, die, so you can get socialized medicine. That's sick.
Re:43 healthy children? Or 43 total children? (Score:3, Insightful)
Most flu deaths occur during the winter,
Known to be true.
when people generally have weaker immune systems and spend more time crowded together indoors making transmission easier.
Never been tested, completely surmised, and vulnerable to selection bias.
When I look at the numbers I see no children dying outside of the flu season. Summer not withstanding. Because of the outbreak, H1N1 got off to a weird season start. But Australasia's winter didn't kill any more or less than our summer. This seems to cast the 'cold = flu' thing in serious doubt, at least with H1N1.
Of course, if you were reading Slashdot yesterday, you saw already how the science isn't being done to find a link.
Re:43 healthy children? Or 43 total children? (Score:4, Insightful)
You just simply can't compare raw event numbers when estimating relative risk. Your statement about "twice as deadly" is very likely not true, and certainly not justified from the data you reference. You fail to take into account any sort of denominator when just using the raw events. What if only 27 kids rode school busses each year? What if 2 million did? What if only 43 kids were exposed to H1N1, and they all died? What if everyone was exposed to H1N1, and 43 died? You need to take into account the population, not just events. After all, every(?) child who died last year used toothpaste.
Apples and oranges (Score:4, Insightful)
The 35K/year number is excess deaths due to influenza, and is derived by fancy statistics from the time series of deaths in medical categories (i.e. gunshot wounds don't get figured in.) You can read more on how difficult this process is at Effect Measure [scienceblogs.com].
The "number of children" statistic, on the other hand, is confirmed 2009 H1N1 novel influenza diagnoses on the death certificate. No inference required, they are kids with confirmed infections which led directly to their deaths.
Both statements are true, in context. Please be a little less generous with the F-word.
Re:Do not want (Score:2, Insightful)
Not that I'm advocating all health care workers be compelled to get an H1N1 or any other vaccine. But for those who decline, I'm perfectly comfortable advocating that they not be permitted to come into contact with unsuspecting patients.
Re:Do not want (Score:3, Insightful)
Ok, so where do you draw the line? None of bubonic plague, polio, smallpox, measles, etc kill in 100% of cases and have widely varying mortality / serious effects rate.
At what mortality point is a vaccine a a good idea? If swine flu has a 5% mortality rate, should it be vaccinated against? What about 5% mortality rate amongst certain demographics--should they be vaccinated? 1%?
science, not superstition (Score:5, Insightful)
Well I do find it interesting that all over the news there are many health care workers who don't care to get the shot.
You may find it interesting that there are pharmacists, doctors, and nurses who feel it is their right to decide whether a patient even has the option of a morning-after pill or abortion. Now how do you feel about whether someone who chose to work in the medical field is permitted to inject their own dogma into your medical treatment?
Medical "professionals" and workers are expected to follow medical science, not superstition or personal beliefs and morals- and look out for the interests of their patient, not themselves or their own dogma. They knew that going in the door. Among other things, the first thing you are expected to do as an employee of a hospital is get all your vaccinations up to date.
Re:Do not want (Score:3, Insightful)
So you're arguing for the right to get diseases and the right to transmit them to others? I don't think that's how rights work...
Re:Same News Cycle Every Year (Score:4, Insightful)
I think he was referring to the profit made from selling newspapers hyping the flu situation.
i.e. scary headlines sells us more papers.
Re:Do not want (Score:5, Insightful)
My aunt is a nurse at one of the largest hospitals in Winnipeg and she said she has never gotten the flu shot and refuses too. After she's seen all the complications with them over the years she figures she's safer without.
So your aunt works in health care and refuses to protect herself from becoming a carrier of an easily preventable communicable disease? You mean because she doesn't think she will get sick means she doesn't feel like taking a simple step to ensure she doesn't transmit it to a very young or old patient who would become seriously ill and possibly die? What a bitch!
Sure, the flu isn't highly fatal, but it's not something to ignore. People do die, sometimes unexpectedly, even though it is uncommon. If she doesn't want to take steps to protect other people's health, why the fuck is she a nurse?
Re:Do not want (Score:5, Insightful)
Your Aunt is wrong and she should learn to read studies, understand statistics, and realize she works in a place sick people tend to go to. i.e. sample bias.
"we need to let our immune system do what it does best, figure out problems for itself."
That is exactly what a vaccine does, just without all the nasty sickness and death.
". One would think that constant vaccine's, medications, antibiotics, etc just make the immune system lazy."
One would be wrong. one could read studies. But no, one spouts off nonsense.
Re:Do not want (Score:5, Insightful)
A nurse (or anyone else working in a health care institution) needs to be immunized, because they have constant contact with the segment of the population who is most at risk from the flu. If a nurse gives your newborn the flu because she didn't get the vaccine and your child dies, there would be hell to pay. Seems like a legitimate issue to me, if not for the nurse/doctor's health but for the health of those they care for.
Re:Do not want (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Do not want (Score:3, Insightful)
Where the fuck do you get your information? I remember a time BEFORE there was a flu vaccine (which, BTW, happens to be pre-2002), and people were not dying by the hundreds of thousands.
Oh, and here's the other problem with your flu vaccine; almost NOBODY dies of the flu, they die of complications, the most common being pneumonia, for which we have treatment.
Oh, and more more thing... total deaths from swine flu are ~4,000 WORLDWIDE. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic [wikipedia.org]
Re:Do not want (Score:5, Insightful)
*facepalm*
All what complications with the flu shot? Feeling queasy for an afternoon? Mild irritation at the injection site? Ok - don't get it if you're allegic to eggs. You're more likely to die from the flu outright than come down with the only major complication, Guillain-Barré Syndrome.
Vaccines are one of the single greatest success stories of modern medicine. Our body is designed to fight off polio and smallpox too, but wasn't quite up to the task before vaccines.
If you or your aunt thinks getting vaccines is counter productive, you're morons.
Re:Do not want (Score:3, Insightful)
I hope you get the swine flu, too. In fact, I'm betting on the long shot that you happen to be one of those who will turn out to be particularly sensitive to it, and will remove yourself from the gene pool.
Me? I'm getting the vaccine, provided it's available in my area before I actually get the flu. It may not be life threatening to me, but I'm self employed and a typical flu recovery cycle would cost me $8000.
BTW - the linked site author clearly does not understand immunology, or he would realize that as a person with an exceptionally active immune system he may be more at risk for serious side effects. We can only hope...
straw man argument (Score:4, Insightful)
requires throwing ethics and morality out the window and blindly carrying out instructions, even if what you are being asked to do seems horribly wrong.
That's a nice straw-man; we're talking about medical professionalism in the context of patient care, not building bioweapons, rootkits, or anything else you cited. And yes, except in cases where the patient is unable to make decisions in an informed capacity and they do not have a pre-existing decision/order, their wishes are more important than whether something 'seems horribly wrong' to you. See: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patient_Self-Determination_Act [wikipedia.org]. And yes, if an 18 year old woman shows up at your pharmacy asking for a morning-after pill, it's not your right to lecture her about YOUR morals and religious beliefs. She's got her own.
How fucking funny that someone who just argued for the right for a healthcare worker to make decisions that affect the health of others, can't recognize the right for a patient to make decisions that only affect themselves.
Risk Categories (Score:5, Insightful)
Our health provider is "limiting" the vaccine to certain risk groups. These include pregnant ladies, children under a certain age, people with asthma or other chronic airway issues, and so forth. In other words, the specific groups they want to get vaccinated for flu every year.
A few comments about this virus and why vaccination is important:
H1N1 is a combination not seen for at least thirty+ years. Therefore, much of the population has never been exposed to the "surface codes" H1 or N1, which means they don't have partial immunity. This worries medical professionals, since that increases the virulence and the spread if this flu mutates into a deadlier form. (Generally, the flu shifts a few points. This is a major antigen shift.)
Vaccines do not have a 100% success rate. Some people's immune systems don't respond, so while they've been vaccinated, they don't have immunity and are still at risk. However, if the percentage of immunes is high enough, the particular disease never has a chance to get to those who are vulnerable. This is why anti-vaccination efforts are anti-social: your un-vaccinated kid can give my infant or elderly grandmother whooping cough or measles. (There have been a number of immune-compromised people in my family, and my parents watched family members and friends die from diseases that are now vaccine-preventable.)
Vaccines in general cover a larger number of diseases BUT have fewer "triggers" in them. For example, the original vaccine, smallpox, basically had to give you the whole disease to get your immune system going. Now we can separate out a few key proteins or antigens that are specific to the disease, rather than the hundreds that comprise it.
The upshot is, if you are in a risk category, get vaccinated. If you're not, practice good hygiene and wash your hands a lot, eat well, and get plenty of rest. And de-stress! Stressed people get sick easier.
Re:Why I am getting the vaccine (Score:3, Insightful)
I have a friend that didn't get their kid circumsized (which is usually done in the first when the boy is only a few days old) because they wanted to leave this decision up to the child. Note that the boy has already had quite a few urinary infections due to this.
Then he's doing something wrong. There's no modern hygenic benefit.
Re:Do not want (Score:2, Insightful)
A nurse (or anyone else working in a health care institution) needs to be immunized, because they have constant contact with the segment of the population who is most at risk from the flu.
No, they *don't*. They "need" to do what they think is best for themselves, and if that's *not* getting vaccinated (which is *not* a harmless procedure), then that's up to *them*.
The risks of complications from a vaccine are generally small, but non-zero.
If a nurse gives your newborn the flu because she didn't get the vaccine and your child dies, there would be hell to pay.
Scare mongering nonsense. Life's full of risks. That doesn't give you the right to demand others undertake a medical procedure.
Seems like a legitimate issue to me, if not for the nurse/doctor's health but for the health of those they care for.
This I agree with. It *is* a legitimate issue. But your right to make demands ends absolutely when it comes to what another person does within their own body.
Re:Do not want (Score:5, Insightful)
H1N1 does refer to proteins of the viral coat, but there is no inherent reason why we cannot mount an immune response to those proteins.
The flu is either incorrectly refered to as the "Swine Flu" or correctly refered to as the H1N1 flue. It is not refered to as the "Mexican Flu" by anyone other than yourself.
I have no idea what you mean by this:
there is some chance that the mantle of flu would be copied around the much more dangerous virus
But then again, it's obvious that neither do you. If you were capable of packaging the genes for an innocuous flu into the coat of a more virulent flu, it would only increase the chances of infection in the first generation, because the less virulent genes delivered into the infected cell would code for the more mundane viral coat, not the one it had hijacked, becuase it would lack the genes necessary for it's production you moron.
And as to the 1917 flu pandemic, it's not even remotely relevant. Medical science, both prevention as well as treatment of symptoms, has come so far as to make any comparisons nonsensical. For one thing, penecillin wasn't even mass produced until the 1940's. I am aware that the flu is a virus, and not effected by antibiotics, but the flu is also capable of lowering overall immune function such that a significant number of the deaths in the wake of the 1917 flu were as a result of secondary infections resulting from the primary flu infection. Also, the first antiviral drugs were developed in the 1960's so were unavailable in 1917 without a time machine.
Pneumonia is not a disease in and of itself you fuckwit. Pneumonia is an infection of the lungs that can be caused by any number of infectious agents, including bacteria. My wife's aunt has pneumonia and gave the infectious agent to my wife and daughter. They don't have pneumonia because the disease didn't settle in their lungs but in their sinuses. As a result they simply have head colds instead of the more serious pneumonia despite being infected by the same virus.
Please mister FUDster, SHUT THE FUCK UP!
Re:Do not want (Score:3, Insightful)
Does everyone around here have shit-for-brains? Jesus
Swine flu might not be so deadly, but it's a hell of a lot more virulent. If 1% die from each, but 70% get swine flu vs. 30% normal flu, what happens in absolute terms?
Second, there should be absolutely no debate, and absolutely no compromise that anybody in health-care should be getting their vaccines. What's so hard about this? "Boo hoo, I don't want a vaccine because of x,y,z pointless and unsubstantiated reasons" does not stand up to "you being sick will kill people". If somebody doesn't understand this, they are too stupid to work in healthcare and need to get out.
Third, what kind of a stupid question is that? I'm not vaccinated against malaria because it's extraordinarily unlikely that I will contract it. You said so yourself - "the chances are really low". However, it is quite likely - probable, in fact - that I will get swine flu if I'm not vaccinated.
Jesus. None of this stuff is particularly hard to understand. The swine flu vaccine is made the same way as the normal, harmless flu vaccine. The way it's made is what would make it dangerous, not its payload. And yes, in edge cases some people will have an adverse reaction to the vaccine - but that's true of peanuts and oysters as well, and in much greater numbers.
THIS IS NOT COMPLICATED! If enough people are vaccinated and DON'T get the swine flu, we won't have a pandemic. If not enough are, we will. It's not a mortality problem, it's a infrastructure problem. If ten million people are in the hospitals this winter because of a pandemic (as opposed to the usual 200K) people will die because hospitals will be swamped.
Don't you fucking dare assert that you may be fine and that's all that matters, because nobody cares about you. Us who actually can see the consequences of behavior see that if a significant proportion of people get sick from ANYTHING, be it the cold or Ebola, it will fuck over the world, the economy, and thousands to millions of unrelated people.
Re:Same News Cycle Every Year (Score:3, Insightful)
The reason this country has gone from 20+ flu vaccine manufacturers a decade ago to 2 today is because it's so unprofitable.
Not sure about that: [chicagotribune.com]
A half-dozen U.S. companies are producing seasonal flu vaccines this year, double the number from five years ago. In the late 1990s, the number of seasonal flu vaccine-makers dwindled to just two because excess capacity caused prices to fall to the $2-a-dose range. Today, seasonal flu dosages list for about $15 each at wholesale prices.
PREPA [wikipedia.org] was passed in 2005 and dramatically reduced the liability of vaccine makers. Then Bush dropped $1 billion onto folks like GlaxoSmithKline and Novartis for R&D to speed up vaccine production (in fear of the Avian Flu).
How do vaccines stack up to "normal" drugs? Not much money in vaccines, but not insignificant either:
The U.S. vaccine industry, which also includes vaccines for cancer, accounted for $4.7 billion in annual sales last year. In the same period, Pfizer Inc. sold nearly $8 billion worth of the cholesterol drug Lipitor, and AstraZeneca PLC generated $6 billion in sales from its heartburn pill Nexium, according to industry reports.
Re:Do not want (Score:5, Insightful)
Rubbish. Society has a significant interest in what you do with your body, because the results of that action may cause harm to others. If, for example, you have extremely drug-resistant tuberculosis, you can expect public health authorities to hold you in isolation, and if necessary, force treatment upon you.
An individual's ignorance should not be to society's detriment. If their ignorance or lack of compliance will cause harm to others, they may be forced to comply with procedures, even when those procedures cause them discomfort, inconvenience, or possible harm.
Re:Do not want (Score:3, Insightful)
Are you aware that getting the seasonal flu vaccine increased your chances of getting H1N1?
CITATION NEEDED. Not trying to be pedantic, but it strikes me as FUD at first glance. Could be that those who receive the vaccine stop being as cautious thus increasing their chances of contracting a disease they have not actually been vaccinated against.
I do agree with you as to the knee jerk reactionary types on slashdot when it comes to the biological sciences. My understanding of the typical slashdoter is a computer or physical sciences degree and little if any life sciences outside of what they've gleaned from the latest SciFi novel (Not knocking scifi, it's a favorite of mine). I realize I'm painting a huge community with a broad brush, but the shoe does appear to fit in most situations.
Re:science, not superstition (Score:3, Insightful)
Nobody is being held at gun point and having needles forced into their arms. If your job responsibilities conflict that strongly with your ethics and morality, then quit and go find a new career.
Why should an employer have to change their job description to match whatever arbitrary limits an employee decides their morals have put on their work? A pharmacist refusing, for any personal reason, to fill a legitimate subscription provided by a doctor is a bad pharmacist and should go find a career that doesn't conflict with their morals.
You can't go get hired as a stripper and then complain that taking your clothes off in front of strangers is wrong to you. Some people just aren't cut out for certain lines of work.