UPDATE: The server for the Science-Based Medicine blog is now back online, so the link in this story does work now. Hooray!
It seems like just yesterday we were all freaking out together about the discovery of H1N1. And now, here we are at flu season and our little pandemic is all grown up. In the meantime, there's been a lot of good work done on clearing up the questions surrounding this illness, but misinformation still abounds.
If you, or a loved one, are suffering from flu confusion, I prescribe this handy primer on the basics. Written by Dr. Joseph Albietz, Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Colorado, Denver, and The Children's Hospital, it starts at the very beginning (seriously, the first question is, "What is Influenza?") and provides a great overview of the flu in general, and H1N1 in particular.
Even if you feel like you've successfully graduated from Flu 101, there's a lot of great higher-level discussion and Q&A going on in the comments of this post. Enjoy, and happy learning!
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Seems the server got the flu and went to bed.
I hope this clears up your conflusion.
Sorry. :p
Well, damn. I'll see what I can find out there and update when it comes back online.
Just threw out a junk mail fax from a "health promoting" company that was trying to sell a talk on the dangers of the new H1N1 vaccine for chiropractors to deliver. The program costs $595. Highlights the "over reaction" to the 1976 response to the swine flu. Fails to mention the 1918 flu pandemic. Uses the phrase "grow your practice" about 5 times.
google cache:
http://209.85.229.132/search?q=cache:UMDvA4dwjywJ:www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/%3Fp%3D1229+http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/%3Fp%3D1229&cd=1&hl=en&ct=clnk&
I'm disappointed the link is down. There seems to be no shortage of people extolling the dangers of getting a flu vaccine. I have a friend I hadn't seen in 10 years just contact me recently. Suddenly my inbox is filled with crap from mercola.com and a bunch of other "don't listen to doctors/bigpharma/government" sites. A good deal of it is Teabagger stuff. It's really kind of disturbing and frustrating dealing with her. She always believed in some odd stuff (like god has us on a seven year plan for armageddon- that was ten years ago). But now she's no longer entertainingly loopy, she's just downright crazy. For instance she fully believes Obama is setting up internment camps to house his enemies. Is it just me or does all this semi coherent rage seem like a repeat from the early 90's when Clinton took office?
It's curious that all these advocates of fact based science do not address that the actual H1N1 vaccine hasn't been tested. I hear science believes in testing.
Furthermore the statistic that on average 36,000 will die either from influenza or its complications includes complications such as pneumonia (bacterial, unlike the flu which is viral). Yes, influenza weakens the immune system, but counting all secondary infections as "complications" and counting deaths due to secondary infections as part of influenza's death toll is ridiculous. That's like including pneumonia deaths for hospital stays for broken legs (secondary infections are a real issue by the way in hospital visits) as caused by the broken leg.
One thing I don't get is the bottles of hand-sanitiser stuff that have suddenly appeared everywhere (esp. in Japan). Surely that stuff is only effective against bacteria, not viruses, right?
Thalia, you're being kind of pedantic there. Even if not all the 36,000 deaths are "caused by" the flu directly, but were instead caused by complications resulting from the flu, they're all deaths that wouldn't have happened if the people hadn't gotten the flu in the first place, so the practical argument for encouraging people to get immunized is exactly the same.
And what do you mean when you say the vaccine hasn't been tested? As they say on wikipedia, "citation needed"...this New Yorker article says in the second-to-last paragraph that "though this H1N1 virus is novel, the vaccine is not. It was made and tested in exactly the same way that flu vaccines are always made and tested. Had this strain of flu emerged just a few months earlier, there would not have been any need for two vaccines this year; 2009 H1N1 would simply have been included as one of the components in the annual vaccine."
No testing? BS! The anti-vaccine conspiracy nuts will one day be responsible for millions of deaths.
http://www3.niaid.nih.gov/news/newsreleases/2009/H1N1PedTrial.htm
Sorry about the server problem at science-based medicine. We are working like crazy to get it back up ASAP. The article is worth it...i promise.
So if I get stabbed and bleed out on the street is that a "knife related death" or does it not count because blood loss is a "complication the wound?"
Just because I don't want to be vaccinated doesn't mean I attempt to channel spirits or blame witchcraft for my illnesses.
Whatever happened shades of gray? Or does everyone (no matter what setting on the political spectrum) now believe that if I disagree with them that all hell will break loose?
Thank you for the Flu 101 basics, Maggie.
I'm just a ball of conflusion
OK, sciencebasedmedicine is back up. Thanks for your patience.
I don't like the idea of pre-emptive germlike bits in my body, and I stay well. Mostly, because I WASH MY HANDS. I'm convinced that the end of human civilization will be traced to hand sanitizer. But maybe I'm just genetically healthy...
Thanks! Very informative (although it wasn't anything I didn't already know). It would be nice if this were to be aired on the 6:00 news so the hand-wringers could hear about it from someone other than myself.
@sjthornton - I quite agree regarding the hand-sanitizer! That stuff is banned in many hospitals. Yes, it kills germs - but it kills germs that BELONG on the body as part of our first line of defense. It's dificult to explain this to people because if they don't dismiss you as a crackpot outright, they jump to the conclusion that as long as they constantly bathe in hand-sanitizer, they'll be okay. Pointing out that alcohol is a dessicant and that their skin will crack, rendering them even MORE susceptible to infection, just annoys them completely. On top of that, alcohol is absorbed into the bloodstream through the skin, which is why some people are literally addicted to hand-sanitizer. If future generations read about hand-sanitizer, they will react as we do when we read of patent-medicines that contained radium or cocaine.
Couple studies state alcohol is effective on many viruses, the reference below for influenza. Topically, not internally.
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/abs/10.1086/595845
Ethanol based hand sanitizer can actually be very effective. Many hospitals have it installed at every room to help with infection control.
This was an excellent article. I was not going to get a flu vaccination, but now I think I should. It seems like a small thing to do to prevent much bigger problems. And since I have no health insurance, consider a few days in ICU vs a flu vaccination - seems like a no brainer.
The particular vaccine being released has not been tested. Yes it was "made using tried and true methods" but so was the flu vaccine of 1976. The actual stuff that is being peddled has not been tested. Reality is that given the time lines for production, they didn't have a chance to test it. That's perfectly reasonable, but really admitting to it would be nice.
As to real basis for illness v. complications, getting a BACTERIAL infection after you've had a VIRUS, because your immune system is compromised is not the same as bleeding out because of being stabbed. Lots and lots of people get pneumonia (bacterial) when their immune system is compromised (because of just about anything, the flu, being tired, not sleeping enough, being in the hospital, etc.) In no other disease are the deaths from bacterial infections unrelated to the underlying disease counted as part of the death toll. That's not me being pedantic, that's them peddling panic.
Thalia, I refer you to:
http://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/results?term=h1n1
I'm counting around 80 studies in this database alone, with multiple studies having been completed.
I also refer you to the EMEA's website on pandemic vaccines,
http://www.emea.europa.eu/influenza/vaccines/home.htm
especially "scientific considerations" documents from the press releases. I'm sure similar documantation can be dug up similar things from the FDA homepage, but since I live in Europe I leave that excercise to you.
Now, would you please stop lying and spreading misinformation? Thank you.
Thalia, by that rationale nobody dies of AIDS because the virus itself isn't what kills you.