Medical experts figure that the federal government did a pretty good job responding to swine flu, with assessments ranking from "at least a B-plus" to "excellent."
Waldo Jaquith (JAKE-with) is an open government technologist who lives near Charlottesville, VA, USA. more »
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8 replies on “links for 2010-01-02”
I think the feds did all right. Would have been nice to spur the vaccine manufacturers a little more so that doses where readily available before the flu started to spread across the country.
I think more education is need for emergency preparedness and emergency responders by the feds. I saw some pretty rookie mistakes in my county’s clinics to get the flu vaccine out to the high risk groups. It seemed that way across Michigan. So maybe the rookie was at the state level? Either way, someone should have told the top dog they were doing it wrong.
By the time my county rolled out the 3rd clinic (1 month after the 1st clinic), they had a much better system. And by the 4th, they had it down. It’s a shame high risk inoculation was almost complete at that point. But if it were a case of an actual emergency, a month or two can mean a world of a difference.
That said, I don’t know how I feel about all the hype for this swine flu. Did the vaccines actual curb it? Doctors at the hospital where my daughter was born had no problem calling it a pandemic (it seemed like they made it a point to use that word.) It’s common now to call any flu-like symptoms “swine flu” even without testing. After this year’s flu season, it will be interesting to look at mortality rates of this season compared to years past.
I found part of this story rather puzzling:
Vaccine supply was a problem
then
[the nation’s medical leadership] bought adjuvants — chemical “boosters” — that could have stretched the first 25 million vaccine doses into 100 million, but did not use them for fear of triggering a backlash among Americans made nervous by the messages of the antivaccine [sic] movement.
Did they really fear the public’s susceptibility to the (universally debunked) anti-vaccine movement’s message more than they feared delaying deployment of 75 million vaccine doses? If so, I’d hardly call that a “relatively cautious decision.”
I received my immunization for H1N1 last week. My kids had theirs three weeks back. My wife didn’t get one and now she has a fever and swollen glands. Score three for going for the shots!
I took my 3-year-old daughter out to Palmyra (from C-Ville) twice to get her flu spray. The staff was efficient and friendly and the lines were short, so no complaints from me. I do hope that the lines were short due to their efficiency and not because people weren’t getting their vaccine.
The anti-vaccine issues weren’t related only to the arguments put forth by the crazies about autism, etc.; the last mass innoculation against swine flu in 1976 was linked to a higher incidence of Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare paralyzing condition which is fairly severe as far as side effects go.
As far as adjuvants in particular, they absolutely do result in more short-term negative side effects — that’s how they’re meant to work. Adjuvants are meant to trigger and stimulate your immune system so that it responds to the antigen in a vaccine more vigorously, which means you generate antibodies faster. It also means that because your immune system is more-fully activated, you’re more likely to exhibit symptoms of associated with being sick — fever, aches, etc. Especially because of the aforementioned issues with the last mass immunization, no one wanted to see a bunch of news stories about how tons of people getting the flu vaccine are nevertheless displaying flu-like symptoms, calling into question the efficacy or safety of the vaccine.
I know a lot of people that didn’t get the shot, and some that did. The funny thing was that a couple of the people that got it ended up sick from the vaccine. And those that passed on the shot have yet to get sick.
Jeff also has a good point.
Beth, sounds like Sam provides a sound explanation for that.
Thank you, Sam, for your explanation.
As I said, I found the story puzzling. From Sam’s explanation, I now realize that the story’s use of the phrase “messages of the antivaccine movement” was vague; I took that phrase to mean the current autism-related hysteria, which is the message the movement seems most interested in actively promoting.
Had the story contained a bit more explanation of the background contained in Sam’s explanation, I would not have been so puzzled.
(Yes, I do realize that expecting detailed explanations of historical background information in contemporary newspaper articles is sometimes akin to wishing for a life-sized chocolate giraffe. *sigh*)
I think the feds did all right. Would have been nice to spur the vaccine manufacturers a little more so that doses where readily available before the flu started to spread across the country.
I think more education is need for emergency preparedness and emergency responders by the feds. I saw some pretty rookie mistakes in my county’s clinics to get the flu vaccine out to the high risk groups. It seemed that way across Michigan. So maybe the rookie was at the state level? Either way, someone should have told the top dog they were doing it wrong.
By the time my county rolled out the 3rd clinic (1 month after the 1st clinic), they had a much better system. And by the 4th, they had it down. It’s a shame high risk inoculation was almost complete at that point. But if it were a case of an actual emergency, a month or two can mean a world of a difference.
That said, I don’t know how I feel about all the hype for this swine flu. Did the vaccines actual curb it? Doctors at the hospital where my daughter was born had no problem calling it a pandemic (it seemed like they made it a point to use that word.) It’s common now to call any flu-like symptoms “swine flu” even without testing. After this year’s flu season, it will be interesting to look at mortality rates of this season compared to years past.
I found part of this story rather puzzling:
then
Did they really fear the public’s susceptibility to the (universally debunked) anti-vaccine movement’s message more than they feared delaying deployment of 75 million vaccine doses? If so, I’d hardly call that a “relatively cautious decision.”
I received my immunization for H1N1 last week. My kids had theirs three weeks back. My wife didn’t get one and now she has a fever and swollen glands. Score three for going for the shots!
I took my 3-year-old daughter out to Palmyra (from C-Ville) twice to get her flu spray. The staff was efficient and friendly and the lines were short, so no complaints from me. I do hope that the lines were short due to their efficiency and not because people weren’t getting their vaccine.
The anti-vaccine issues weren’t related only to the arguments put forth by the crazies about autism, etc.; the last mass innoculation against swine flu in 1976 was linked to a higher incidence of Guillain-Barre syndrome, a rare paralyzing condition which is fairly severe as far as side effects go.
As far as adjuvants in particular, they absolutely do result in more short-term negative side effects — that’s how they’re meant to work. Adjuvants are meant to trigger and stimulate your immune system so that it responds to the antigen in a vaccine more vigorously, which means you generate antibodies faster. It also means that because your immune system is more-fully activated, you’re more likely to exhibit symptoms of associated with being sick — fever, aches, etc. Especially because of the aforementioned issues with the last mass immunization, no one wanted to see a bunch of news stories about how tons of people getting the flu vaccine are nevertheless displaying flu-like symptoms, calling into question the efficacy or safety of the vaccine.
I know a lot of people that didn’t get the shot, and some that did. The funny thing was that a couple of the people that got it ended up sick from the vaccine. And those that passed on the shot have yet to get sick.
Jeff also has a good point.
Beth, sounds like Sam provides a sound explanation for that.
Thank you, Sam, for your explanation.
As I said, I found the story puzzling. From Sam’s explanation, I now realize that the story’s use of the phrase “messages of the antivaccine movement” was vague; I took that phrase to mean the current autism-related hysteria, which is the message the movement seems most interested in actively promoting.
Had the story contained a bit more explanation of the background contained in Sam’s explanation, I would not have been so puzzled.
(Yes, I do realize that expecting detailed explanations of historical background information in contemporary newspaper articles is sometimes akin to wishing for a life-sized chocolate giraffe. *sigh*)