I’m having a personal flashback. In 1976, I was a brand new nurse and everyone in the hospital was encouraged/required to get a Swine Flu Vaccination because we were in contact with the public. Of course, we did. Two days later I was sick, seriously sick. I was admitted to the hospital and put in respiratory isolation for several days. I recovered without further incident and never sued the government like so many other people did at the time. But I’ve not been allowed to get flu shots since. Now I’m wondering…do I have some resistance to the swine flu, since maybe I had some form of it? Or am I more at risk? Are you worried about this current outbreak?
Here’s some history of President Ford’s 1976 decision to “hurry up” the development of the swine flu shot:
“1976: President Gerald Ford orders a nationwide vaccination program to prevent a swine-flu epidemic… the nation’s health officials urged Ford to authorize a mass inoculation program aimed at reaching every man, woman and child. He did, to the tune of $135 million ($500 million in today’s money).
Mass vaccinations started in October, but within weeks reports started coming in of people developing Guillain-Barré syndrome, a paralyzing nerve disease, right after taking the shot. Within two months, 500 people were affected, and more than 30 died. Amid a rising uproar and growing public reluctance to risk the shot, federal officials abruptly canceled the program Dec. 16.”
http://www.wired.com/science/discoveries/news/2008/03/dayintech_0324
Graphic on Swine Flu Symptoms from: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swine_flu
The media is in a full-fledged panic-inducing glee over this. They almost cannot contain their giddiness over the possibilities. Maybe they’ll invent a word more serious than “pandemic”? Why not? Keeps the little old ladies tuned in and makes everyone a customer.
Am I worried? Not about the flu. I’m worried that we’re evolving into a culture that hungrily hops from one crisis to another.
Comment by Dan — April 27, 2009 @ 6:27 pm
But sometimes what worries me is what’s happening “off the grid” that we don’t hear about when a big, scary news story dominates everything. It’s an opportunity for Congress or the White House to get busy with things that will never be carried on the news.
Comment by mary — April 27, 2009 @ 6:34 pm
Some of the less hysterical, more rational information about the H1N1 swine flu is on the Center For Disease Control and Prevention’s Swine Flu webpage. It has timely links to good information.
I read the transcript of the online press conference over the weekend. What caught my attention is that the reporters were asking reasonable and pretty good questions. But then you see what’s being aired on the tube, and you wonder if some editors thought the facts were too boring, not titillating enough.
Comment by Bill — April 27, 2009 @ 7:10 pm
Drudge Report had a full swine flu meltdown today!
Mary, are you serious? You really think that something is “happening “off the grid” that we don’t hear about when a big, scary news story dominates everything.”? Do you think that “Congress or the White House” planned this? Or do they just sit quietly in the dark waiting for a big, ‘ol scary news story to come along so they can sneak some nefarious deed by without out knowing? Seriously?
Comment by raygun — April 27, 2009 @ 7:15 pm
I think I know where comment #2 has its roots:
Glenn Beck is nuts.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/
Comment by raygun — April 27, 2009 @ 8:16 pm
Hey, it was the President’s own Chief of Staff, Rhom Emmanuel, who said, “”Never let a serious crisis go to waste. What I mean by that is it’s an opportunity to do things you couldn’t do before.”
Comment by mary — April 27, 2009 @ 8:17 pm
I have also worked the medical profession and I have seen the elderly die soon after a flu shot.
I have NEVER taken the flu shot and I won’t. I have also heard that flu shots will be mandatory down the road for hospital employees. By then, I will have a serious allergy to eggs.
Comment by Stebbijo — April 27, 2009 @ 8:43 pm
I was more worried by the idiotic campaign photo op gone bad in NYC today with AF One.
Comment by Pariah — April 27, 2009 @ 9:01 pm
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JxE0iazfIBg
Comment by Pariah — April 27, 2009 @ 9:05 pm
http://attacked911.tripod.com/
Comment by Pariah — April 27, 2009 @ 9:17 pm
pariah, in support of the expression, “there’s a first time for everything,” i agree with you that the AF One stunt in NYC was idiotic. Grrr!
Comment by raygun — April 27, 2009 @ 10:11 pm
The H1N1 flu strain is reportedly in the same ilk as the 1918 flu pandemic. Yet, not all versions of H1N1 have the same virulence. In fact the H1N1 has visited many time since 1918 without nearly the same consequences. It looks like the virologists are still piecing together the particulars about this current strain. It is clearly quite infectious but has expressed a higher degree of lethality only in Mexico. Many question the validity of the health statistics gathered in Mexico. How many active cases resulted in minor cases, serious cases, and the lethal cases? So far Mexico’s morbidity data conflicts with what has been experienced elsewhere.
There is no confluence of horrific and proven virulence as has been shown with the entitled ‘bird flu’. That is one really ugly bug and like the 1918 pandemic will be completely new to human exposure. It has yet to make that final mutation of human to human transmission.
Human life is a frail thing in the big picture. Modern medicine certainly has made impact on infectious disease and has also learned that we do not know it all and will be reactive in certain instances. That is what is so frustrating about parents neglecting or (worse) choosing to not vaccinate their children. They just don’t understand the diseases they toy with. They place their own children in direct peril and the whole planet in indirect peril by providing a crucible for these diseases to reactivate and possibly mutate.
Comment by Wallypog — April 28, 2009 @ 7:48 am