Article

2009-10-01 -Lurid Crime Tales-

blog claims problems with h1n1 vaccine in navy/marines

Archived material is restricted to Rantburg regulars and members. If you need access email fred.pruitt=at=gmail.com with your nick to be added to the members list. There is no charge to join Rantburg as a member.

Posted by linker 2009-10-01 00:00|| || Front Page|| [15 views ] Top

#1 Now why does this sound like nonsense?

Posted by SteveS 2009-10-01 00:07|| 2009-10-01 00:07|| Front Page Top

#2 I'm gonna have to call BULLSHIT on this one.

Posted by Nimrod Finster 2009-10-01 00:13|| 2009-10-01 00:13|| Front Page Top

#3 FRANKEN/ZILLA-SIZED NEEDLES notwithstanding???

Posted by JosephMendiola">JosephMendiola 2009-10-01 00:16|| na]">[na] 2009-10-01 00:16|| Front Page Top

#4 From the NEJM

The first batch of 2009 H1N1 influenza vaccine, to be shipped the first week of October, will likely be in the form of intranasal spray containing the live attenuated virus, CDC officials said in a press briefing Friday.

The CDC anticipates at least 3.4 million doses of the nasal spray vaccine being shipped to states that first week. Children younger than 2 years, pregnant women, and people with underlying conditions such as lung disease and diabetes although they are at high risk for H1N1 complications should not receive vaccines with the live attenuated virus. Instead, they should wait until inactivated injectable vaccines become available. Officials said that there may be some injectable vaccines in the first shipment, but it is not certain.
-----

You can get a mild form form of the vaccinated against disease (eg polio) from live attenuated vaccines. There are recorded cases of onward transmission of flu from people given live attenuate vaccine.

But that doesn't account for this. This would be a massive screwup by the vaccine manufacturer.

The only other explanation is they managed to create a multiple wave flu pandemic in microcosm on the ship.

Posted by phil_b 2009-10-01 00:55|| 2009-10-01 00:55|| Front Page Top

#5 Smells a little funny to me as well.

I'm not a medical or biosciences professional, so I'm not qualified to comment on that side of the story. What I am is an ex-squid (6 yrs. regular & 7 reserve) who knows that CO of a surface warship with a 347-person crew is a full Commander (O-5) or Captain (O-6) billet. A LCDR would be the XO or one of the department heads.

Posted by Ricky bin Ricardo (Abu Babaloo) 2009-10-01 01:16|| 2009-10-01 01:16|| Front Page Top

#6 I also found this,

H1N1 Flu Breaking News

-Australian doctors question country's vaccination plans

Australia's major infectious disease society is questioning the safety of the country's novel H1N1 vaccination plans, the Australian Broadcasting Corp. reported today. In a letter to the government, the Australasian Society for Infectious Diseases cited a risk of cross-contamination when using multidose vials and said the flu epidemic has subsided, so the campaign needn't be rushed. A spokeswoman for vaccine maker CSL countered that the single-dose approach would be slower and more expensive. [Aug 20 Australian Broadcasting Corp. News story]
------

I assume cross contamination means transmitting one persons flu infection to a second along with the vaccine.

A recipe for novel mutations as I have noted before.

Posted by phil_b 2009-10-01 01:19|| 2009-10-01 01:19|| Front Page Top

#7 FYI, the CDC specifically says not to administer H1N1 and seasonal live attenuated flu vaccines at the same time, because of the novel mutation/combination problem.
--------------

Can seasonal vaccine and novel H1N1 vaccine be administered at the same time?

Live 2009 H1N1 vaccine can be administered at the same visit as any other live or inactivated vaccine EXCEPT seasonal live attenuated influenza vaccine

Posted by phil_b 2009-10-01 02:20|| 2009-10-01 02:20|| Front Page Top

#8 If this is true, which I doubt, contaminated vaccine would seem to be the culprit.

Posted by gromky 2009-10-01 03:37|| 2009-10-01 03:37|| Front Page Top

I assume cross contamination means transmitting one persons flu infection to a second along with the vaccine.

Cross contamination through using multi-dose vials is referring to some other germ getting into a common volume of vaccine through unsterile techniques and then infecting others. This germ would most likely be hepatitis B or C, less likely HIV. It would not be the flu.

Posted by Nimrod Finster 2009-10-01 04:56|| 2009-10-01 04:56|| Front Page Top

#10 Everyone- look at the 'tags' at the top of the email... hint- I tried to post a comment with some of those words, and the Burg zapped me.

Posted by Free Radical 2009-10-01 05:09|| 2009-10-01 05:09|| Front Page Top

#11 I've left this on the Burg but moved it to the opinion section and removed the text. If you want to go dip into that website it's your choice.

My own opinion - worth the less than $.02 you pay for it - is that there is no reason to assume that a vaccine for H1N1 is any more dangerous than one for other influenza strains, and good reason to believe that it's important to vaccinate most people against it.

H1N1 viruses rarely emerge but when they do they have the potential to take forms that are much more deadly than the usual seasonal flus.

Vaccination will almost certainly be the only way to stop the spread of a mutated H1N1. There are three predictive models developed by different research teams I know, using very different modeling/simulation methods, which show the same thing:

the only way to prevent a full pandemic of a novel flu strain (one that a lot of the population doesn't have antibodies for) is early vaccination, especially of highly vulnerable segments of the population.

That's because the transmission characteristics of influenza viruses, the dormancy periods when you might be a carrier but don't have major symptoms yet, and our highly mobile society mean that by the time you try other methods such as social distancing (keeping people home, away from jobs and schools; shutting down airports etc) it's too late. Those measures can slow the spread of a flu virus (any flu virus) but not stop it. Without a major vaccination program we are simply rolling the dice and hoping the virus doesn't mutate to a lethal form like the one that killed millions of people in 1918.

BTW, one of the models I mentioned above was used this past Spring to predict the spread of the early, not very virulent version of H1N1 that has been circulating. It proved to be highly accurate ... as the CDC got better data their data converged to its predictions.

Vaccines can have side effects in a few people. But if you refuse vaccination and if the virus does mutate to really lethal form, you're gambling not only with your own life but with those of your children, your loved ones and everyone around you IMO.

The problem is that by the time we know if the new strain - and there will be a new strain, viruses are constantly combining and changing - by the time we know that a new strain is lethal, it will be too late to stop it.

Pre-emption is the only effective defense in this case, where we haven't seen an avian/swine combined flu in generations.

Maybe the mild form that's been circulating will give enough people enough immunity to prevent massive deaths. Or maybe the virus won't make the 2 - only 2 - genetic changes needed to become lethal.

But if H1N1 does mutate to the fully lethal form seen in 1918 and people are NOT vaccinated it will be impossible to prevent the sort of massive deaths that occurred during its last appearance in the early 1900s. 26 million people died in that pandemic, and that was before the world population was anywhere near as large as it is today and before most people had cars, flew across the country or the ocean etc.

Posted by lotp 2009-10-01 08:40|| 2009-10-01 08:40|| Front Page Top

#12 BTW if the above sounds passionate, well .... I sat on the pandemic influenza planning group for a military installation. The military involved are pretty sober people, some with battlefield experience. Not prone to exageration or panic, in other words.

They are taking the potential of a deadly H1N1 strain very very seriously. So I do too.

They're aware that in 1918 the flu vectored through military training camps because the young adults in those camps were the most vulnerable to that strain. The same thing is true today ... those age groups are the ones most likely to be hit especially hard by a lethal new strain of H1N1 this time around, too. But NO ONE has real immunity against some potential H1N1 strains. That means things could get nasty really fast if at least partial immunity isn't induced via vaccination.

I know commanders who have asked for course of action evaluation in the event that 40-50% of a base/post are seriously ill or dead. If those 40-50% include people with key specialties things could unravel very quickly.

May not happen. If all goes well the virus won't mutate to that form. But if it does .....

Posted by lotp 2009-10-01 08:54|| 2009-10-01 08:54|| Front Page Top

#13 Lotp, are you familiar with the work of Dr. DeBell at BMI?

Posted by Besoeker in Duitsland 2009-10-01 09:01|| 2009-10-01 09:01|| Front Page Top

#14 No, but tell me more and send along a link or two and I'll check it out.

Posted by lotp 2009-10-01 09:45|| 2009-10-01 09:45|| Front Page Top

#15 LOTP nailed it.

To me, this is personal. I will be "at risk" due to a (temporarily) nuked immune system. I will be getting the H1N1 (one of the "fully dead" versions), and have already gotten the pneumonia and normal A virus inoculations as soon as they were available

If you are in the slightest way at risk (diabetes, heart condition, asthmatic, cancer treatment, etc), you are an idiot if you do not ge treated.

If you are otherwise healthy, you re putting the res of the population around you at risk if you "take a chance" on not getting inoculated.

If you do not interact with much anyone and are not at risk, then maybe skipping this would be an acceptable risk -- but for those around you at risk, and those who are at risk, GO GET YOUR INNOCULATION!

Beware of idiots on the internet with all kinds of paranoid crazy theories about the H1N1. Here are the "Big 3 BS" going around:

1) cross contamination? Not going to happen unless you are in the third world where they re-use needles. Doesn't happen in the US unless someone really screws up then you have more to worry about than the flu (Hep, HIV, etc). Also, thimerosal, a preservative, is in most of the multi-dose vaccines, and it prevents cross-contamination in other scenarios.

2) Adjuvants - specifically MF56, which contains squalene (which is linked to GW syndrome). Not happening in the US _ squalene is not approved, therefore MF59 is not approved, therefore the Novartis formulation of the vaccine is not legal for use in the US. The Glaxo-Smith-Kline formulation uses a non-squalene adjuvant ASO3, which is approved and has long been in use in the US.

3) Mercury - it comes from a preservative, thimerosal (of which merciry is a small component), NOT an adjuvant - as mentioned above, its a preservative and prevents cross contamination. And there are thimerosal-free (mercury-free) formulations available for the H1N1 vaccine. This issue comes form a massive misinterpretation of Washington Stat health department suspending the ban on thimerosal in vaccines for small children and pregnant women to allow them to CHOOSE to take such vaccines rahter than wait for mercury-free ones if they run into limited availability. FYI: the mercury in the thimerosal such an innoculation is less than you get by eating wild-caught tuna. There have been many large, thorough studies that show no harm caused by thimerosal in vaccines.

This is more fringe nutjob stuff who couple it to interment camps, stocking up on burial crypts (long ago debunked), and the Bilderbergers taking over the world.

So get the facts, and beware of the kooks; they are coming out of the woodwork on this one.

Posted by OldSpook 2009-10-01 10:18|| 2009-10-01 10:18|| Front Page Top

#16 Wonders why such a large percentage of the US population doubts evolution when mutation of flu viruses is such an obvious current example.

Posted by Odysseus 2009-10-01 10:53|| 2009-10-01 10:53|| Front Page Top

#17 A few bits. First of all, H1N1 is no biggie. However it is being used as a dress rehearsal for Avian flu H5N1, which right now is just shy of nuclear war for being the biggest threat to the US.

By this, I mean that worldwide, the medical systems are adjusting to get ready to fight a plague estimated to be deadlier than either of the great Black Plagues (14th and 17th Centuries). And that plague is the Avian flu. Estimated mortality of 60% of those infected.

In the US, this means that the government has poured enormous amounts of money into vaccine production by all the major pharma companies, whereas before only one or two companies had done it.

Already we know that when the H5N1 flu emerges, it will be brutal, and there is no possible way to prevent the death of millions of Americans, because we cannot make the vaccine in time. But we're going to try.

So H1N1, though mild, is a dress rehearsal. Among other things, they are adding "adjuvants" to the vaccine, extra ingredients to stimulate the immune system to make more antibodies, faster. But this has never been done on a wide scale before. Nor has production and distribution of vaccine at this scale.

So it's a great test. As far as the antiviral drugs like Tamiflu go, don't bet the farm on them. With just some use in Asia, within a few months the ordinary flu in the US had already adapted a resistance to Tamiflu.

For its part, H1N1 has just had a noticed mutation that would be critical to H5N1. Some people have been detected with two different strains of H1N1 in their system. The primary strain is like a typical flu, with most of the virus in the upper trachea and sinuses.

But the new strain is appearing in the lower trachea. So these people have two different flus at the same time.

Now the primary reason that H5N1 hasn't started killing people like a lawnmower cuts grass, is that it is limited to the lower trachea. This makes it much harder for people to spread to each other. As soon as it figures out how to reproduce in the upper trachea and sinuses, we have a plague on our hands.

And the zinger is that H1N1 and H5N1 can exchange this information with each other, and all other influenza types.

But if you don't know this background, a lot of what is happening with the Swine flu vaccine seems, with some justification, to be unnecessary or even stupid.

The bottom line is that it is just a big test. So if you want to play along, fine. The only exceptions are children and people with other medical conditions that may make them more susceptible to secondary diseases like pneumonia. Hispanics, too, seem to be at greater risk for becoming seriously ill.

Other than that, nothing much to worry about.

Posted by Anonymoose 2009-10-01 14:37|| 2009-10-01 14:37|| Front Page Top

#18 It's true that H5N1 "Asian/avian flu" is far more lethal than the current H1N1. However, the ability of current strains of H5N1 for human to human transmission appears to be limited.

OTOH, the current H1N1 "swine flu" has the potential to open that door since it blends human, swine and bird flu elements. H1N1 can swap traits with H5N1 fairly easily due to the avian elements in this variant.

That's why it's important to get vaccinated for H1N1 now. As H1N1 mutates rapidly it gets closer to H5N1 ... and it is human transmissible. The concern is that H5N1 will pick up that trait from the current H1N1 strain as the latter spreads and changes this year.

So the current vaccination push is more than a dry run - it's a preemptive attempt to significantly limit the opportunities for these two strains to interchange traits in dangerous ways.

Posted by lotp 2009-10-01 16:16|| 2009-10-01 16:16|| Front Page Top

#19 It wouldn't take much of a hit from either H1N1 or H5N1 (or another virulent, airborne vector that can cause serious respiratory infection) to overwhelm the American medical system.

We have little extra capacity for ICU beds. We have even less extra capacity for respiratory ventilators. We have some extra general hospital bed capacity but not enough nurses to staff all of them unless we draw nurses from other duties.

Remember how the 1918-1919 flu was treated -- large open wards in converted schools, etc with minimal nursing and medical care? That's the next flu fatal/serious pandemic here, not because we don't know better, but because we'll be overwhelmed.

Posted by Steve White 2009-10-01 17:42|| 2009-10-01 17:42|| Front Page Top

#20 lotp,

Live attenuated vaccines cause co-infections, such as with H5N1, that risk development of new strains.

There is anecdotal evidence from 1918 that partial immunity from infection with a previous strain caused rapid death from hemmorhagic type symptoms. This is a know problem with at least one other viral disease - dengue, and the reason there is no vaccine against dengue.

Vaccines have never stopped the spread of the flu. To think they will in the future is wishful thinking.

Primer on flu/viral evolution

Posted by phil_b 2009-10-01 17:46|| 2009-10-01 17:46|| Front Page Top

#21 Question for the professors at Rantburg U:
Last time I got a flu shot, I had a ten-alarm headache and couldn't lift my head off the pillow for three days. What causes this? Do side effects vary from vaccine to vaccine?

Posted by mom">mom 2009-10-01 18:15|| 2009-10-01 18:15|| Front Page Top

#22 Mom,

If you had a live attenuated flu vaccine then you would have had a mild (relatively speaking) flu infection from the vaccine.

A killed flu vaccine would give you milder symptoms (the vaccine doesn't cause a infection), but would be less effective at stimulating the necessary immune response.

It isn't a side effect. It's how all vaccines work.

Posted by phil_b 2009-10-01 19:33|| 2009-10-01 19:33|| Front Page Top

#23 I know commanders who have asked for course of action evaluation in the event that 40-50% of a base/post are seriously ill or dead.

We have one in place here and it gets revised regularly.

Another major concern is the population centers near the bases.

Posted by Pappy 2009-10-01 21:37|| 2009-10-01 21:37|| Front Page Top

#24 Mom, there is some concern from recent testing that some types of influenza might be responsible for neurological damage.

"Influenza-associated neurological complications may account for up to 5% of cases of acute childhood encephalitis or encephalopathy; they were reported in 6% of influenza-associated deaths among children during the 2003 to 2004 influenza season in the United States."

However this varies tremendously based on the influenza strain. After the Spanish flu of 1918, Europe, but not the US, experienced a "second" epidemic, called the "brain fever", mostly in young adult men. It killed many, and those that survived were prone to both severe rages and paranoia.

There is even some suggestions that the brain damage was so uniform in character, that it might have contributed to the rise of the Nazi party in Germany.

That being said, depending on what you were vaccinated with, you might have had an immune response in your nervous system. This is because your symptoms of stiff neck and severe headache are associated with meningitis-type illnesses. This is not to say you had a real infection, just that your immune system might have thought you did.

Posted by Anonymoose 2009-10-01 22:22|| 2009-10-01 22:22|| Front Page Top

23:35 JohnQC
23:28 Barbara Skolaut
23:20 JohnQC
22:44 CrazyFool
22:39 lotp
22:38 Barbara Skolaut
22:36 Barbara Skolaut
22:35 Barbara Skolaut
22:32 Barbara Skolaut
22:26 Alaska Paul
22:22 Anonymoose
22:22 Alaska Paul
21:59 notascrename
21:37 Pappy
21:33 Chuck Simmins
21:32 Chuck Simmins
21:28 Chuck Simmins
21:25 Pappy
21:12 Pappy
21:06 Mitch H.
20:50 Mitch H.
20:45 Capsu78
20:31 Richard Aubrey
20:08 trailing wife