Swine Flu

29 Mar: Swine Flu Response: Alarmist or Legit?

By Frank Jordans via www.msnbc.com GENEVA – A group of outside experts will scrutinize the World Health Organization’s response to the swine flu outbreak and likely examine whether the term pandemic was appropriate for what has turned out to be a relatively mild disease, the World Health Organization said Monday. The review starting later this month will be conducted by…

25 Jan: Vaccination Without Doctor Approval In a US Hospital

By S. Humphries, MD January 22, 2010 original link with references www.medicalvoices.org H1N1 and seasonal influenza vaccines are now being given to sick hospital patients with or without their doctor’s consent. This is being done despite there being no data on the safety of doing so. I am a licensed, board-certified nephrologist, otherwise known as a kidney specialist, working in…

08 Jan: No U.S. Decision On H1N1 Vaccine Orders: Official

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The United States has not made a decision on whether to cancel or sell any of its orders for the H1N1 vaccine, unlike some countries in Europe, a federal health official said on Thursday. Dr. Anne Schuchat of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said demand remains steady and the government’s focus is on having…

08 Dec: Swine Flu Far Less Severe In Latest Calculations

By Steve Sternberg, USA TODAY A team of researchers from the USA and Britain on Monday dramatically scaled back estimates of the severity of the swine flu epidemic. The analysis suggests that the death rate from the current wave of H1N1 flu cases probably will fall in a range that extends from far lower to slightly higher than the estimate…

04 Dec: Glaxo’s Swine Flu Shot May Give Kids Fever

LONDON (AP) — The European Medicines Agency warns that young children given GlaxoSmithKline’s swine flu shot may get a fever after their second dose. In a statement issued Friday, the European drug regulator said data from GlaxoSmithKline PLC showed a higher number of children aged six months to 3 years had a fever after their second dose of the Pandemrix…

27 Nov: Signs Swine Flu Wave May Have Peaked in U.S.

By DONALD G. McNEIL Jr. via www.nytimes.com Although federal health officials decline to use the word “peaked,” the current wave of swine flu appears to have done so in the United States. Flu activity is coming down in all regions of the country, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said Friday, though it is still rising in Hawaii, Maine…

25 Nov: Preventing The Swine Flu: A Comprehensive Approach

Sneezing, coughing, fever, aches and pains… Worried about flu symptoms like these? As winter approaches, most of us are. But this year, the flu seems even more alarming, thanks to increased health concerns about the H1N1 influenza strain, also known as the swine flu. Even though this strain doesn’t appear to be particularly threatening, it has the potential to mutate…

18 Nov: Why the USDA Has No Business Overseeing Conditions on Factory Farms

by Tom Philpott via www.grist.org Why isn’t the federal government seriously investigating the possible CAFO-swine flu link? I’ve posed that question several times recently, most recently here. Now let me venture an answer. The USDA is the federal agency tasked with ensuring that practices on farms, including factory animal farms, are safe. But it’s also the agency that exists to…

16 Nov: Vaccination: A Conversation Worth Having by Bill Maher

While America is still in the grips of swine flu mania, let me use this opportunity to clear up a few things about my beliefs concerning the flu shot, vaccines, and health in general. I do this because there is obviously a lot of curiosity about this subject of vaccines — it comes up in every interview I do these…

13 Nov: Virginia Teen Suffers Rare Illness After Swine Flu Shot

Boy diagnosed with Guillain-Barre syndrome, but CDC says no clear link By JoNel Aleccia, Health writer Nov. 12, 2009 A 14-year-old Virginia boy is weak and struggling to walk after coming down with a reported case of Guillain-Barre syndrome within hours after receiving the H1N1 vaccine for swine flu. Jordan McFarland, a high school athlete from Alexandria, Va., left Inova…