- What are Tamiflu and Relenza?
- Do Tamiflu and Relenza have a positive impact on seasonal, avian, or pandemic influenza?
- Is the H1N1-specific vaccine effective? What are the side effects?
- Does taking Flu vaccines result in 'resistant strains' of the virus?
- Does vaccinating healthy people protect society from pandemics?
- Does stockpiling of doses of antivirals make sense?
- Are randomized placebo-controlled trials of the antiviral drugs “unethical”?
This is a conversation I had in Facebook with a friend of mine. She posted a link to an AtlanticWire piece on vaccinations for the Pandemic H1N1 virus or Swine Flu - back in mid-October.
The AtlanticWire piece is a brilliant balance to the uninformed opining and spectacle news reporting going on still in our always-on electronic culture. It's a great resource for people worried about the questions posed above.
As usual, I was racing by, too busy to ingest the content the first time round.
In my opinion, this should be required reading.
Lauras' Facebook post:
------------------------------
Does the Vaccine Matter? - The Atlantic (November 2009)Source: www.theatlantic.com
Whether this season’s swine flu turns out to be deadly or mild, most experts agree that it’s only a matter of time before we’re hit by a truly devastating flu pandemic—one that might kill more people worldwide than have died of the plague and aids combined. In the U.S., the main lines of defense are pharmaceutical—vaccines and antiviral drugs to limit the spread of flu and prevent people from dying from it. Yet now some flu experts are challenging the medical orthodoxy and arguing that for those most in need of protection, flu shots and antiviral drugs may provide little to none. So where does that leave us if a bad pandemic strikes?
October 14 at 7:41pm · Comment · Like / Unlike · View Feedback (4) · Hide Feedback (3) · Share
Facebook Comments (4)
------------------------------Paul:
Indeed, sometimes Darwinism is inevitable.------------------------------
October 14 at 10:43pm
Michael Holloway:
Hey Laura, check out this post, January 27, 2007 @ my blog FilterBlogs: It lays out the case against panic.------------------------------
It is my opinion the last pandemic, the so called Spanish Flu was a result of the returning soldiers from WW l - who spent years hip-deep in cold sewage, corpses and rats - under-nourished and injured. That is the kind of petri dish needed to again result a flu pandemic.
Factory farming is the great threat to human health today; Swine Flu is the first indication of the problem; see FilterBlogs December 28, 2006
October 15 at 2:47am
Laura:
Thanks Michael - I'll check it out when I have proper access again.------------------------------
October 20 at 11:45am
Michael Holloway:
Laura, I owe you an apology on this one.------------------------------
My earlier comment was dismissive. I scanned the bi-line and the first paragraph of the piece and jumped to conclusions.
I'm sorry....
The article you point to is excellent!
When I saw your post I immediately checked it out. It's a topic that interests me greatly.
The first paragraph introduces Dr. David Newman. My adrenaline spiked,'I know that name', I said to myself, 'that’s the rat-bastard who I believe is bio-engineering bird-flu pathogens at Recominomics Lab!' (Dr. Henry L Niman)
I was Wrong! Now that I've Made the time to READ the article it turns out Dr. Newman is a free thinker, a hero, speaking against power.
Keep up the good fight! The truth will out - eventually.
Michael Holloway
November 8, 2009 11:05pm
Further Links:
Authors of the AtlanticWire piece are:
Shannon Brownlee, a senior research fellow at the New America Foundation and the author of Overtreated (2007).
Jeanne Lenzer, an investigative journalist and a frequent contributor to the British medical journal BMJ.
Sinclair Lewis's book Arrowsmith
Daniel Janies, an associate professor of biomedical informatics at Ohio State University.
mh
No comments:
Post a Comment