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H1N1
As a die hard "no flu shot" girl I would like to share some information that the OB/GYN I work for (and my personal doctor) uses to educate his patients/staff. I have only had 1 "regular" flu shot in my life, following which I became very ill. I vowed never to get another...and H1N1 NEVER!!!! Today, I caved, H1N1 in the left deltoid at 1700 hours. So like most, I was afraid that it would make me sick or that there would be other side effects since it wasnt "well" tested.
The information is as follows (to the best of my memories ability).....
The H1N1 vaccine is not "new"....it is the same as all other flu shots, it is made the same way. Each year they try to guess which virus' are most likely to appear making people sick with the flu. The usually add several different virus' to the shot hoping to cover more than one strain. For the H1N1 vaccine the used the dna from a "dead" virus of H1N1. Injecting the virus in the body causes it to create antibodies so that if your body comes into contact with the virus you can fight it off. It is made exactly the same as all other flu shots.
Additionally, when the virus is dead, it can NOT make you sick. However, it takes approximately 2 weeks for the immunity to build up. Therefore, if you become sick shortly after receiving the vaccine, its because you got the flu before you were protected, you did NOT get it from the vaccine. (with the regular flu shot, its possible that you got a strain that wasnt covered by the injection, since its only a prediction of whats out there)
The concern with H1N1 isnt that its killing MORE people than other flu's, but that it's killing a different population. Typically it is the elderly that die...with H1N1 it is pregant women and children. At any time about 1% of the population is pregnant. With the "regular" flu we can expect that approximately 1% of flu related deaths will be a pregnant woman. With the H1N1 it is 6-7% of all deaths will be a pregnant woman. Since the vaccine cannot make you sick and it is not known to cause any harm or have any side effects, why would you not protect yourself from something that could be lethal.
It is also recommended that any caregivers of children 6 months and younger be vaccinated since they are not able to receive the vaccine and it is NOT recommended that they are treated with the antivirals. This will decrease the likelihood that the caregiver will pass the illness onto the child.
The nasal "vaccine" (made with a live virus) should NOT be given to pregnant women!!!!!!!!!!
As a health care worker dealing primarily with pregnant women and newborns, I felt that it was my responsibility to protect my patients. I would feel soooo guilty if I passed the illness onto a baby or pregnant mom and some harm came to them, especially knowing it could have been prevented.
I had many misconceptions about the vaccine, and wanted to share the information that I was given with others. If you are still uncertain, I encourage you to talk with your health care professional to determine if you are at high risk and should receive the vaccine and to discuss any concerns that you may have. May you all stay healthy!!!!
The information is as follows (to the best of my memories ability).....
The H1N1 vaccine is not "new"....it is the same as all other flu shots, it is made the same way. Each year they try to guess which virus' are most likely to appear making people sick with the flu. The usually add several different virus' to the shot hoping to cover more than one strain. For the H1N1 vaccine the used the dna from a "dead" virus of H1N1. Injecting the virus in the body causes it to create antibodies so that if your body comes into contact with the virus you can fight it off. It is made exactly the same as all other flu shots.
Additionally, when the virus is dead, it can NOT make you sick. However, it takes approximately 2 weeks for the immunity to build up. Therefore, if you become sick shortly after receiving the vaccine, its because you got the flu before you were protected, you did NOT get it from the vaccine. (with the regular flu shot, its possible that you got a strain that wasnt covered by the injection, since its only a prediction of whats out there)
The concern with H1N1 isnt that its killing MORE people than other flu's, but that it's killing a different population. Typically it is the elderly that die...with H1N1 it is pregant women and children. At any time about 1% of the population is pregnant. With the "regular" flu we can expect that approximately 1% of flu related deaths will be a pregnant woman. With the H1N1 it is 6-7% of all deaths will be a pregnant woman. Since the vaccine cannot make you sick and it is not known to cause any harm or have any side effects, why would you not protect yourself from something that could be lethal.
It is also recommended that any caregivers of children 6 months and younger be vaccinated since they are not able to receive the vaccine and it is NOT recommended that they are treated with the antivirals. This will decrease the likelihood that the caregiver will pass the illness onto the child.
The nasal "vaccine" (made with a live virus) should NOT be given to pregnant women!!!!!!!!!!
As a health care worker dealing primarily with pregnant women and newborns, I felt that it was my responsibility to protect my patients. I would feel soooo guilty if I passed the illness onto a baby or pregnant mom and some harm came to them, especially knowing it could have been prevented.
I had many misconceptions about the vaccine, and wanted to share the information that I was given with others. If you are still uncertain, I encourage you to talk with your health care professional to determine if you are at high risk and should receive the vaccine and to discuss any concerns that you may have. May you all stay healthy!!!!
Replies to This Discussion
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Permalink Reply by Carina on
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Hey Sara,
Thanks for sharing this information with us. Hopefully it will spark a mature debate.
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Permalink Reply by Marissa Peterson on -
Thank you for sharing!
I will definitely be getting the H1N1 vaccine, especially since my son is only 5 months old!
And, my husband works as a corrections officer in a jail, so there's no tellin' what kind of stuff he comes in contact with!
Thank goodness his job administers shots to him and our family for free!
Now I just have to get my hubby to let his Medical staff know that I want the vaccine.
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Permalink Reply by ProudScotsMumtoBe on -
Thanks for this information. My surro Sharon was summoned to attend for her H1N1 vaccine tomorrow. We have done nothing but discuss this issue varying between Yes and No she will have it. We are 19 weeks pregnant today. I have read so much research, official papers, newspaper articles, personal reports and came to the conclusion that if we are offered Celvapan (which does not have any chemical adjuvant in it) we would have the vaccine, but if we were offered Pandemrix (which does have a chemical adjuvant in it) then we would not take it. Unfortunately it looks as though the UK health system have only ordered supplies of Pandemrix thus taking the choice away - therefore we will be electing not to have the vaccine, but will be trying to boost Sharon's immune system in a natural way with Vitamin D supplements.
Don't get me wrong, we will worry ourselves senseless that Sharon may contract H1N1, and we might revisit our decision later on in the pregnancy, perhaps after 24 weeks when the NHS would consider the baby viable. We have been told that the side effects from contracting swine flu are more serious later in pregnancy and Sharon's own doctor - who herself had the H1N1 vaccine at 26 weeks told Sharon that, yes she thinks she should have the vaccination, but the later in pregnancy the better.
So we've made an educated decision at this point based on all the research we have done and, if there is any way we can obtain Celvapan then we would take that.
It is not the vaccine itself I am worried about, but the squalene in the adjuvant which can have some very nasty side effects and is has been suggested that it caused Gulf War Syndrome because it was used as an adjuvant in the Anthrax vaccine given to the troops. This ha obviously been refuted (can you imagine the litigation claims if they admitted it) but the fact remains that the a study detected high levels of squalene anti bodies in veterans with Gulf War Syndrome and no anti bodies in veterans who are not sick.
There has been further research which shows that the adjuvant can lead to immune system dysfunction, guillaine barre syndrom etc. because the adjuvant is basically a booster which turbo charges our own immune systems so that when the virus enters the body our immune system goes into overdrive, but there are suggestions by respected medics that in some instances the immune system is boosted so much by these adjuvants that it actually starts to attack our own bodies.
NOW YOU CAN SEE WHY MY HEAD IS SPINNING WITH IT ALL - everwhere you look there are different answers to the same question. But probably the final thing which convinced me was finding out that the UK Government has accepted liability for any side effects caused by the vaccines. The pharmaceutical companies have been absolved from any responsibility. Why would they do that? Why absolve the manfacturers from any liability if the manufacturers have told them that the vaccines are safe? Can you see where I am coming from here. The manufacturers do their own tests to make sure the vaccines are safe, they also are making billions from the sale of these vaccines but are not prepared to take responsibility for any major side effects plus the one major adjuvant ingredient which has the most nasty side effects has never been tested on pregnant women.
I am not trying to scaremonger and put anyone else off, I am just explaining why we chose not to proceed with the vaccine at this time. Just do a general google search of H1N1, swine flu, squalene, adjuvants, thiomersal etc. and you will find lots of research so that you can fully educate yourself before making a decision.
All we can do is pray to god that we have made the right decision - but no matter what happens we are all stuck between a rock and a hard place. If we don't get the vaccine and anything happens to Sharon or the baby, I will never forgive myself. If we do get the vaccine and anything happens to Sharon and the baby I will never forgive myself. All I do know is that the vaccine crosses the placental barrier and I am not exposing my unborn baby to squalene - so fingers crossed our NHS will see sense and make Celvapan available to pregnant women.
Again, this is purely my thoughts on the matter - I don't want to scaremonger - and of course everyone will do their own research and come to their own decision, It was ours not to get the vaccine at this time - but it doesn't mean I'm not scared witless :0(.
Val x
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Permalink Reply by D'Ann on -
This was what I was wanting to see! THank you for your time in posting this! I don't want this vaccine but I don't want to get H1N1 carrying someone else's baby.. I, like you, feel like we are stuck between a rock and a hard place.
Thanks again,
D'Ann
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Permalink Reply by Sara on -
Glad it was helpful. It has been almost 3 weeks since I received my vaccine. I feel great, no side effects and I didnt get the flu!!!!
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Permalink Reply by Melissa on -
This is a great blog. Its great to hear from two different POVs on this issue. Thank you, ladies.
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Permalink Reply by jodi on -
THis is a very imformative discussion and I would like to add some things I've discovered while researching the pros and cons of the vaccine. My SIL who is an ICU nurse is trying to persuade me to be vaccinated before our next upcoming journey in January. I'm still weighing the pros and cons and it may all be a moot point anyways, as I don't fall into the high priorty category right now and vaccines are scarce here. The first thing I wanted to know was how many people die each year here in the USA from the seasonal flu? The answer on avg is 36,0000 http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/disease/us_flu-related_deaths.htm I'm not sure that many people realize this number is so high,and are only hearing the death rates from H1N1. There is also the comparison to the Swine Flu outbreak of 1976 and that of today. The outbreak 1976 was confined to a military base but, there was a rush to vaccinate the United States, a vaccine was created quickly and untested and 25 people died from the vaccine and another 500 became inflected with Guillain-Barre Syndrome http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1206807/Swine-flu-jab-link-... Here is what GBS is http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/gbs/gbs.htm I guess mostly what bothers me is the rush to vaccinate before testing and while many argue this vaccine is the exact same as the seasonal flu vaccine, I still have trouble with this statement when many medical facilities are still trying to test the affects of the vaccine on patients as recently as October http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/10/091009204029.htm There's a lot to think about and I suggest everyone does their research.
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Permalink Reply by lulu on -
I do not do shots - I will certainly make sure my IF's are double aware of that. This includes the flu shot. I am holding my breathe to see what the repercussions of this massive push for shots and immunizations for everything under the sun are. 35 for babies by the time they are 5? Come on!!!!! A Hep B for an hour old infant? You can only get Hep B from sex or using needles and I'm pretty sure babies don't do either. It just doesn't add up.
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Permalink Reply by Jenn on -
Still a no for me. I've been sick for two weeks now, and its irritating. I thought it would go away after a few days, but it remained persistent. I ended up keeping myself up at night with coughing. Finally went into the doctor today. I'm kind of miserable :( I couldn't immagine having H1N1! However, I still believe its a man made disease and the "cure" an invasive mechinisim in our system.
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Permalink Reply by Surro Mommy (Jenn) on -
To be a surroagte... my RE suggested I get it..... or couldnt work with them... as well as the donor had to do it too!!! Its one of their requirements now. So i got mine nov 22nd and so did my kids... their school held a clinic for it . My kids are my life and I figured if I can Try and prevent from loosing my children to the "swine flu".. Im deff gonna get my children the H1N1 vaccine. I believe that the "swine flu" is just another way to "lower" the population.... i believe it was man made... or why keep the borders open.
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Permalink Reply by Jenn on
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Ooohhh me too jenn! I think population control as well. You should look up Agenda 21 when you have a spare moment. It appears at prima facia as if it were measures to protect the earth and the environment... But if you read between the lines very carefully you'll see it speaks to population control. The fact is that the earth cannot continue to sustain itself at its populations current rate of consumption. I don't necessirially believe N1H1 is the specific vehicle for that, but a conduit or the beginnings of what is to come. And if you stop and think about it, the governments only way to enact martial law and control the population while wearing the mask of "in the publics best interest" is biological warfare, an out break of some sort.
Of course, it seems like too much of a fairy tale currently, considering the government always looks out for the people, right? Otherwise, why force the vaccine? Perhaps its not the flu to fear.
I really hope they don't make me take the vaccinne to be a donor.
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Permalink Reply by Surro Mommy (Jenn) on
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Jenn... when I got my shot just before thanksgving... the guy who gave it to me said that they had a "meeting".... (with medical staff) and he was saying to me that there was something else "bigger" that we will have to worry about... and its coming soon. The government has not realeasde the info to the public.... because supposdly they dont want to "scare us".... right! Just another way to "weed" out the population more. The guy told me the name of it... and I cant remember for the life of me what he said it was that is effecting the population now...and its going to be more deadly..... Do you know Jenn or have heard something like this???
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