Never mind. I looked him up. And I looked up his credentials. Not. Impressed.

Playing Whac-a-mole again?:D

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Squalene is not in any of the US influenza vaccines. In the past, there was some discussion of mixing the vaccine with adjuvant at the time of injection, if it was shown that the vaccine alone didn't produce a good enough immune response. They would have been in separate bottles, so patients could have refused the adjuvant if they wanted. But it's a moot point now, because the immune response is fine without adjuvant. I can't say much about specific adjuvants, since I haven't really researched it in any depth. But I do know the flu vaccine doesn't contain any. No, I cannot definitively say they are exactly the same. They probably use different buffers, or salts, or detergents, or whatever, from time to time. Different companies use different things. They all produce the vaccine in basically the same way, and use the same types of ingredients.

This is a doctor?! What type of doctor, please.

Incubation is only a couple days. One week would be stretching it. But kids can be contagious for a couple weeks. Maybe that's what she meant?

You definitely aren't out in left field. You do get some degree of cross protection from existing antibodies when you are infected with a new strain of flu. The more closely the strains are related, the better protection you will have. If they are distantly related, you probably won't have any protection at all. For instance, lots of antibodies to an H1N1 won't give you any protection to an H3N2, because they are too different. But even two strains that are both called H1N1 may be too dissimilar to give cross protection. So you can't assume that just because you've had an H1N1 in the past it will help with future H1N1s. It might, or it might not. It depends on the genetic structure of the viruses. There is also some evidence that having antibodies to some influenza strains "primes" the system, so when your body encounters a new strain (whether naturally or by vaccination) production of new antibodies is sped up. This probably also depends to some degree on how closely the strains are related.

Power Net Global. My bill is usually about $3 a month. I don't talk long distance much though.

I don't know if CDC has made an official recommendation yet, but Sanofi is saying kids under 10 need 2 doses, and adults need one.

My general answer would be no, it doesn't always take 2 weeks. In some studies of seasonal flu vax, the majority of people have protective levels by day 7. Protective levels are lower than peak levels, but whether or not you have protective levels is what's clinically important. However, how fast protective levels develop depend on a number of things, including age, underlying health, and subtype of flu. In one study antibody response to H1N1 (seasonal) was quicker than to H3N2 and Influenza B. There also may be a "priming" effect, so that if you already have antibodies to other strains, your immune system works faster at making new antibodies. So an immunologically naive individual will have a slower response. Unfortunately, most of us are immunologically naive to the novel H1N1 strain. I haven't seen results of antibody studies for the new H1N1, so I don't know if these results apply. In general older people take longer to produce antibodies. Young children also may take longer. Healthy people have faster response, and those with compromised immune system take longer and reach lower peak levels. Some people have no response at all. HTH

I'm open minded wrt the increase in allergies. But her arguments don't make sense to me. Aluminum is the only adjuvant used in the US (it is NOT in influenza vaccines) and it's been used in childhood vaccines for over 50 years. I believe it's used less now than in the past. So I'm not sure how that explains the recent increase in peanut allergies. I wish this explained it. It would be very easy to fix.

Right. Here's a table with thimerosal content. Scroll down to Influenza A - H1N1 2009 . The highest concentration is 25 mcg/ml, same as all the other thimerosal containing vaccines.

I haven't heard this, but I think people should take the advice of their physicians. I'm wondering, though, are they similarly concerned about the immune response they will have when they are infected with influenza? Because that's going to be a much bigger immune response.

In the user control panel, my default setting is for linear mode. This is the way it looks on every computer when I open WTM. But on my laptop, it stays on hybrid mode. Even if I change it, when I try to go to the next page of posts, it goes back to hybrid mode. Anyone have this problem? There must be some setting on my laptop that I need to change, but I can't find it. TIA

I don't know why there would be blood. It certainly isn't added to the vaccine. The virus is grown up in chicken embryos, so it might come into contact with some blood, but the virus is washed and purified so shouldn't be contaminated with any blood. I don't know anything about petroleum byproducts. It's possible, but why don't they just say the name of the ingredient? They want you to think there is gasoline in there or something. I'm guessing they are referring to nonylphenol ethoxylate in Novartis' vaccine. I don't know if it's a petroleum byproduct or not, but I can't find any other candidates. It's a detergent, used for cleaning the inactivated virus. Does your email have any references? Sources? Evidence? Sounds like fear mongering to me.

I think it's full of misinformation. I'm not going to go through it it point by point, because it's futile. I just read an article on Effect Measure where he compares trying to address articles like these to playing Whac-a-Mole. That's exactly what it feels like. I think it's proactive to declare a public health emergency. It's much better to do it and not need it than to wait too long and have gridlock. I've commented on the CBS investigation elsewhere.

:grouphug: I'm so sorry.

Actually, we looked at this in a study I was involved in, and we were surprised to find that people who had the swine flu vaccine in 1976 still had protective antibodies 30 years later. I don't know if it would give any cross-protection for the current H1N1, but it was an interesting and unexpected finding.

If this flu were more dangerous I have no doubt this would happen. Several years ago I was involved in some presentations to our local police/FBI type people. It was very mysterious, they didn't actually tell us who they were, except "high level security". They asked us to give them worst case scenario if we had a severe pandemic, so they could understand the public health issues and try to plan for rebellions, uprisings, looting, and general civil unrest. Their perspective was quite interesting. They fully expect mayhem if things get dicey.

It looks like the sanofi vaccine is the only one that contains formaldehyde. There are different methods of inactivating the virus (you can't really kill a virus, since it's not alive to begin with) and one way is to use formaldehyde. After it's inactivated, it's washed and filtered several times, but a trace of formaldehyde may remain. The amount is minuscule compared to the amount you are exposed to on a daily basis by cigarette smoke, particle board, etc. It is true that in general you will have a better immune response to a natural infection than a vaccine. And as far as vaccines go, you have a better immune response to a live virus vaccine than a killed or inactivated vaccine. This is because if you are exposed naturally, you have a higher viral (or bacterial) load and your body makes more antibody if you have higher numbers of microbes. It probably isn't important with flu though, because the virus is continually undergoing mutations and generally has changed enough so that your immune system wouldn't recognize it, even if you have plenty of antibodies. The antibodies no longer "match" the virus. A comment about terms, so the next bit makes sense: Subtype refers to the Hs and Ns. So H1N1 is a different subtype than H3N2, for instance. But the subtype virus undergoes gradual changes from year to year, and when it does this, we call them new strains, even though the subtype itself hasn't changed. For instance here is a phylogenetic tree of a sample of H3N2 viruses. The closer they are on the tree, the more related to each other. When a new subtype enters the population, like the novel H1N1 has, it usually replaces what was circulating before. For instance, swine H1N1 (the old one) jumped into humans in 1918 and caused the Spanish Influenza. The illness was very serious for a year or two, then it lost virulence as it mutated. It continued to circulate, changing from year to year, until 1957, when suddenly an H2N2 appeared, jumping from birds into humans. At that time, the H1N1 went extinct, and was replaced by pandemic H2N2. That subtype circulated until it was replaced in 1968 by H3N2, which also jumped from birds to humans. There was an exception in 1977, when an H1N1 re-emerged but did NOT replace the H3N2. We've been having two subtypes co-circulating since then. The graphic below shows how when a new subtype appears, the old one disappears. It's hard to say what will happen. My guess is that the new H1N1 will take over and the previous subtypes ("seasonal") will disappear. But other possibilities are that all 3 will circulate, or just one of the others will go extinct. I do believe H1N1 is here to stay, and will become seasonal, changing gradually from year to year. The only way this H1N1 will disappear is if a new pandemic strain jumps species (if it follows the pattern we've observed for the past 100+ years.) That would be bad. Whether it mutates to a more virulent, or less virulent form remains to be seen and I don't think there is any way to predict which way it will go. Historically, flu strains get less virulent after a pandemic, although the 1918 started out mild and became much worse during the second wave. After that it became less virulent. It doesn't HAVE to work this way. Flu is very unpredictable, and although we see patterns, it continues to do surprising things.

It's a controversial and complicated isssue. The data is conflicting on whether it decreases mortality in the elderly, which typically account for 75-80% of deaths d/t influenza. However, observational studies (as opposed to RCT) have shown a clear benefit in older people. RCT are more rigorous scientifically, and are generally preferable when you are looking for evidence. It's well known that flu vaccine isn't very effective in the elderly. Older people don't get a good immune response from infections or vaccines in general. The most effective way to decrease influenza in the elderly is actually to vaccinate everyone else, so transmission is interrupted. The vaccine has clearly been shown to be effective at preventing illness in younger people and kids. Since there are few deaths in those age groups to begin with, and vax rates are low in those age groups, it's hard to say whether it prevents death, but it is assumed to since it prevents illness. The vax is most likely to prevent death during pandemic years, since deaths occur disproportionately in younger people. Here are some great articles discussing this issue from Effect Measure. Journalists sink in The Atlantic article on vaccines The Atlantic article: sur rebuttal Flu vaccine, the elderly and the CDC

It is confusing. I guess in summary I would say it can't cause flu but can cause a mild illness. Very mild (or no illness, usually) in healthy people, with the theoretical, NOT demonstrated risk of more severe illness in the immunocompromised, and known wheezing in the very young. HTH

It's just not that easy to count cases, but this has been discussed AD NAUSEUM and I'm not going to do it again. Maybe hornblower has more patience and will chime in. I don't know when the term ILI was first used, but it's been around for many, many years. If Mercola hasn't heard of ILI before, he is truly ignorant about influenza. Funny, he uses the term "influenza like illness" in this article written in 2004. Case definitions may change over time, but that shouldn't be a surprise. I did a pubmed search and looked at the last page. Notice the dates.

BTW, None of the influenza vaccines in the US have an adjuvant. Flumist does NOT have an adjuvant.

The Flumist contains attenuated vaccine, which means it's weakened by growing it over and over in a culture, known as "passing". Each time it passes, it loses virulence. Eventually, it will have gone through enough genetic changes that it can't cause flu, unless it reverts to its original genome, which has never been shown to happen. But it is still a live virus, and it can cause what's called a "vaccine-virus" infection. It's different from influenza, but it doesn't have a name. I'm going to call it Mistuenza. Mistuenza frequently causes a mild runny nose or sore throat, but it is not the same as a full blown case of the flu. In safety trials, they found an increased rate of wheezing in kids under 2. There is a theoretical risk of worsening of symptoms in asthmatics. There is also concern that people with compromised immune systems could have a worse case of mistuenza, although it hasn't been shown to happen. In fact, several studies have been done that show it's safe in people with asthma, cancer, and HIV. But it's a liability issue, and the CDC isn't recommending it. Here's the package insert. Since the shot form of the vaccine should be available now or soon, most clinicians are going to want people to wait. If we were in a situation where only the mist was available, and the flu was causing much higher death rates, I would imagine those recommendations would change.