Flu Vaccine

Flu shots.... only as a kid had it. I have not taken one in about 15 years now. Never got the flu... Got the cold, but that is normal. I do not trust things that are REQUIRED. We trust what we are given.

In the past, I've been a major proponent of the flu shot. Having spent most of my life in the college school system, I took my vaccines religiously. However, last week, when we heard of the shortage, we rushed my 97 year old MIL to the doctor for a vaccine. She was healthy when she took the shot. Monday morning, she was admitted to the hospital with pneumonia and is being given very slim chances of making it . I found it very interesting that the first question by the ER was : " Has she had a flu shot?" When we answered "yes". The question was "how long ago...less than a week?" Normally, I would think that they were just ensuring she'd been vaccinated and didn't have the flu which led to the pneumonia. However,since we have NO reported flu cases in our state, I'm very suspicious over the questions about the vaccine. Perhaps I'm overly suspicious (I Am overy suspicious or I wouldn't be lurking around here LOL),but I do wonder if some of the "tainted" vaccine has gotten into the population. Not trying to resort to scare tactics here,but I have had my complacency about the flu shot shatttered.
Apparently, her infection is bacterial and systemic.
Keep us posted on what you find out.
We were trying to do the right thing in vaccinating her and it would be a tragic irony if we actually did exactly the wrong thing.
joey

Originally posted by joey
In the past, I've been a major proponent of the flu shot. Having spent most of my life in the college school system, I took my vaccines religiously. However, last week, when we heard of the shortage, we rushed my 97 year old MIL to the doctor for a vaccine. She was healthy when she took the shot. Monday morning, she was admitted to the hospital with pneumonia and is being given very slim chances of making it . I found it very interesting that the first question by the ER was : " Has she had a flu shot?" When we answered "yes". The question was "how long ago...less than a week?" Normally, I would think that they were just ensuring she'd been vaccinated and didn't have the flu which led to the pneumonia. However,since we have NO reported flu cases in our state, I'm very suspicious over the questions about the vaccine. Perhaps I'm overly suspicious (I Am overy suspicious or I wouldn't be lurking around here LOL),but I do wonder if some of the "tainted" vaccine has gotten into the population. Not trying to resort to scare tactics here,but I have had my complacency about the flu shot shatttered.
Apparently, her infection is bacterial and systemic.
Keep us posted on what you find out.
We were trying to do the right thing in vaccinating her and it would be a tragic irony if we actually did exactly the wrong thing.
joey

oh, God!! I hope she gets better soon!! According to this article...

www.nomorefakenews.com...


the bacteria that those vaccines are contaminated with is:

"Serratia bacteria are often implicated in episodes of hospital-acquired infection and can be deadly in the bloodstream. "

I don't know it that particular type of bacteria would cause pnumonia or not, maybe you could do a search and find out?

This site also has an article on it that tries to track down those 30,000 or whatever deaths that are attributed to the flu.....it seems to say that that number is really they combined number between the flu AND pnumonia... with the real number being under a thousand.

I don't know, but, I've never had a shot, and well, definately won't be this time around....

Just an FYI, in regards to the flu vaccine shortage, it was reported Saturday 25, 2004 that inspectors in England tested flu vaccine ready to ship to the states some 48 million doses.

These inpectors found the vaccine to be impure and stopped the shipment.

It has not been said what is wrong with the vaccine, microbial or organic contamination, but something has happened to halt this shipment.

Seculation has it that if this vaccine had been shipped to the states and distributed it could have been far worse than not getting the shot.

The CDC estimates 54,000 death to the flu this season in the states, prior to this announcemnet. I am sure a updated estimation will be forthcomming.

I guess we here in the States owe the British inspectors a big Thank You!
Good Job, you saved alot of lives by stopping this shipment of vaccine.

Here is a letter I received from GIV General Injectables and Vaccines Inc.

October 6, 2004

Dear Valued Customer,

We are communicationg with you regarding your pre-booked order for injectable influenza vaccine.

On Tuesday October 5th, Chiron Corporation, our primary vendor for influenza vaccine, unexpectedly announced that it will not supply any flu vaccine to the United States for the current flu season.

As a result, we are not in a position to fulfill your order.

From a customer and public health perspective, we are concerned with this news and the shortage in flu vaccine supply that is likely to ensue.

While it is fortunate that we are the exclusive distributor of the nasally administered Flumist vaccine manufactured by Medlmmune, it is evident that this supply will not be adequate to satisfy the needs of all of our customers, and will likely be subject to prioritzation as determined by the CDC.

We will work closely with the CDC in dealing with important public health crisis and we recommend that all of our customers regularly review the CDC website for updates.

For more than 72 years, we at Henry Schein have taken pride in partnering with our customers to help the evolving needs of the healthcare community.

As indicated above, we will work with the CDC to help as much as possible during the public health crisis.

As more developments occur, we will continue to keep you apprised.

XXX XXXXX
President of GIV

I wouldnt take it if you paid me to.

Ditto, just gives me a mild flu for weeks... I'd rather suffer with the full blown version for a few days instead....

There is no flu crisis.

This time last year only 8 states had confirmed outbreaks. Right now it's sitting at 9 I believe.

Theres plenty to go around too, they stockpile 100,000,000 (yes thats 100 million) doses.

Has there been any thought given to the possibility that the flu vaccine was DELIBERATELY tampered with in an effort to wipe out a large portion of the US population?

Talk about an effective distribution system for biological warfare.

I have no idea if it was tampered with or not but my immune system doesn't need that kind of help. They can keep their shots thank you...but if anyone asks, I always say yes because its just easier than explaining your theories on contamination and or population control. My flu vaccine is 190 proof and its kept me flu free for damn near 25 years.

This isn't a good year for flu shots, is it? Around here, they (county health dept) didn't like the idea of sick people and the elderly getting at the flu clinics 4 or 5 in the morning, so they announced on the tv that (county health dept) they'd only be given out by appointment and gave out the phone number for people to call to make the appointment. The phone line is jammed, half the time it just disconnects you and well, they still have a long line forming for the few flu shots that will be handed out. Many didn't get the news, and even some who have managed to get an appointment are showing up this early, just to make sure they get it........

They are now issuing a warning about the vaccine. 620 doses have seem to disappear from a pediatrician's office in Colorado. (or maybe from a wharehouse somewhere in the country? -----

www.nomorefakenews.com... )

These doses they say most likely are contaminated....(just like the ones in the warehouses are contaminated).... bacuase they probably were mishandled by the theives and weren't refrigerated.

the article is here:

www.washtimes.com...

anyone else getting bad vibes here?

after all we posted , a woman fell and died of a head wound, after waiting for
i think 6 or more hours for a vac, "i say how many have to die!", i live in the US,
what am i to think ?


[edit on 22-10-2004 by Fiorina 161]

My daughter came home from school today said that they watched some kind of documentary on Closed Circuit (channel 1) about vaccinations, and they had mentioned implanting microchips for medical assesments. This isn't conspiracy theory folks, its conditioning. Unfortunately she couldnt remember much of it. Do any of you guys know where I could obtain a copy of whatever it is that the school showed her? Would that come from the state or local folks? I am to say the least, very curious as to what that documentary contained considering it was broadcasted. Any of you guys hear anything similar? They put any kind of chip in my kids, I'm afraid I'm going to get Patrick Henry like on somebody.

i realy didn't think that they would be telling the young, that
suff, man "WTF", so manythings , I'm lucky i don't have kids,
cause, i would be major pi**ed that the man was telling them that!!!
F161

Originally posted by Nerdling
There is no flu crisis.

This time last year only 8 states had confirmed outbreaks. Right now it's sitting at 9 I believe.

Theres plenty to go around too, they stockpile 100,000,000 (yes thats 100 million) doses.

Hah. You are kidding right? It is impossible to stockpile flu vaccine since the virus changes every year. So each year new batch has to be produced.
Is there a crisis yet? Yes, for seniors others, who need the vaccines and cannot get it. Wake up and educate yourself befoore spewing out nonsence.

With bird flu out in the asian countries, and in my opinion, this artificially induced vaccine shortage, there is going to be a major crisis this season.
Vaccine shortage is just something that it's going to be blamed on.
How does a professional, US based manufacturer contaminates most of its production?



Today, a possible flu pandemic is smoldering in Asia, decimating poultry populations. If this lethal H5N1 virus jumps to humans, it could circle the globe within a month. Even if it doesn't, another year's version will catch fire.

The recent outbreak, and one in Hong Kong in 1997 involving a different strain, highlight the potential threat of an international influenza pandemic. Three influenza pandemics occured in the last century. The worst, the Spanish flu of 1918-1919, killed between 20 million and 50 million people.


Unlike most influenza viruses, which mainly affect the respiratory tract, A(H5N1) has been found to damage the livers and kidneys of human victims in Thailand. In ferrets and some birds, it even attacks the central nervous system, causing the animals to flop around with neurological damage before dying, although this has yet to be documented in humans.



House Hearing on Flu Vaccine Shortage

rtsp://video.c-span.org/15days/e100804_flu.rm

Many questions are asked, and people resposible for this are drilled.
House Chairman admits in opening statement - current system is flawed.
More relieving statements are made during the hearing including the concern over Thimerasol. Which is still used in the vaccines - neurotoxic additive.
Also, budget, and production details.



[edit on 16-10-2004 by psilocin]

In noting that so far in discussion no one cared to bring up the full details of the matter and the extent of the crisis here is the plain and obvious details:

FDA Rejects British Flu Vaccine
VOA News
16 Oct 2004, 17:20 UTC

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has confirmed that none of the flu vaccine quarantined by British officials is safe for use.

An FDA spokeswoman says agency personnel have inspected and rejected all 46 million doses at a Liverpool, England, factory of the Chiron Corporation, which manufactured the vaccine. She said the company violated good manufacturing processes, and that all the vaccines are suspected to be contaminated.

Last week, British officials shut down the plant, causing a huge shortfall of flu vaccine in the United States.

The vaccine shortfall - roughly half the U.S. supply - means there will not be enough to protect vulnerable children and elderly people.

Flu and its complications, such as pneumonia, kill 36,000 Americans and cause 200,000 hospitalizations per year. [/qoute]


news.google.com...




[edit on 16-10-2004 by psilocin]

Originally posted by moxyone
Has there been any thought given to the possibility that the flu vaccine was DELIBERATELY tampered with in an effort to wipe out a large portion of the US population?

Or, sabotage the supply so folks can't get their shots. Either way, one-half of my household agress the tampering could have been intentional.

How ironic, the govt doesn't want us buying drugs from Canada, but it's okay to have Britain supply our flu vaccine?

Joey, I hope your MIL survives her illness!

For the record, I do try to avoid flu shots, never had one yet. I did get my tetanus shot last month. My arm was sore for three days, and I don't remember that ever happening that severely before.

[edit on 16-10-2004 by DontTreadOnMe]

As I posted earlier, we had my 97 year old MIL vaccintated last Wednesday. This Monday she was admitted to the hospital with rampant pneumonia and systemic failure. On Wednesday, when we took her to get the shot, she was able to walk unaided, talkative, lively and full of vim and vigor. I'm not conspiratorial enough to blame the shot....but, it does seem very odd that she would become so ill, so suddenly, after her flu shot. And, the doctors and nurses kept asking us when she had her vaccine...not the usual questions to ensure she HAD the vaccine to rule out influenza as a diagnosis.
Unfortunately, she is now in extremely critical condition and we have begun making funeral arrangements.
Maybe it was just her time. But, we do wonder if we did the right thing in vaccinating her.
joey

what if this shortage is partially to get folks to want to get the shot. The idea that since there IS a shortfall, I better get mine before they run out?????
It appears some companies got out of the flu shot business in part due to lack of demand

For two decades, Wyeth made injectable influenza vaccine at a plant in Marietta, Pa. For the winter of 2002-03, it made 21 million doses in a labor-intensive, time-crunched process and shipped them to clinics and doctors? offices early in the fall.

But it turned out a lot fewer people wanted it. Flu vaccine can?t be saved from year to year. So, sometime the next spring Wyeth threw away 7 million unsold doses, for a loss of $30 million. It then quit making flu shots. It eventually closed the Marietta plant, which once employed 800 people.

It was a partner with the Maryland biotech company MedImmune in making what it considered the flu shot of the future ? a ?live? virus vaccine squirted up the nose. They made 5 million doses of FluMist for last winter, the product?s inaugural season. But FluMist never found its market. Only 450,000 doses were sold; the rest were thrown away.

cpmpanies dithc trouble of flu shot
Ottawa adopts tighter flu rules
British flu vaccine unsafe
Flu shot rules carry penalty in Michigan

It seems that some of the "contaminated" vaccine might have been shipped before ban has been imposed.

6 million doses of suspect vaccine in U.S. warehouses
Quarantined since August pending tests
Sabin Russell, Chronicle Medical Writer
Thursday, October 7, 2004

Under U.S. Food and Drug Administration rules that place much of the responsibility for product safety in the hands of manufacturers, Chiron Corp. shipped 6 million doses of its now-suspect flu vaccine from its British plant to the United States before the company's own tests uncovered evidence of bacterial contamination.

The Chronicle has learned that vaccine shipped across the Atlantic has been sitting since August in the warehouses of American drug distributors, under a Chiron-imposed "quarantine,'' but outside the direct control of the company or U.S. regulators.

Now, Chiron's entire production of at least 48 million doses of flu vaccine has been rendered useless after British regulators abruptly suspended the license of the Emeryville-based company's Liverpool factory Tuesday, cutting the U.S. supply of flu shots in half.

In this case, Chiron employed the little-known quarantine process under which drugmakers can ship products to distributors before final safety tests are completed.

Norman Baylor, deputy director for the FDA's vaccine unit, said it was not unusual for manufacturers to ship vaccine under quarantine. The quarantine is lifted by the manufacturer when the company's final tests confirm that the product is safe and the distributor is free to sell it.

"I think the system works,'' Baylor said in an interview in September shortly after Chiron's contamination problem first surfaced. "The system did what it was supposed to do.''

Baylor also confirmed that 27 bulk lots -- nearly half of the 60 produced by the Chiron plant -- had been "released" by the FDA prior to the company's discovery that some finished product was contaminated. The actual number of doses that can be produced from each lot varies.

Although the federal agency does not conduct tests on the final product, companies are liable for the safety of their medicines and have powerful incentive to test them thoroughly before releasing them from quarantine, Baylor explained.

Chiron shipped its first million doses of vaccine to distributors in late July, trumpeting its first-to-market achievement in a July 23 press release. At that time, the company explained that "in the coming days," it would "complete its internal release procedures, allowing distributors to begin shipping vaccines to customers.''

Any optimism at Chiron evaporated with Tuesday's ruling. "We consider the Fluvirin season to be over, for all intents and purposes,'' Chiron spokesman John Gallagher said Wednesday.

He also confirmed that the initial crisis had been triggered when tests detected serratia bacteria in a small number of lots. Serratia bacteria are often implicated in episodes of hospital-acquired infection and can be deadly in the bloodstream.

The company has yet to reveal when it discovered the contaminated lots, but having found a problem, Chiron never lifted its quarantine.

Although no Chiron vaccine was shipped to clinics, some drug industry experts acknowledge that its presence at multiple U.S. distributor warehouses poses a potential security problem.
"Because of the shortage, the spot market for flu vaccines is going to go through the roof,'' said David Webster, a health care consultant in Lehigh Valley, Penn. "Any time there is an extremely valuable commodity, the potential exists that it will work its way on to the black market. It is a legitimate cause for concern.''

Chiron chief executive Howard Pien said Tuesday that all of the Fluvirin doses "would be destroyed in due course.''

Top FDA officials are meeting in Britain today in an attempt to learn why their British counterparts suddenly and unexpectedly pulled the license for the Liverpool plant, where Chiron had brewed nearly 50 million doses of flu vaccine.

American distributors had been gearing up to ship their stocks of Chiron vaccine after the company and U.S. health officials expressed optimism last week that the cause of the contamination had been found and that the problem was confined to a small amount of vaccine.

Secretary of Health and Human Services Tommy Thompson said Tuesday he was surprised by the British decision. "We were assured by Chiron that everything was OK,'' he said, adding that U.S. officials had been in contact with British regulators, who had made no indication as recently as last weekend that Chiron's license was in jeopardy.

He said FDA regulators would be visiting the Liverpool plant this weekend and would try to determine whether some of the Chiron vaccine could be released.

"It does not look promising at this point,'' Thompson said Wednesday.

Tuesday's British action not only cut the U.S. flu vaccine supply in half, it raises serious concerns about whether drug safety regulation in Britain is overly cautious -- or whether American oversight is too lax.

When British regulators suspended the license of Chiron's Liverpool factory Tuesday, they shut down a facility that had been cleared by U.S. inspectors one year earlier, and they apparently have blocked for good the sale of 27 lots of vaccine that had already been released by the FDA.

According to FDA spokeswoman Lenore Gelb, the agency's direct role in the testing of flu shots ends with the production of bulk quantities of vaccine. The final manufacturing steps, such as filling vials and syringes, are regulated through bi-annual inspections to assure that companies are adhering to "good manufacturing practices" that are the basis of their licensure.

Manufacturers are required to conduct their own tests for sterility, and it was one of these quality-control tests by Chiron that spotted the serratia in August.

The current crisis was triggered when British regulators re-inspected the Chiron plant and concluded that it did not meet British standards for good manufacturing practices.

U.S. health officials, meanwhile, continued to counsel calm about the instant shortage of flu vaccine, calling on the public to cooperate with efforts to steer vaccine toward those most in need.

Thompson said vaccine maker Aventis Pasteur would be able to produce 1 million more doses than initially predicted, bringing its total production this year to 55 million.

Dr. Julie Gerberding, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in Atlanta, said it was "not a realistic strategy" for the federal government to seize the vaccine produced by Aventis and direct its distribution.

She said the CDC was in the process of establishing a toll-free hot line for consumers to report shortages, so the agency can steer privately held surpluses of vaccine to regions that need it. She described it as a collaborative process.

The newly revised guidelines no longer recommend vaccine for healthy adults. Programs that provide flu shots to that population -- and had purchased large quantities of Aventis vaccine -- are likely to find they have too much on hand. The CDC will facilitate the sale of that vaccine to needier clients.

The current flu vaccine shortage, Gerberding added, underscores the need for "a comprehensive national strategy" to build up America's domestic flu shot manufacturing capacity.

"Our entire vaccine production system is fragile in this country,'' she said.


www.sfgate.com.../c/a/2004/10/07/MNG31952VC1.DTL&type=printable


[edit on 19-10-2004 by psilocin]

Of course, I can't blame the flu shot. As I previously wrote, we took MIL two weeks ago to get a flu vaccination. She was completely healthy (for a 97 year old) when vaccinated. By Monday of last week she had pneumonia. Yesterday she died from a massive, uncontrollable infection of unknown origin. Perhaps, she did just get pneumonia and her 97 year old organs couldn't fight the virus. That's the most probable cause. However, with all the talk of contaminated vaccines and the fact that she was vaccinated only days prior to the onset of a sudden illness, I have a bad vibe.
On the other hand, I had the flu shot as well and I'm just fine.
Thanks to all of you who wrote and told me of your concern for my MIL.
joey