H1N1 Fear Mongering
In the history of the pharmaceutical business I don't believe big pharma has ever so blatantly and obviously manipulated the public in an effect to sell a vaccine. The H1N1 fear mongering has reached unprecedented proportions, the cover of The Vancouver Sun on Aug 29, made it look like we better hunker down and kiss our loved ones goodbye. Reading the various articles in the Sun that day, further illuminated the issue for me. Lets start with Dr. Perry Kenall, the chief provincial health officer, who states that the predicted surge in H1N1 cases is likely to be no worse than a bad year of seasonal flu, which we see on a fairly regular basis, and add to that chilling prediction the fact that those over the age of 55 don't tend to be affected. So really it's just a regular flu season, and those that tend to be the most at risk from flu related complications (the elderly) are not at risk with H1N1. Now a little bit about the vaccine they are struggling so fast to get onto the market, I will quote directly from Brian Brodie, president of the BCMA, as reported by the Sun, because this really says it all. "A great deal of faith is being put into the vaccine, but there is also the possibility that it will not be entirely effective and could even make people sick, as was the case with the 1976 swine flu vaccine which was linked to a nervous system disorder called Guillian-Barre syndrome," and I continue with direct quotes from Brodie, "It's going to be somewhat untested. We really don't have data on what kind of reactions we're going to see", and "this is a vaccine that we just will not have up to the regular standards of screening by the time we need to give it. There's just no long-term data about the safety and reactions." So while we have no data on the safety and efficacy of the vaccine, what we do have is data on the effects of the H1N1 virus, effects that are less harmful and fatal than severe vaccine reactions. The fatality rate for H1N1 is .03%, which is approximately the same as for the seasonal flu (.02%), however children, those with weakened immune systems, and pre-existing medical conditions are hardest hit. In cases where people are particularly susceptible, and a vaccine could save their lives, I am not definitively against its use for that purpose. To expose healthy individuals to unknown serious vaccine reactions just so they can at worst avoid a few days of flu symptoms, is representative of corporations that play on people's fear, and trades lives for money.