Dispelling fears on H1N1 flu vaccine

By GottaLaff

I keep hearing about how the H1N1 vaccine contains a live virus with enough mercury to make us all autistic slaves of the very government that's trying to indoctrinate us.

I keep hearing how the H1N1 vaccine is rushed and scary and dangerous. Here are a few facts:

Untested? No. Rushed into production? Not really. Full of substances that do harm? Hardly, and especially not compared with the dangers of the H1N1 flu virus.

The experts are concerned about the concerns:

"We've been baking this bread for 60 years, and we're pretty good at it," said Kenneth Alexander, an infectious disease expert at the University of Chicago, expressing the frustration that decades of experience in making flu vaccines hasn't resulted in more public confidence.

Here are a few answers to your questions. First, the Big Rush (no, not that Big Rush):

That turnaround from discovery to delivery was fast enough that many Americans who told pollsters they don’t plan to vaccinate their children said they were worried the vaccine had been rushed into production before being tested adequately for potential side effects.
Nonsense, Alexander said.

"This H1N1 vaccine is made just like all the flu vaccines we have been making for 60 years, which have an extraordinary record for safety," he said.

"The only difference between this one and the seasonal flu shots is the virus it is made from, so we have no reason to believe this one will be any less safe."

Next: Live vaccine?

For the arm-shot vaccine, the virus eventually is harvested from the eggs, killed and chopped into segments. When injected into the recipient, it activates the body's immune system to produce antibodies that kill the actual flu virus if the recipient is exposed.

The alternative, nasal-spray vaccine is made using a live virus.

Oh no! The dreaded "live" virus! I knew it! But wait! There's more!

It too is grown in eggs, but at lower temperatures, weakening or "attenuating" it so that it can survive only in the nose, not at greater body heats in the lungs. [...] Once that system detects the vaccine, Wilson said, it produces permanent immunity to the targeted flu virus.

But is it safe?

Well, is it?

The first testing of both vaccines was performed on 3,000 volunteers in eight laboratories [...] It also is being tested on volunteers by the five companies licensed to make as many as 250 million doses...

William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt:

"It is also tested for safety in the volunteers, something I know a little bit about since I was one of the volunteers for this vaccine."

Yeah, yeah, but what about the ingredients, hmmm?

Schaffner said that, like many foods and medicines, they contain a number of vital chemical substances that could be toxic in large volume but are in such tiny amounts that they are harmless. [...]

But researchers say there is so little thimerasol in the vaccine that it poses no harm. Nevertheless, they have produced thimerosal-free single-shot doses that can be ordered, and they say there is no thimerosal in the nasal spray.

Oh, sure, but what about autism, huh? What about that?

"I continue to be amazed that people bring this issue up," said Paul Offit, a pediatrician and University of Pennsylvania vaccine researcher. "There have been six exhaustive studies [of a possible link between thimerosal and autism]. . . . They each came back with a definitive answer: No. Three other studies were done to see if thimerasol caused any signs of mercury poisoning. All three answered: No."

Well... but... well... but... what about that other icky word... "adjuvants"?

Others have raised concerns about "adjuvants" -- compounds sometimes added to vaccines to stimulate the immune response in recipients. It is added in several European nations, but not in the U.S.

So adjuvants are only used by socialists. I knew it!

There you go. I hope this helps set the record straight.