Swine Flu
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This article is part of the Pharma_Portal project of Spinwatch. |
Swine flu is a respiratory disease caused by a strain of the influenza type A virus known as H1N1 - the same strain which causes seasonal outbreaks of flu. A version of the strain emerged in Mexico in 2009, which became the first flu pandemic for forty years. Tamiflu and Relenza are used to treat swine flu. [1]
Vaccination
As the outbreak reached pandemic proportions, drug companies began developing a vaccine for swine flu. Baxter International Inc. announced its vaccine would be available by July 2009 - just three months after the outbreak. [2] GlaxoSmithKline (GSK), Sanofi-Aventis and Solvay SA (SOLB.BT) also started producing vaccines.[3]
Note that "pandemic" is a word that refers to the wide spread of the virus. It does not say anything about the severity of the infection. In July 2009, even as vaccines were being rolled out for the entire population of the UK, the World Health Organization stated:
- We are still seeing a largely reassuring clinical picture. The overwhelming majority of patients experience mild symptoms and make a full recovery within a week, often in the absence of any form of medical treatment... Most cases of severe and fatal infection continue to occur in people with underlying medical conditions.[4]
1976 outbreak
A previous outbreak of swine flu occurred in the USA in 1976. In 1979, CBS television's 60 Minutes did a major expose of the swine flu vaccination programme of 1976. The expose revealed that:[5]
- 46 million Americans had the vaccination
- 4,000 people claimed damages totaling $3.5 billion from the US government as a result of harm they or their relatives allegedly suffered from the vaccine
- Two-thirds of these 4,000 people reported neurological damage or death after the vaccine. Cases of neurological damage included Guillain-Barré syndrome such as that suffered by an interviewee on the CBS TV programme.
- The vaccine that was given to the public had not been tested. The approval for the public vaccination programme had been given on the basis of trials done on a previous strain of the vaccine. These trials had, however, revealed neurological side-effects. One of the researchers told the head of the Centers for Disease Control of his concerns about these but the programme went ahead anyway.
Notes
- ↑ BBC News. Advice about swine flu Accessed on 10 July 2009.
- ↑ Kamp, J. UPDATE: Baxter Starts Making Swine Flu Vaccine Accessed on 10 July 2009.
- ↑ Kamp, J. UPDATE: Baxter Starts Making Swine Flu Vaccine Accessed on 10 July 2009.
- ↑ Dr Margaret Chan, Influenza A(H1N1): lessons learned and preparedness, WHO website, accessed 16 July 2009
- ↑ Expose on Swine Flu, 60 Minutes, CBS, 1979, accessed 16 July 2009
