Health

What are we afraid of more?
by Barbora Misakova

When swine flu appeared this year everyone was really scared and wanted to be vaccinated immediately. I don’t have to say how big disappointment it was, when scientists said there is no effective vaccine yet. For that reason there were tens of informative videos on the internet and articles in the newspapers about symptoms and full of advices of what to do if you have some of them. Of course many people saw in little cough or sneezing swine flu symptoms and the panic began. Now it’s a time to prepare on vaccination. The question is: what should we fear of more – swine flu or vaccine? The case from 1976 is some kind of warning. That was the last mass inocul! ations against another type of swine flu. Reports said about 500 cases of a rare paralyzing condition, Guillain-Barre syndrome. Even though 500 people from total number of 45 million could seem trivial, it is not. And although scientists never proved that the vaccine really caused this extra risk, we shouldn’t be less careful. The US government neither. That is the reason why it is starting system to track possible side effects of flu shots. The whole vaccination action begins next month, but government is already prepared to detect any rare but real problems quickly. For this flu shot’s side effects tracking should be managed by government-sponsored projects. Scientists from Harvard Medical School should check large insurance databases that cover up to 50 million people with vaccination registries. When some of them will visit a doctor in weeks after a flu shot they will know about it and they will know also why. Johns Hopkins University is going to direct e-ma! ils to about 100,000 vaccine recipients to track how they are ! feeling. It will include also smaller complaints which usually are not a reason to visit a doctor. And the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention will prepare take-home cards which should tell vaccine recipients how to report any suspected side effects. It looks like US government is prepared. Let’s hope the vaccine will work as is expected with no harmful side effects!

related story (sgx15476): http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090927/ap_on_he_me/us_med_swine...

by Barbora Misakova for PocketNews (http://pocketnews.tv)

PocketNews is a new real-time news broadcaster delivering the latest and hottest news right to your pocket ! With global clients who want to be kept up to date, PocketNews is everyone's way of keeping in touch with the World.

posted by Blog TechSource @ 3:40 PM