H1N1 study on 2009 effectiveness couldn't be more wrong

[Geoff_M]

There is new research into faster more efficient methods of vaccine production and it would be a poor decision to sidetrack investments into that area because someone somewhere decides what we had was good enough. It wasn't good enough, not considering the way our world moves.

Yes, there are faster production methods, but the problem is one of fear and politics. As I stated earlier, flu vaccine antigens are still grown in the old-fashioned way using chicken eggs. It's sort of like using Grandma's yeast roll recipe. It "works" and no one wants to mess with it. Current seasonal flu vaccines have a very good safety track record and they work reasonably well. No one wants to risk injecting an "unknown" into the process just like you may be warned about substituting margarine for butter come Thanksgiving with the rolls that everyone looks forward to. The FDA is also gun-shy about changing things because they know that, given the jitters that some have about vaccines, that if they do change something and there are a sudden rash of news reports of reactions with the new vaccine (look at all the garbage said about the H1N1 vaccine as being "untested", and as such "unsafe"), then it could put the whole seasonal vaccination program in jeopardy for future years if vaccine uptake rates plummet.

 

[LuvOrlando]

It took too long to get the vaccine into the population, by the time it was out there the wildfire had already crossed the globe. A classic example of shutting the barn door after the horse has bolted.

We didn't have a Plan B, and I suspect the world still doesn't.

We can't control nature, but we can manage ourselves. Saying things were good enough is dangerous because it means people stop looking for improvements.

 

[Toad_Passenger]

It took too long to get the vaccine into the population, by the time it was out there the wildfire had already crossed the globe. A classic example of shutting the barn door after the horse has bolted.

We didn't have a Plan B, and I suspect the world still doesn't.

We can't control nature, but we can manage ourselves. Saying things were good enough is dangerous because it means people stop looking for improvements.

So, your issue is that you believe that scientists are not working to create a better/faster way to produce a vaccine?

As a PP mentioned, I don't think researchers tend to be the ones to say, "Well, that's done...let's have a Coke."

The studies done on the H1N1 vaccine should be taken as a "moment in time." At that moment, with the methods available to them, they did the best they could, and they avoided a major disaster. Given the tools they had, again, I say they did a fantastic job. There were some scientists projecting infections & deaths in the millions, and that never occurred. The "Fall Wave" that was to occur late 2009 into 2010 never occurred, either.

Future generations of scientists will find better ways to respond, but that doesn't make what occurred with this pandemic a failure.

 

[LuvOrlando]

I believe that once a community starts declaring what was luck was instead a human success things can go very badly.

If that strain that had made my daughter sick happened to be the one that spread more easily things would not have ended the way they did. Human beings had nothing at all to do with the H1N1 outcome globally and because of that it was a failure to me. Medicine saved my daughter but it didn't keep her from getting sick and if more people needed the care she got people would have had to have been turned away. My DD was in quarantine for 10 days, that's a lot of resources. If things went another way and her story were the rule instead of the exception we would have been powerless to change anything. The vaccine can't take the credit for the fact things slowed, all disease outbreaks eventually slow down because through the natural course of events the disease will run out of people to infect. That's not success.

If this were a success then the disease would have been contained. That's not what I see when I look at that tracker map.

 

[MommyMcQueen]

As a parent of a high-risk child (DS7 has asthma), I too wait and waited for vaccines to come to our area and wondered what was taking so long. Every day I was hearing about billions of doses of vaccine being sent out yet our area had none. Since I work for a fairly large and well-known healthcare organization I was able to ask a friend of mine, who is also our Government and Public Relations specialist for the organization, what was taking so long and why our clinics didn't have any vaccine yet?

The process she describled to be was that all the vaccine went to the feds -the feds then distribute to each state government. The states then distribute to each county. The County Health depts then decide what quanitity of the vaccine they want to use to distribute at public clinics, then decide how much goes to each city in their county. The portions that the cities get goes through the same process - some goes to publc clinics held by city health departments, some goes to the healthcare facilities in that city. By the time the vaccine reaches the healthcare clinics it's been weeks since they were distributed to the states. Like anything else that the government is involved in, it is a slow, tedious process.

We did evenuatlly get our vaccines, at public clinics (weeks sooner that we could have gotten them at our doctors offices), and my son still caught H1N1, although no one else in our family got it. He was very sick and was at the Peds office, the ER, and Children's Hospital all within 3 days. He got sick in October, right after the vaccination - no time for his to take effect either.

 

[LuvOrlando]

Now this story is worth reporting, something new that resulted from thinking outside the box. Modified approaches like this coupled with new vaccine production techniques could mean that things could be improved for next time.

www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/feb/06/flu-universal-vaccine-test-success

I'm with you MommyMcQueen, people who don't have a reason to worry generally don't and like you, I do have reasons to worry

 

[bluesaturn]

I believe that once a community starts declaring what was luck was instead a human success things can go very badly.

If that strain that had made my daughter sick happened to be the one that spread more easily things would not have ended the way they did. Human beings had nothing at all to do with the H1N1 outcome globally and because of that it was a failure to me. Medicine saved my daughter but it didn't keep her from getting sick and if more people needed the care she got people would have had to have been turned away. My DD was in quarantine for 10 days, that's a lot of resources. If things went another way and her story were the rule instead of the exception we would have been powerless to change anything. The vaccine can't take the credit for the fact things slowed, all disease outbreaks eventually slow down because through the natural course of events the disease will run out of people to infect. That's not success.

If this were a success then the disease would have been contained. That's not what I see when I look at that tracker map.

I didn't read the original journal article super carefully, but I thought the outcome variable was the number of people who got the vaccine and then got sick. I don't think they were just counting how many people got the disease or how it spread. I don't think they were even counting how many people got the vaccine, just how many people got sick from those that got the vaccine.

Also, that map tells you nothing about spread, it's all totals. So it doesn't tell you how the amount of incidences decreased or increased over time. It is helpful in showing how many people were effected, but it doesn't address the issue of containment.

 

[bluesaturn]

Now this story is worth reporting, something new that resulted from thinking outside the box. Modified approaches like this coupled with new vaccine production techniques could mean that things could be improved for next time.

www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/feb/06/flu-universal-vaccine-test-success

I'm with you MommyMcQueen, people who don't have a reason to worry generally don't and like you, I do have reasons to worry

Personally I'm not concerned about arguing whether the vaccine worked or not. I just don't think you seem to understand the research that was done.

 

[Geoff_M]

Also, that map tells you nothing about spread, it's all totals. So it doesn't tell you how the amount of incidences decreased or increased over time. It is helpful in showing how many people were effected, but it doesn't address the issue of containment.

In addition, the numbers aren't sourced very well. I tried to drill into them, and I could find no indication that the US case totals included anything after August, 2009... that one's month before the US vaccine was even approved.

 

[Dr_Finkelstein]

The swine flu far from irradicated-the UK recently had a horrible time with it. I've been reading of the deaths that have occurred this year from swine flu, many of those people had received the vaccine.

The US's flu season typically peaks in February. Swine flu is just recently making it's way to the states. Let's hope we don't get what the UK had.

Is it a different strain that has popped up in the UK? If its not and it hits here it shouldn't be too bad since this year's Flu Vac contained H1N1.

Oh n/m I see that you say they had the vaccine. Did you mean the one last year, or one this year?

Being from the UK and also working for the NHS I just want to clarify things here.

Yes, we had swine flu in the UK, but despite media reports we haven't had a 'horrible time' with it. Yes, we have had deaths, but in actual fact, less deaths than you would normally expect from seasonal flu every year.

The difference with the figures this flu season is the ages of the people affected. It's generally been children and youngish adults as opposed to the elderly. Some commentators have thought it may be linked to the elderly population still having some immunity from the last Spanish flu pandemic.

Most of those who died HADN'T had the vaccine, and they were mostly from 'high risk' groups - pregnant women and those with underlying health problems - asthma, diabetes. The Govt started the flu vaccination campaign back in October but very few of those offered it took it up, then the media started reporting of all the pregnant women, children and young adults in ICU's/deaths and suddenly everyone wanted it, leading to shortages.

The H1N1 was included in the seasonal flu vaccine this year over here.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/society/2011/jan/13/flu-death-toll-millions-unvaccinated

Di x

 

[LuvOrlando]

Personally I'm not concerned about arguing whether the vaccine worked or not. I just don't think you seem to understand the research that was done.

Well isn't that condescending, you assuming this is beyond my reach and presupposing a lack of clarity on my part. Why don't you actually ask a question instead of doing a drive by?

 

[TheZue]

I haven't read through the entire thread yet but I'm really not getting how you getting sick after a vaccine somehow contridicts a study that says it wasn't 100% effective. You guys were in the seven percent that it didn't work for.

 

[PatsGirl]

And....just to stir the pot a bit the first case of H1N1 on Cape Cod was reported this morning. Apparently it is a student at the local community college. It's heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere.

 

[LuvOrlando]

OK, my case is a statistical anomaly because it's a cluster as opposed to occurring randomly across the population which is how these sorts of anomalies SHOULD present themselves. 7 percent means one out of every hundred meaning in a sample of 100 people there may be 7 dispersed throughout, as a result the 4 out of 4 is very strange. But my case isn't what makes the study suspicious, its just an experience so although it annoys me I don't get too wrapped up in it. The layers to whats wrong with the way the info is presented is a whole lot bigger than that.

As for it showing in Cape Cod that is to be expected at this point. I'm not even remotely concerned with the continued threat of H1N1, it's kind of over.

 

[TheZue]

OK, my case is a statistical anomaly because it's a cluster as opposed to occurring randomly across the population which is how these sorts of anomalies SHOULD present themselves. 7 percent means one out of every hundred meaning in a sample of 100 people there may be 7 dispersed throughout, as a result the 4 out of 4 is very strange. But my case isn't what makes the study suspicious, its just an experience so although it annoys me I don't get too wrapped up in it. The layers to whats wrong with the way the info is presented is a whole lot bigger than that.

As for it showing in Cape Cod that is to be expected at this point. I'm not even remotely concerned with the continued threat of H1N1, it's kind of over.

But you guys are a family group. You guys (at least your children) share similar genetics...it makes sense that if one of you is resistant that others may be as well. Not only that not everyone who got the vaccine was probably even exposed to H1N1, some of them wouldn't have gotten it anyways, so the fact that you guys all got it at the end of the year gave your husband a greater chance of contracting it just because he was actually exposed. That percentage would have been higher if EVERYONE given the vaccine was exposed. Then you get into the fact you guys probably all went together...maybe the vaccine you got was improperly administered or stored.

Biology doesn't spread itself like you describe. Clusters are, if anything, more likely than evenly random because the clusters are living in similar conditions and similar genetics that led to the failure of the vaccine. A cluster means nothing. That's why any study that has a small sample size can't be trusted. Your family all got sick after the vaccine, nobody in mine did despite the fact I worked with people who got sick with H1N1 and work with the public. Our situations are not representative of the population as a whole because we simply don't represent enough people.

 

[Toad_Passenger]

And....just to stir the pot a bit the first case of H1N1 on Cape Cod was reported this morning. Apparently it is a student at the local community college. It's heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere.

Surprised that it wasn't there earlier. Here in Pennsylvania I think they said that 12% of this year's cases, since October have been the 2009 H1N1 strain. As other PP's have said, it's not going anywhere in the future, so it's good that people got vaccinated last year, and should continue to be vaccinated this year.

 

[bluesaturn]

Well isn't that condescending, you assuming this is beyond my reach and presupposing a lack of clarity on my part. Why don't you actually ask a question instead of doing a drive by?

I'm not being condescending, I honestly don't think you understand what the research was trying to achieve. And I'm not assuming this, I'm basing this on several interpretations of the data you have offered throughout this thread. Several people have posted that you are misinterpreting the data. What you are concerned about wasn't even the main focus of the study.

I don't have a question, so I'm not sure what you want me to ask. And I don't think I'm doing a "drive by" because I've posted multiple times on this thread. I was trying to explain that I'm not trying to personally defend the vaccine or something, I'm just trying to show that the study is not invalidated by one person's experience.

I understand that you had a horrible time with the flu and you are understandably still annoyed/worried. But that is no reason to trash the science. Also, the researchers who conduct the study probably have no impact on the people that decide to distribute the vaccine.