Oh, certainly it is a possibility. It is just that considering that H1N1 symptoms are not in general that much more severe than those of regular flu, it seems unlikely to me that you’d have a big discrepancy in the number of people being seen by a doctor for H1N1 vs. regular seasonal flu. But you are right, it is certainly possible.
Untrue. There are autistic children in Amish communities - at least according to the Amish who live about 15 miles east of me.
On the other hand, the H1N1 flu of 1918-1920 killed more people than in any outbreak of the Black Plague. It, too, started with a relatively mild variant that later mutated into some Bad Stuff.
As of today, there are 1170 confirmed, lab-verified H1N1 deaths in the US. That does not reflect an outrageous percentage of flu deaths vs. flu infections, however, it does point out that your information is outdated at best, and perhaps seriously wrong.
WHICH “health authorities” - please provide a cite as this contradicts most official sources I’ve seen.
Incorrect. Two shots are required this year - one EACH of H1N1 and the previously formulated predicted 3 strains which were chosen prior to the H1N1 outbreak earlier this year. Two shots total, not two shots for each.
I trust them more than someone trumpeting the now multiply-discredited vaccine-autism link based upon falsified data, who provides outdated if not outright inaccurate mortality figures, and who claims vaccines are “worthless” when there is evidence to the contrary.
Shouldn’t you be calling it the Ziffel flu then?
If your daughter coughs with her elbow, then why bother covering her mouth?
This is actually the part of Kearsen’s post which isn’t complete bullshit.
A major task each year is to determine which strains of influenza to include in the vaccine. The accuracy of these predictions varies from year to year. In the 2007-08 flu season, two of the three strains included in the vaccine did not circulate widely in the population and as a result the vaccine was less effective.
This is not a concern with the H1N1 vaccine, since we know precisely which strain to target. Most experts that I read expect the H1N1 vaccine to be extremely effective for this reason.
We might be on the cusp of understanding.
Our 8 year old has autism, and my then pregnant wife was quite anemic and had gestational diabetes while carrying our child. Further investigation revealed that it can be passed on while breast-feeding, the longer the term (for him, it was 21 months), the more susceptible to the virus. We wait anxiously for the blood test to be available.
Sorry, Kearsen, you sound a bit anti-vax and I find that both silly and sad. Not to mention critically uninformed. 'Nuff said.
Mswas, we got the dead virus injectable vaccine because my nephew is immunocompromised and we can’t have the live virus vaccine. There seemed to be plenty of both at our shot clinic, but they did their best to steer everyone possible to the nasal live vaccine.
I’ve read somewhere that Amish kids DO get vaccinated; I don’t remember where.
So they’re no different from the rest of the population, and you can’t draw any special conclusions from them in re: autism and vaccines.
This is something to keep in mind.
Most of what we talk about here will have no effect. People who are panicky will overreact. People who think their prior life experience is indicative of what can or will happen with the H1N1 will continue to disregard information to the contrary. Neither is a proper reaction.
I think when people read about things outside their purview, and come to hard and fast conclusions, they need to think about their own areas of expertise. What do you do? What have you trained and educated yourself extensively about, and what does the average person know about it compared to you? Next, realize that unless you are a communicable disease expert, on this subject, YOU are the average person. I think intelligent, competent people are in constant danger of thinking they know more about more things than they do, due to their previous success.
The government is in a no-win situation. If precautions are taken and no deadly wave of flu hits, people will say, “Much ado about nothing” and talk about the waste of effort and money. If a deadlier strain develops and gets around, people will point fingers and want heads to roll.The government is doing too much and wasting money right up until the shit hits the fan.
Flu viruses mutate like no-one’s business, and given the history of H1N1, due diligence, without ‘panic’, is only wise. Gather data, analyze, anticipate, and act (if and when necessary).
Our pediatrician only has the inhalant kind. My wife can’t take it cuz she’s pregnant and my daughter can’t take it cuz she has asthma.
Of influenza that was subtyped in the last reported week there were none that were the usual seasonal influenzas. All that was typed was either H1N1 or a fraction of a percent that was untypable.
If you got influenza right now it is H1N1. More than 99% certain.
Perhaps 33% of those infected are asymptomatic. Some get mild symptoms. Some get really sick. A few gets so sick they go in the hospital and of those maybe one out of five end up in an ICU. And close to one out of five of them never leave. Still probably something like 199/200 who have symptoms of influenza will be just fine. It’s that 1/200 that you gotta look out for, and 1/200 of 30-40% of the whole under 50 population is a big number.
This bug has already killed more kids in America than any recent influenza but on the scale of this country it is still a smallish number and a tiny percent. If your child is not a member of a medical condition high risk group, especially the neurodevelopmental disorder one (significant neurocognitive impairment, or neuromuscular impairment, or seizures), but also asthma and CF and other chronic lung issues, or has serious kidney problems, or chronic heart issues, or is immunosuppressed, then the odds are your child will survive this. A majority of the deaths have been of kids with an at-risk condition. By a huge margin. If your child is one of those with one or more of those conditions and you can’t get a vaccine because some idiots have decided instead to give it to a healthy adult, then you may be shit out of luck. No one is apparently letting these kids get to the front of the line where they deserve to be.
Other kids are not out of the woods, mind you. The hospitalization rate for kids, especially the youngest kids, is very high. It would be nice to avoid that. Their death rate isn’t higher than adults but they are hospitalized lots more often. These youngest kids should be getting a place in line right behind the kids with at-risk medical conditions.
But again, not.
Face, to some degree of course you are right: if they avoid disaster people will claim they over reacted; if disaster hits they screwed up. But they are screwing up. Like Katrina the natural disaster is one thing; the sloppy execution of the response is another.
And we’ve had enough autism threads, but here is a bit about the Amish autism myth.
Sorry if I am short but being a pediatrician I am working hard right now, and not just with sick kids, but with phone calls of appropriate concerns in the face of a dysfunctional execution of a plan and a media hellbent on raising irrational reactions in both directions.
I think RickJay was seeing the sub-group of people who have contributed to the rise of Methicillin Resistant Staph. aureus (MRSA) - the people who went to the doctor and demanded antibiotics every time they had a cold. Most people aren’t overreacting and panicking, but the ones who are make up for a lot of the rest of us (and clog up doctors’ offices).
Another data point - RickJay is in Canada, and there is no money involved (on the patient’s end) in going to the doctor’s office and having him treat your sniffles, which does indeed lead to abuse of the healthcare system. I’m not talking hypothetically, either; I worked as a healthcare professional for a couple of years, and it does indeed happen.
I’ll give you hallelujah on that. It is extremely difficult to pick the gems of truth out of the deluge of misdirection and hype that is flowing freely right now.
Thanks to the above posters for giving my cite for me; I would have used the CDC site as well. It is important to know that seasonal influenza really doesn’t hit until January. However, we are definitely seeing a peak of H1N1 in the past two weeks. It’s hard to know who to vaccinate; I have elderly people with chronic diseases and as a percentage they may end up having as many deaths as the kids but the problem is that this particular influenza, while not overall any worse than the usual seasonal influenza, does seem to get very bad in otherwise healthy young people. If you are healthy, the best thing to do is to stay home and treat it conservatively. There should be plenty of vaccine coming out soon, but unfortunately the flu is already here. In a way, it’s good that so much of the early vaccine was the nasal mist, because some of the young healthy kids were more likely to get it since there are limits to those who can get it. For those worried about side effects, I had it last week (nasal mist) and I’m still alive. (Before anybody criticizes me for taking it away from more needy people, just let me say that if I get the flu then I have the potential to pass it on to many many patients-all health care workers should be vaccinated IMNSHO).
What? Lol!
1918 pandemic killed an estimated 50-100 million people.
Black Plague killed an estimated 75 million. There is a CHANCE it killed a bit more, but when you have an estimation of +/- 100% and a pretty certain “killed 60% of Europe” I’d have to say that the 1918 plague, while terrible, was no worse than the Black plague.
This year’s pandemic will kill an estimated 100 people to 10 billion million people! OMG! Which could be 101 people!!!
As for the OP. I’m not sarcastic. I’m an actual scoffer. Freaking germaphobes and the freaking media that are their enablers. Fuck them all.
And I’ll say it now. This crap will be nothing more than slightly worse than the average flu. No pandemic, nothing. Just hype, even if slightly less hype than the West nile virus.
You’re a little late getting on board with this, because the WHO has already declared it a pandemic.
Thanks for proving my post above. Cocky ppl who know nothing of the subject they are speaking on think that because everything was all right in their past, things will continue to be all right. Your thought process and ‘reasoning’ to get to that conclusion is utterly flawed, or rather, nonexistent.
Everyone wants to be the smart tough guy that predicts some group of ppl have their panties in a bunch about nothing, even if they don’t know what the hell they’re talking about. As pointed out above, you’re already exactly wrong about the pandemic, so you’ve lost teh internets, smart tough guy who knows the future.
The fight against ignorance starts at home.
Yes, but not all at once. That’s why I said “any outbreak” and not “in total”. Unless you can gives dates for an outbreak of Black Death that killed 50 million in two years my statement stands.
A pandemic isn’t about how many people die, it’s about how many people get ill. You can certainly have a pandemic of mild illness with no deaths, it is no less a pandemic for all that.
It’s the odds-on likelihood, though. Most flu scares DON’T become the next Spanish Influenza.
Or would you like to put some money on it?
This isn’t me being a “smart tough guy,” it’s just the odds. I don’t mean to downplay the seriousness of flu by any means - it can kill you - but panic is rarely a good response to any problem.
You haven’t demonstrated that anyone’s panicking. Going to the doctor when you’re sick is not panicking. Barricading yourself in your home and bathing in Lysol is panicking. Fleeing to a remote location and blocking yourself from all human contact is panicking. Having anxiety attacks when going out in public because you’re scared of germs is panicking.
Going to the doctor when you are sick is the correct course of action.