Now that the vaccine is available for my workplace I find that my reading of so much apocalyptic fiction has made it very difficult to decide whether or not the shot is a good thing.

Some fiction has it being those who get the shot be the ones who turn into zombies...

and other fiction has it be those who do not get the shot be the ones to get some weird variant illness and die.

And what happens if it's a wild variant that occurs in a year or two - - how are we to know if its those immunized who cause the variant to be fatal, or those who didn't get immunized causing it to spread rapidly.

And etc...

DO books about aircrashes make you avoid flying? Or those featuring road accidents make you avoid driving? Or those featuring dinasaurs make you avoid visitng jungle island paradisii ?

Why then should fiction put you off being vaccinated. The science is very sound. Get the jab. You can always ask your local health professional to explain what risks you face of being turned inot a zombie. I'm sure they won't mind.

Errr...

I hate to admit it but... I have to say yes to all - other than the dinosaurs, but if I actually believed in dinosaurs, I might be frightened of that too.

I sound like a big scaredy-cat. Sounds pathetic when I think about it, and I'm pretty sure I won't turn into a zombie... but... the variant strain thing...

3> It's all right...I had a strong urge to start stockpiling canned goods after reading Life as We Knew It.

Once you're a zombie, you really won't care.

You speak from experience?

It comes and goes.

Well, that certainly is the bright side of it all.

Strangely, and completely by accident, I've read a couple "disease is going to kill everyone" books recently (The Demon in the Freezer and Doomsday Book)

All I can say is, medical science and biology are fairly advanced, and I think it's a field in science that we have a fairly strong grasp upon. Yes, the possibilties are still infinite, but I think it's something that we understand more than a lot of things. It was 30-ish years ago that we (mostly) eradicated Smallpox. It was an EXTREMELY deadly virus that could kill anyone it infected, and we wiped it from the planet. Surely 30+ years later we can deal with the puny little H1N1 virus.

I've always been more concerned about death than zombification but after seeing "I Am Legend" the other day I have to wonder about that too.....

In all seriousness there have been tested and approved drugs that have turned out badly after they've been administered to the public. Are vaccinations any different? My co-worker and I were discussing this today and she said that there are kids who have received the vaccination and died from it. Is it true?

Don't know the details about this vaccination. But the general principle: yes, there may be some risk involved in vaccinating, but it's less dangerous than not being vaccinated.

(To make it clear: a vaccine - for a virus - is not a drug in the normal sense of the word. It doesn't cure. It means you get infected with a very similar but weakened form of a virus in order to enable your body to produce the specific antibodies. And this means that when the real illness comes around your body is prepared for it. But it does mean you're getting exposed to a virus, and if you're very weak for some reason or if your immune system is on the blink that may not be a good idea.)

Message edited by its author, Oct 27, 2009, 2:46pm.

I estimate my chance of dying from non-swine-flu-related causes in the coming winter, say next six months, at 2%. Without the vaccination, since this is a very infective H1N1 variant and vaccine take-up won't be high enough for herd immunity, I have about 75% chance of getting swine flu. It doesn't have high fatality, say 1.5%, so that's a bit more than 1% chance of dying from swine flu. That put my risk of death up from 2% to 3%, a hefty increase, 50% greater chance of death. This calculation needs a small correction for the chance of getting flu in spite of vaccination, it won't make much difference.

I just talked myself into getting off my butt and going to get the vaccine.

If you're younger than me, your chance of non-flu death is smaller, so the figures favour vaccination more strongly.

ETA: I neglect the 1 in 10 million chance of dying of the vaccine.

Message edited by its author, Oct 27, 2009, 3:07pm.

4 PhoenixTerran

Me too! And bottled water. And after I read Little Brother I wanted to get rid of my newly-purchased toll quick pass thing.

4, 13: I actually half-heartedly tried to convince my family to stockpile water and such after reading that too. In the end all I managed to convince them of was to read Life As We Knew It. Little Brother made me look more closely at gaming consoles :)

>11 It means you get infected with a very similar but weakened form of a virus in order to enable your body to produce the specific antibodies.

Just a small correction, there are several live virus vaccines in common use in the US - measles, mumps, rubella (the MMR vaccine), varicella (for chickenpox) , rotavirus and the NASAL flu vaccine. (As well as the old oral Polio vaccine, which is not in current use in the US although still recommended in countries with endemic polio - it is more effective but has more potential complications.)

The injection versions of the seasonal flu and the H1N1 flu vaccines are inactivated (i.e. not alive) preparations. There is nothing that is able to reproduce in your body in the shots. So, immuno-compromised patients are recommended to get the inactivated immunizations. The problem is that immuno-compromised patients may not mount a sufficient immune response to protect them from the disease - so household contacts of immuno-compromised patients should be vaccinated as well (also with the inactivated vaccine).

Detailed recommendations from the CDC for the seasonal flu vaccine for specific populations here:
http://www.cdc.gov/FLU/PROFESSIONALS/aci...

ACIP recommendations re: H1N1 with references here:
http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml...

ETA: For full disclosure: I have received both the seasonal and H1N1 vaccines this year and zombification markers are all negative so far... :-)

Message edited by its author, Oct 28, 2009, 12:16am.

sure, you'd say that, wouldn't you. I want independent verification.

>#3: if I actually believed in dinosaurs

Everytime you say that, somewhere a dinosaur dies.

If it makes you feel any better I got both flu vaccines and Im still ok...

I even got the attenuated H1N1 virus... nasal mist version... and not even a small desire to eat brains!

I did have a strange craving for McDonalds earlier but Im sure thats got nothing to do with the vaccine...

hmmm. I wonder if corporations are helping to fund the vaccines, in exchange for some "tweaks".

> 15: Thanks for the correction. Like I said, I'm only familiar with the general principle.

> 19 : That would be the Umbrella Company mainly. ;-P

Message edited by its author, Oct 28, 2009, 4:31am.

Poor dinosaurs... make me sad first thing in the morning why don't you MrAndrew!

And to you two who got the shots, do you think the zombie eating urges would have already come, or it will occur at a set time after incubation? I know, normally, zombies get infected and turn nearly immediately but in Forest of Teeth and Hands it could take several days.

I'll be watching my 3 coworkers who got the shot yesterday very very carefully in the coming week.

I had my regular flu shot a month ago... the H1N1 about a week ago ... will let you know if I start craving gray matter ^_^

#10 "she said that there are kids who have received the vaccination and died from it. Is it true?"

Unlikely. It is of course possible, adverse events do occur. However it is much more likely that the kid died from something else unrelated to the vaccine, but that the jab was the only unusal event they'd experienced recently, and so gets the blame - to be perfectly clear about this: the kid would have died anyway whether or not they had the jab. Obviously this is hugely upsetting for everyone involved, and 'explanations' are seen as helpful, even when the true cause is not known. However when the 'explanation' spread through gossip and innacurate reporting, it does an awful lot more harm. Cf the MMR/autism bolloxs of the last few years - totally debunked, but many completely preventable deaths and serious consequences from measles have occured.

Fundamentally It's no different from any other vaccine you've ever had for anything else, and you didn't worry about them.

Get the Jab.

#23

Pretty much the same scare stories as when that girl died after getting injected with the HPV vaccine. Lots of noise in the gutter press, but much less explanation when it was discovered she had a rare pre-existing tumour and the vaccine had nothing to do with her death.

Personally on the flu stuff I would trust the vaccine far more than using Tamiflu after infection. However an earlier H1N1 vaccine (from the 1976 outbreak) did result in a doubling of Guillain-Barre Syndrome (however the overall risk of Guillain-Barre was still vanishingly small - too small to worry about IMO). Because the field has developed a lot over the past 30 years I seriously doubt that an equivalent increase in GBS will be seen this time round.

I'm more concerned that multi-dose vials are being used, and that there is an increased risk of infectious diseases being transmitted if it is not administered correctly.

Actually - it is not recommended that children (under a certain age and I can't remember the actual age group) are injected - and in Australia (only place I can speak for authoritatively) they are not allowed to be given this vaccine. They are working on one for them, as far as I know.

As a health worker I will be getting one...in the next two weeks...so I, too, will report on any zombie tendencies. :)

add: Donna - unless they use the same sharp (needle) they used on the last person to inject you with, then, and only then, will there be a problem. :) The drawing up from the multi-dose vial (with correct procedure) is no worse than one vial - a different needle size is used for drawing as to injecting and they should use a clean one each time, just the same as for one vial, for each procedure. If they kept using the same sharp to keep drawing each dose, then the risk of infection would be enhanced - so you can check they open a new sharp to do so and then know it is OK. Seriously...

Message edited by its author, Oct 28, 2009, 8:18am.

>26 - it is not recommended that children (under a certain age and I can't remember the actual age group) are injected

Neither the seasonal or the H1N1 vaccine is approved for infants under 6 mos old - for this reason, the recommendations are to vaccinate anyone who lives in a household with a baby 6 mos old or younger in order to protect the infant from infection. (Can't speak for the situation in Australia - only the US.)

Good job addressing the multi-use vial concern.

Hmmm...Do baby zombies eat brains or just drink spinal fluid?

Message edited by its author, Oct 28, 2009, 8:37am.

> 27... in the book I just finished, there was a baby zombie but it had no teeth so all it did was kick in its crib until someone "killed" it. Now, that would really suck - bad enough to be a zombie, but to be one without teeth and the ability to sit upright... means no eating brains and yet, no way to die... sad when you think about it.

Yeah, if you've gonna to be a zombie, you at least want all the perks.

Hmmm...Do baby zombies eat brains or just drink spinal fluid?

I'm not sure, but I sure wouldn't want to be the mother breast feeding it.

Message edited by its author, Oct 28, 2009, 9:31am.

#26

The doctors in the UK are getting boxes of single-use fixed needle syringes with their vials of vaccine. One of the vaccines (the GSK one) requires a mixing syringe but the final step of delivery to patient should be by a fixed needle/syringe. There is theoretically a small chance of bacterial contamination if the multi-use vials are left lying around for hours on end (the GSK vaccine will last up to 24 hours) without popping it into a fridge.

Some of you talk as if the drug companies and other poweres that be (CDC) would tell the truth about adverse or suspected adverse reactions.Interesting. I go with the Zombie theory.. and I do believe in dinosaurs and in dragons for that matter.. The aliens tole me that they exist and that dragons do breath colored fire.

Message edited by its author, Oct 28, 2009, 10:22am.

>27,
Someone's been reading The Forest of Hands and Teeth!

I almost felt bad for that little zombie.

Message edited by its author, Oct 28, 2009, 2:09pm.