Tuesday, October 20, 2009

Israel: H1N1 flu vaccine not suitable for pregnant women, sick kids/ Haaretz

Ha'aretz tells us that Israel only has adjuvanted vaccine available currently, and
The Health Ministry has decided to hold off on giving the swine flu vaccine to pregnant women and chronically ill children because vaccine stocks now in Israel contain a substance whose safety and effectiveness in pregnant women has not been fully substantiated. 
They will be offered unadjuvanted vaccine when it becomes available in November.

3 comments:

Unknown said...

Is a child with asthma considered chronically ill? My son has asthma and I don't consider him chronically ill at all, however, I notice that other parents of children with asthma do? "Chronically ill" is an ambiguous statement without clear parameters.

Meryl Nass, M.D. said...

There are both pros and cons to giving someone with asthma a vaccine. Some people with asthma have had very severe cases of swine flu.

On the other hand, as my post, "Vaccines are the safest kind of medicine, aren't they?" @

http://anthraxvaccine.blogspot.com/2009/10/vaccines-are-safest-kind-of-medicine.html

showed, hospitalizations for asthma more than doubled after soldiers received anthrax and smallpox vaccines.

Thus it appears that asthma might be triggered or worsened by vaccines as well.

So the potential benefit and the potential risk may be greater for asthmatics than for others.

I wish I could provide better advice, but this is what the data tell us now.

Meryl

top grade student said...

Meryl should we take account of family history in arriving at any decision?

Thank you,

Peter

http://www.topgradestudent.com/is-a-level-maths-hard/