The pre-existing label I used is because a third of us carry this bacteria but for most it is not a problem. The relevance is the state of one's health and risk from Swine Flu complications.

The thing is to be aware of health and to feel empowered to do something about it. We all know about ciggies and alcohol, but not so many know about the dangers of medication in otherwise healthy folk. Also we are very much in the dark about the dangers of certain processed 'foods' and sugar and the amazing qualities of other real foods.

I founded a Natural Health Network for Parents and Health Care Practitioners called Arnica. www.arnica.org.uk I hope it is OK to mention it. We have a thriving Yahoo group and 40 UK local groups where we want to learn more about health naturally.

It is great to see such debate here and the Swine Flu has provided general interest. However, many other diseases are hyped and vaccines are given unnecessarily. Of the dozens of shots your toddler will be recommended are they all safe and effective and necessary? Lots of work is being done at the moment to find alternatives to aluminum in vaccines for example..

"The development of a vaccine with mutant Aβ peptides that avoids the use of an adjuvant may result in an effective and safer human vaccine."
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2202/9/25

I hope that we can change the tide in this country where most of us give all vaccines, take all medications offered and use products to bring down a fever and suppress a rash. Keep on asking..

Here is some more from the Dr Mercola site.

http://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2009/10/31/CDC-Says-Kids-That-Die-From-S wine-Flu-Have-Coexisting-Bacterial-Infections.aspx

"I’d also like to know how many flu deaths might be attributed to antibiotic-resistant staph infections.

The New Scientist featured a recent poll of medics saying around half of them wouldn't be taking the vaccine. Can't find the link but it's on their website if anyone wants to look.

Interesting about the GP revolt - mine said he would not be having it

'And all the 36 children in the US who died during the period detailed in my earlier post had a pre-exsisting bacterial infection, which possibly was antibiotic resistant'

Where did you get that information Arnica? As far as I can see the evidence suggests those children died from bacterial pneumonia, triggered by SF. How do you know the bacterial infections were 'pre-existing'?

its seems that the Frontline NHS staff are revoltion over this . take a look at this Pulse article, GPs are refusing on mass.
this quote pretty much sums it up .

Dr Liz Miller, a locum GP in London, said she would not recommend the vaccine to her patients because of safety concerns: ‘I do not intend to be vaccinated, nor will I recommend it to patients. It is untested and unnecessary. It’s time doctors started thinking for themselves instead of mindlessly obeying the Department of Health because they are terrified of missing out on free money.’

its a shame we did not have this info before Salisburys cosy chat.
http://www.pulsetoday.co.uk/story.asp?sectioncode=35&storycode=4124190&c=2

Professor Salisbury,

I was unable to take part in the webchat on Monday but wanted to add a question related to an earlier question about women who are planning to become pregnant that I don't think has been answered yet (although I may have missed it in the long thread).

Are there any plans to extend the vaccination programme to women of childbearing potential once the already prioritised at-risk groups have received their vaccinations?

I accept that there is a favourable risk benefit profile for these vaccines being offered to pregnant women due to the exceptional circumstances of a pandemic and the risk of significant complications in pregnant women plus the fact that there is a certain amount of established use in that (different) seasonal flu vaccines have been safely given to women for a number of years.

It is not desirable, however, to give pregnant women vaccines and medications, especially ones for which there is little in the way of clinical or pharmacovigilance data.

Given that the government has already ordered enough vaccine to vaccinate everyone in the country, would it not make sense to extend the priority programme who may be planning to become pregnant so that we can avoid vaccinating pregnant women where possible (whilst continuing to vaccinate women who are already pregnant of course)?

My own situation is that I have not yet been vaccinated and have miscarried since the vaccination programme started but plan to become pregnant again as soon as possible. My GP has declined my request for vaccination because I am not pregnant. I do understand and accept the reasons for this but I do feel that this issue warrants further consideration and a publication of the decision and rationale.

It would also be useful to know if (and when) there are any plans to publish interim results from the planned registry studies in pregnant women in order to assist women in their decisions about whether to accept the offer of vaccination should the pandemic continue for an extended period of time.

I hope you will be able to respond to my question, thank you.

Hmm still not sure if pregnant women with underlying health conditions, particularly autoimmune should be having this vaccine.

Dr Salisbury as you are coming back with responses to all the questions you missed previously, could you respond to these:

Do you accept you have no idea of the impact of swine flu vaccine on the incidence of GBS?

Are you happy that the level of mercury in Pandemrix is around about or may exceed the safe level for a newborn baby? Is this why newborn babies are not recommended for vaccination?

With regard to GBS, we shouldn't forget that the government is treating the swine flu vaccine program as an experiment. They do not know how many cases of GBS it could cause and have instructed that monitoring :

"is essential for conducting robust epidemiological analyses capable of identifying whether there is an increased risk of GBS in defined time periods after vaccination, or after influenza itself, compared with the background risk."

That means that however many reassurances we get, Dr Salisbury simply doesn't know how many cases of GBS could be caused by the vaccine. That's why they are asking. They don't know. The reassurances are meaningless.

Arnica, if you're still on this thread I'd love to see where you got your facts on your post of Mon 02-Nov-09 23:07:41. I've consulted pregnant/ midwife friends in France and Germany, and both you and Beachcomber are saying pretty much what they've told me.

When I was preg with no1, nobody mentioned the flu vaccine, despite the fact that I gave birth during the flu season. Why should swine flu be any different? If it affects young people more, that counts me out (I'm 35!).

Also the statistics which Prof Salisbury provided on the percentage of people dying from SF being preg are potentially misleading as one tends to swallow the numbers (5-30%! Gulp!) and not think about what this means. For example, if up to 30% of (how many deaths in the UK? 100-ish? 120?) were pregnant, and the majority of them were 'young', how does that change the potential risk for me? And what about the other many pregnant SF sufferers who did not die? This number will far outweigh the number of pregnancy-related deaths, and it's imperative that statistics are balanced out in this way so that we can treat them intelligently. Sorry, Prof Salisbury, I genuinely don't mean to be offensive here, but presenting statistics in any other way is a form of trickery.