So what do people think of the idea of a nasal spray vaccination?

[bumbleymummy]

Another thread mentioned that a new nasal spray flu vaccine has been developed and will be offered to all children from 2014. I'm not really interested in vaccinating against flu but I think that the nasal spray idea is an interesting one because it mimics how the body would naturally be exposed to the virus. I know there is a nasal spray measles vaccine being tested at the moment. I read about it a few years ago but I haven't seen any results of trials yet. It will be interesting to see what comes from them. If a flu vaccine has been developed with the same idea since then it does suggest that vaccines may be going in a new direction.

I'm quite interested in it as it hopefully will make a vaccine more 'appealing' IYKWIM.

I've seen a prototype and I do wonder how children will manage to use it, it needs quite a sniff (or did when I saw it, but that was a while ago).

They've also developed an intradermal flu vaccine, we could have ordered it last year but weren't keen.

I think it would be great for needle phobic people.

If it does need quite a sniff, then I'm not sure how a child age two would manage. Perhaps it'll be a squirt instead?
Presumably, it'll contain all sorts of extras like normal vaccines? I'd be interested to know about that especially with regard to such a vaccine for measles.

It has its own issues, it is also live, so they are squirting flu about. I think that you will probably find it has a possiblity of shedding to others. But, every year. I don't think thats healthy.

I also don't like the way the media have been calling children 'flu spreaders' and schools 'flu factories'. I am wary of the only reason being to protect others, old people. Will the old people agree to not smoke, eat healthy and drink responsibly so that the sacrifice of my child will have a good effect.

Numbertaker. Interesting. They actually said on the news this morning that it's going to be offered to healthy children aged 2 to 14 in order to protect the "middle aged". That's me.

1. I've never had flu so can't comment on how I would react.
2. If I were to catch flu, I would hope that it wouldn't kill me.
3. If the gov't is really worried about me, then why not offer the vaccine to me instead of my child?
4. If schools are flu factories, how many children actually catch it every year? My parents, in their 80s, have only ever had it once each. Schools may well be cold factories, but flu?

there's a v thin membranebetween thenasal cavity and the brain vavity (or summink - i haven't looked properly) and people fear encephalitis

I saw a great comment on the Telegraph site this morning.

"On behalf of my children, Fuck Off Lansley"

Yar yar yar yar

here we go

Uptake of chemicals directly from the nasal cavity to the brain

From the package insert:

5.2 Asthma, Recurrent Wheezing, and Active Wheezing
Children younger than 5 years of age with recurrent wheezing and persons of any age with asthma may be at increased risk of wheezing following administration of FluMist. FluMist has not been studied in persons with severe asthma or active wheezing.

I have real concerns about the selection pressures if they start trying to vaccinated everyone against flu. Really hope they're considering whether they could potentially increase virulence

All this is from the package insert.

Specific pathogen-free (SPF) eggs are inoculated with each of the reassortant strains and incubated to allow vaccine virus replication. The allantoic fluid of these eggs is harvested, pooled, and then clarified by filtration. The virus is concentrated by ultracentrifugation and diluted with stabilizing buffer to obtain
the final sucrose and potassium phosphate concentrations. The viral harvests are then sterile filtered to produce the monovalent bulks. Each lot is tested for ca, ts, and att phenotypes and is also tested extensively by in vitro and in vivomethods to detect adventitious agents. Monovalent bulks from the three
strains are subsequently blended and diluted as required to attain the desired potency with stabilizing buffers to produce the trivalent bulk vaccine. The bulk vaccine is then filled directly into individual sprayers for nasal administration.

Each 0.2 mL dose contains 106.5-7.5 FFU (fluorescent focus units) of live attenuated influenza virus reassortants of each of the three
strains: A/California/7/2009 (H1N1), A/Victoria/361/2011 (H3N2), and B/Wisconsin/1/2010. Each 0.2 mL dose also contains 0.188 mg/dose monosodium glutamate, 2.00 mg/dose hydrolyzed porcine gelatin,
2.42 mg/dose arginine, 13.68 mg/dose sucrose, 2.26 mg/dose dibasic potassium phosphate, and 0.96 mg/dose monobasic potassium phosphate. Each dose contains residual amounts of ovalbumin (

Ew I don't like the look of potassium phosphate and its effect on the nervous system. I don't fancy blowing that into my children's brains.

This is gentamicin sulphate:

Gentamicin (sometimes misspelled gentamycin) is an antibiotic that first went into commercial production more than 50 years ago. At that time, it was the only antibiotic available to treat many infections. Doctors quickly discovered it could have a devastating effect of the inner ear, causing permanent balance impairment and bouncing vision (oscillopsia).

For many years, physicians had no good alternatives to gentamicin for certain types of infections and continued to use it even though the potential side effects were well known.

Oh for goodness sake.

EDTA is in such widespread use that it has emerged as a persistent organic pollutant.[23] It degrades to ethylenediaminetriacetic acid, which then cyclizes to the diketopiperizide, a cumulative, persistent, organic environmental pollutant. An alternative chelating agent with fewer environmental pollution implications is EDDS.

EDTA exhibits low acute toxicity with LD50 (rat) of 2.0 ? 2.2 g/kg.[3] It has been found to be both cytotoxic and weakly genotoxic in laboratory animals. Oral exposures have been noted to cause reproductive and developmental effects.[9] The same study by Lanigan[9] also found that both dermal exposure to EDTA in most cosmetic formulations and inhalation exposure to EDTA in aerosolized cosmetic formulations would produce exposure levels below those seen to be toxic in oral dosing studies.

6.2 Postmarketing Experience
The following events have been spontaneously reported during post approval use of FluMist. Because these events are reported voluntarily from a population of uncertain size, it is not always possible to reliably estimate their frequency or establish a causal relationship to vaccine exposure.
Cardiac disorders: Pericarditis
Congenital, familial, and genetic disorders: Exacerbation of symptoms of mitochondrial encephalomyopathy (Leigh syndrome)
Gastrointestinal disorders: Nausea, vomiting, diarrhea
Immune system disorders: Hypersensitivity reactions (including anaphylactic reaction, facial edema, and urticaria)
Nervous system disorders: Guillain-Barré syndrome, Bell?s Palsy, meningitis, eosinophilic meningitis, vaccine-associated encephalitis
Respiratory, thoracic, and mediastinal disorders: Epistaxis
Skin and subcutaneous tissue disorders: Rash

Gosh, the minutes from the JVIC meetings are interesting aren't they. Was very interested to see that when discussing pertussis they didn't talk about mutation.

Sorry JCVI (too hot to type straight)

Yes, did you see them linked to the other thread? They mention cost effectiveness a million times and adverse events once, on my skim read.

Ever tried that Vicks cold prevention spray? If its anything like that I will take the needle thanks, made me cough snort, dribble, grab the nearest beverAge ( dh beer)... Never again. Having said that I am the age group that won't be getting it and I live abroad..so as you were....

Bumbley, where are you, we all replied to your thread and you're in a pub somewhere

Ha ha yes I thought that - there was a lot of discussion about cost effectiveness. And some rather sinister sounding 'parent education' of the benefits.

Yes FW on the BBC was also going on about educating parents about the benefits, and about how there was plenty of time to do that because the roll out won't happen until 2014.

What nonsense.

FW is so biased it's ridiculous.

I did ponder what 'informed consent' means if you're only ever actually educated about the benefits. I'm sure there are benefits, but I'd like to know the risks as well please.

I'm not sure why children are to be asked to protect adults again. Adults, get your acts together and stop relying on bairns.