Live webchat with Professor David Salisbury, Dept of Health director of immunisation, Mon, November 2, 1pm

[GeraldineMumsnet]

We're very pleased to have Professor David Salisbury, the Department of Health's director of immunisation, as our guest for a live webchat this Friday, 30 Oct, at 1pm.

Professor Salisbury, who originally trained as a paediatrician, and also works extensively for the World Health Organisation including his role as chairman of the WHO Strategic Advisory Group of Experts on Vaccines, is a timely guest given that the swine flu vaccination
programme is now being rolled out. Pregnant women are one of the first 'at-risk' groups being offered the jab.

There has already been a large amount of discussion about the vaccine, so this is your chance to put your questions, concerns and comments to the government's top vaccines expert.

As usual, if you can't join us on the day, please post your question here and Prof Salisbury will try to answer as many as possible.

Beachcomber. Well done for posting your question. You are on a hiding to nothing as you well know.

Prof Salisbury, I would be very happy for my ds to be part of the unvaccinated cohort should you be willing to commission the research.

How can you claim that the vaccination schedule is not harmful when the health of unvaccinated children has never been examined in comparison to their vaccinated peers?

Aren't our girls in effect being used in a 'trial' of sorts for the HPV vaccine? As I understand it, it wasn't tested on anyone under the age of 15 before it was given to 12 year olds en masse. There is a world of difference between the body of a pre-pubescent child (as most 12 year olds still are, certainly my dd is) and that of a 15 year old, IMO. Their bodies go through huge changes in those few years. Why is it safe to assume the vaccine will affect them in the same way?

Thank you sophable.

I too would be happy for my children to take part in a vaccinated/unvaccinated study. I have one vaccinated child and one unvaccinated.

I reckon it would be easy enough to find the numbers required to carry out this long overdue research.

Swine flu jab - has everyone forgotten thalidimide?

Ooh, was disappointed that I would miss this on Friday, but am now on ML, so can join in on Monday

My question is: I am approaching 37 weeks pregnant, and haven't been invited to GPs yet for a vaccination. Would you consider it 'worth it' at this late stage? Would I be offered it after the birth if I had not received it in pregnancy?

Question:

My family currently seem to have swine flu and we were prescribed tamiflu. However we were not tested. My eldest daughter and I are likely to be offered the vacination, should we have it?

Thanks!

My question would be:
I am not pregnant, but will be trying to conceive from December. Once pregnant I would be a priority for the vaccine - am I able to have this before I get pregnant, to prevent any potential risk to the foetus?

I am a front line health worker but I shan,t be having swine vaccination. I have read the literature!

My father was a GP when we had the measles epidemic. he didn't want to go through that again and neither do I as an RGN! MMR without hesitation!

I am breastfeeding, and I'm a GP so I'll be offered the vaccination. I want to be vaccinated, but is the vaccine safe with breastfeeding?

so what time is the web chat going to be?

lol!!!! just noticed the header has changed.
1pm eh.

How long has the GSK adjuvant AS03 been used in vaccines, and has it been approved previously for use in pregnant women in any other vaccine?

Whilst not jumping on the doomsday band-waggon which would have us think that all those vaccinated with Pandemrix will either develope an autoimmune disease or dammage their unborn child; I am however a little concerned that the Government mantra of 'The vaccine is safe' seems to contradict the opinions of several other governments which refuse to license its use in pregnant women.

pofacedandproud
Polio is being caused by the vaccine in Nigeria this year , double the number of children have been paralysed and its the vaccine strain from the live oral vaccine that's mutating.

My daughter has various health problems and also egg-allergy. She has been offered an appointment for the GSK swine flu vaccine in hospital in a couple of weeks time but Celvapan via the GP would be a lot easier. I'm anxious to get her vaccination as soon as possible - how long will it be before GPs get supplies of Celvapan?
Thanks

Unfortunately, it doesn?t look like I?ll be able to join the live webchat. I?m hoping this will be covered at some point?. As this information would help me put the risk of swine flu into perspective.

Every year around 4000 babies in the UK are stillborn and about the same number die soon after birth, often the cause of these deaths are not known*. This is a risk every one of us takes (whether we acknowledge it or not) when we chose to have a baby. We take this risk because life must go on, and because in reality whilst this number is very scary it is still a small percentage of the 600,000+ babies born in the UK each year. We can?t vaccinate against all eventualities.

With this in mind, I would like to understand the statistics/Government expectations on the following to enable me to better assess the risk:

1. How many pregnant women have/are expected to contract swine flu this year?
2. Of those women what percentage are expected to develop severe complications (& is this number any higher than those expected to develop severe complications with seasonal flu?)
3. How many miscarriages, stillbirths & newborn deaths are expected to be directly contributable to swine flu?

CJT - 30 weeks pregnant, fit & healthy and currently NOT planning to have the vaccine.

*NHS: The Pregnancy Book. Published by COI for the Department of Health

SQUALENE AND MERCURY in H1N1 vaccine - is it likely to cause problems with auto-immune or iflammatory conditions in later life?

US Inst. of Pathology 2000 report seems to suggest that this could be so from research with Gulf War I vets. We have squalene in our bodies (brain and joints)- when H1N1 vaccine is given antibodies are produced to the squalene in the jab but also to the sqaulene in your body.

Why would it be good to inject yourself with mercury, which is also contained in the vaccine.

Why have 2 of the major drug companies who have produced the stuff for use in the UK insisted on immunity from future legal action?

My children have had all their other vaccinations - I just think that there hasn't been proper testing and development done on these products. Is this why there seem to be significant no's of frontline health staff who are choosing not to have the vaccine?

Prof S: Questions

1. How many pregnant women have had the vaccination and gone on to give birth to healthy babies?

1. How many pregnant women have had vaccination and subsequently contracted swine flu? How many not-pregnant people have had vaccination and still contracted swine flu?

1. How many pregnant women have had swine flu and as a result of the swine flu, have had complications with their pregnancies?

Is there a source of stats like this that I can look at?

Professor Salisbury is in the building - we're just getting the computers all set up and then we'll be off.

How different is swine flu compared to normal flu? The number of deaths does seem quite low?

I know we don't have any / much immunity to swine flu, but does having had other strains of flu give you any sort of immunity? Now that it's been around a bit, are people picking up immunity to it?

Please may I ask a question about the vaccine delivery schedule for at risk patients following this from MrsJohnDeere in another thread (hope you don't mind MrsJD):

"At my GP surgery they're not expecting to have the vaccine for 'at risk' people until late Dec, and into 2010 for others. "

I know I have already asked a question but this to me as a parent of an asthmatic who's gp practice doesn't know when they are getting the vaccine is rather alarming. So my question is, is the initial vaccine delivery to gp surgeries for patients 'at risk' on schedule and is the above information surprising or expected?

Thank you

Ok so we're here and ready to go, so without further ado we'll hand over to David Salisbury

I am really sorry about last Friday but when we uploaded the first answer the Department wireless network gave up. I hope that did not cause any of you too much trouble.

There have been a multitude of questions about swine flu vaccine and adjuvants. Tatt asks why aren't there more adjuvant-free vaccines available, Boredwithwork brings up the point that she is concerned about adjuvants being in the pandemrix. MrsTC wonders whether or not to have the swine flu vaccine.

Lets start with why the adjuvant is in the vaccine: the adjuvant first allows much less
of the antigen to be used (the antigen is the bit that gives you immunity). Next the adjuvant in vaccine will probably protect for much longer and should protect you if the flu virus mutates as flu viruses do. People clearly want to know what is in the adjuvant; it contains a fish oil (squalene) and vitamin E - both naturally occurring products that we have in our bodies. There is also a substance called Polysorbate 80 that is a food additive and is in many medicines.

Everybody asks about the testing of the adjuvant. When we started to worry about a pandemic from H5N1 virus the manufacturers developed vaccines as close to the virus strain that might cause a pandemic as possible. The prototype vaccines with adjuvant were fully tested in adults and some children. The data on the production and results of the clinical trials were submitted to the European Medicines regulators and these vaccines were licensed. When H1N1 emerged the manufacturers simply switched the strain just as they do every year for seasonal flu vaccine. We know that the GSK adjuvant has been given to about 40,000 people and it has been approved for use in Europe. We are already seeing the results on the clinical trials of the GSK vaccine in adults and children for safety and immune responses and these are in line with the safety results from seasonal flu vaccine. We are also already getting the safety results from vaccination of health workers across Europe and these are not causing concern.