TimesOnline has just published an article on the NEW swine flu vaccine - and recommends that pregnant women ask for this in addition to last year's if they had it.

[JosephineClaire]

Has anyone else heard this?

I had a swine flu vaccine at about 10 weeks - I'm now wondering if I need another at 34 weeks...

[Appletrees]

Dylthan, yes it has hasn't it (1938 I think -- Eli Lilly), and autism was first identified by Leo Kanner as "an entirely new condition" in 1943.

So.. what do you mean, we don't have to wait five years you mean we already know the effects? And what do you think they are? Are you implying that mercury is a safe substance simply due to long usage? What a novel approach haven't seen that on a vax thread before. Five points for effort.

[DuelingFanjo]

"Flu doesn't go away in the summer it just isn't as prevalent in this country. "

do you mean it just isn't as prevalent in the summer in this country or that it just isn't as prevalent in this country full stop? Because if you mean 'in the summer' that would sugest that there is some reason for it being more prevelant in the winter.

I do wonder just how many pregnant women have had swine flu and how many of those had babies who suffered as a result or how many sadly lost those babies?

The stats must be out there, yes? Or do most pregnant women have the jab, meaning that hardly any get swine flu (or ordinary flu) anyway?

What I mean is, is this like anything else... quite a lot of scare-mongering with very few verifaiable facts/stats to base the scare-mongering on?

[Appletrees]

yes, loads of scaremongering about the possibility of catching swine flu

how can anyone scare monger about the effects of the vax? no one knows what they are

some apparently healthy babies have been born of mums who had the jab

who know's what's down the line

we simply don't know that's a fact, not scaremongering and we won't ever know -- also a fact

so if you're looking your a risk benefit analysis there isn't one -- it's just a leap of faith

and if anything DOES go wrong -- madam you are on your own

[DuelingFanjo]

"If you don't have the vaccine:

• you are more likely to catch flu and have worse symptoms"
  

is this true? How much more likely?

Can they really provide stats to show this?

I would have thought it was more... 'you might be more likely to catch the flu and have worse symptoms?

[DuelingFanjo]

Quick question(s) again. If a pregnant woman gets the flu vaccine does that make her immune to flu?


if so, does that immunity pass on to the baby in the womb?

[Dylthan]

So autism is only caused by certain vaccines and never existed before

I am just saying that if the worst case senario of a vaccine is autism or dyslexia and the worse case of a disease is death I know which I would choose for my child. Or are you saying they are worse fates then death for a child.

[Appletrees]

a. not definitely, as with all vax

b. don't know

maybe someone else knows more

[TondelayoSchwarzkopf]

Why is a pregnant woman at risk of dyslexia or autism from a vaccination? Something of a thread de-rail...

[Appletrees]

her baby.. her baby tondelayo

[Appletrees]

Dylthan, sorry I can't take that post at all seriously.

[DuelingFanjo]

OK

so no one knows if the vaccine a pregnant woman has will also imunise her baby against flu?

[TondelayoSchwarzkopf]

So when they removed thimerosal from childhood vaccines in 1999/2000 - was there a massive drop in autism diagnosis, three to five years later?

The science is very much against the mercury-causes-autism theory.

[DuelingFanjo]

If a baby can't have a flu vaccine until they are 6 moths old then does this mean that it might be a good precaution to either

vaccinate immediate family (ie a pregnant woman's husband/mother/oin-laws) against flu too

or

Stop anyone from coming into contact with newborn babies while they are at their most vunerable? ie banning family visits from anyone who hasn't been vaccinated.

Particularly in winter.

I am playing devil's advocate a bit here but it just seems to me that we are so quick to make women feel guilty for not having the vaccine incase they end up killing their baby through negligence, yet the baby is still vunerable once it is born anyway.

[Tangle]

"Or are you saying they are worse fates then death for a child."

That's a really hard question. I think I might be the lady Mosschops was talking about - I was facing this decision last winter and chose not to have the vaccination. I caught SF when I was 8 months pregnant, wound up in hospital dehydrated with very low blood pressure and low oxygenation. When we got there we discovered DD2 had died. The details are here if you want them.

We declined an autopsy and so will never know for certain that the SF caused her death. It seemed unnecessary when my condition was poor enough that my body was doing everything it could to keep me alive, and from an evolutionary point of view, babies are a lot more expendable than women of childbearing age...

When we lost DD I would have said nothing could be worse. But since then I've come across situations that have made me re-evaluate. Another possible outcome would have been DD surviving, but having suffered severe oxygen deprivation. That would have had a profound and long lasting impact on not just DH and myself but DD1 as well. Loosing DD2 was incredibly hard and I don't know that we'll ever recover, but at least it was quick and decisive - life has carried on, not as we had hoped and planned, but with no major changes. If DD2 had survived with oxygen deprivation, things could have been very VERY different. Worse? Haven't got a clue. How does a child with autism compare to either of those? Again, I haven't got a clue.

Would having the vaccine have prevented me catching SF? I don't know - but the entire vaccination program is based on the principle that it improves the odds, and with all the cost/benefit analyses that go on my opinion is that the flu vaccinations would have stopped by now if they were ineffective.

Re. autism - I'm struggling to find any peer reviewed research that finds a link between vaccines and autism. This study by the CDC looked at about 1,000 children between 6 and 13, some of whom were exposed to thimerosal containing vaccines either in utero or during the first 20 months of life. They found that the group exposed to vaccines were at no increased risk of having an ASD diagnosis - if anything they were at slightly lower risk (no explanation found). (I'll also caveat to say I haven't read the whole study yet but a glance through hasn't given me an obvious reason to distrust it.)

[DuelingFanjo]

Tangle, so sorry to hear of your experience. We kind of cross posted and I hope that my post above yours didn't cause any upset for you.

[mamatomany]

Every drug is contraindicated in pregnancy because they cannot carry out trials, who would seriously take £500 and allow the pharma companies to inject them with an unknown drug whilst pregnant, it's not ethical.
I didn't have the swine flu vaccine because I felt the chances I would contract swine flu were slim and indeed I didn't.
Personally I think twice about taking anadin when pregnant so I would not have this vaccine.

[Appletrees]

Tondelayo -- perhaps because they started encouraging pregnant women to take mercury containing vaccines around the same time?

"Who would seriously take 500 to inject them with an unknown drug while pregnant?" That's what pregnant women are being asked no recommended -- to do with this vaccine. Without the 500.

Tangle I'm sorry for your experience.

[Tangle]

Its OK - I know its a contentious issue and its my choice to come on these threads (not sure why sometimes, but there you go!). Thankyou for your kind thoughts.

There will always be at least two sides to any decision and its good to be able to discuss them.

Re. the question in your last post, my understanding was that vaccination during pregnancy was thought to give some immunity to the baby - which could be furthered by BF. To me, however, what risks you choose to expose your baby to once their born is a different question. There's a risk/benefit analysis to be done on having the jab. A risk benefit analysis to be done on how much its worth to see visitors and in what state of health...

All any of us can ever do is make the best decisions we can at the time, with the information and resources available to us. Nobody said it was easy...

[sparklyblack]

I know this is slightly off topic now, but this is what I first thought when I read the OP... it may see the swine flu pandemic was just a lot of media hysteria and in actual fact not many people died, but there's a strong possibiltiy that it will return this year/winter and will be a lot worse. In 1918, there were flu pandemic scares but not that many people died. Then in 1919 it returned and there were more deaths than in the whole 4 years of the First World War. I'm not trying to scaremonger, just point out that past pandemics such as that one are what current predictions are based on, which is why the risk has not necessarily gone.

Not currently pregnant but I would definitely be taking the new vaccine if I was. I feel its effects on my baby could not possibly be as bad as the effects of swine flu.

Sorry for your loss Tangle :(.

[mamatomany]

In 1918, there were flu pandemic scares but not that many people died. Then in 1919 it returned and there were more deaths than in the whole 4 years of the First World War.

The conditions people lived in and the medical care they received in 1918 are not comparable with even the poorest people alive today. And those that died were typically the elderly not young women in their child bearing years.

[Dylthan]

Mama - no the flu killed the young more than the old. This is because their immune systems are stronger and go into overdrive to try and get rid of the virus also attacking other parts of the body until the body can no longer take it.

When swine flu first started I did a distance learning module on flu and pandemics ( I work in pharmacy ) this said that pandemics do not always run their course in the first year. It could take a year or five years but that the estimated death figures will not change. Until the pandemic has run it's course the risk is still there.

[Samraves]

I am really unsure - if I was not pregnant then I definitely wouldn't have it (I get offered it because of asthma) because on the two occasions I have had the flu jab, I have not only been really really ill after, but then have caught flu anyway - and those have been the only two times I have caught flu. I know that the second part must be co-incidence and I just caught a different strain or something. But to know that I will be hideously ill after having the jab for about 4 days really puts me off, and makes me think I would rather take my chance that I am not ill at all. And when I get ill after the jabs I have a terrible temperature for a few days - so surely according to the posts above, this is as dangerous as actually getting the flu??

[Appletrees]

I don't know why people would rather take a second unknown possibly significant risk rather than limit the risk of suffering a bad bout of flu -- by lessening your contacts, getting lots more rest, better sanitation, vit c supplements etc to a safe level, all that sort of thing.

I know sometimes it's hard to do that but vax can lull you into a false sense of security. Avoidance is better.

[Tangle]

Better sanitation is far more effective if practiced by those who are symptomatic, overwhom you have limited control, and IIRC the effiacy of vitamin C for this purpose is also contentious.

You can try and reduce your exposure but total avoidance isn't always possible, especially if your husband works in London and commutes by train and you have an older child that wants to do things and play with her friends.

[Appletrees]

Vit C isn't really contentious at all, it's just that I'm not sure about safe levels in pregnancy. One can't say -- not sure about Vitamin C but don't worry about this injection which contains thiomersal, may contain squalene, hasn't been tested, long term effects on the foetus are unknown etc etc etc. There's no comparison.

Sure it's better if people with flu stay home but there's still a lot you can do. I don't think total avoidance is possible, but it's better than nothing and better than the jab, which is no way 100 pc and as well as having unknown effects on the foetus, can make you really symptomatic at the time of having.

And lots of rest, optimum nutrition and avoidance strategy will help to stop you contracting it chances of which are low anyway and help you not to suffer badly with it if you do.

If this is really a highly dangerous and fatal pandemic then emergency avoidance strategies should be in place anyway. They're not. It's just scare mongering to increase take up.