what are the REAL risks of SF vaccine

[barneybear]

dear all

sorry to start another thread on this subject, but has anyone looked into the toxic levels in the vaccine eg. how much more mercury will be injected than, say, if i ate a tin of tuna (which i do, 2 a week!)...

i understand people's reasons about not wanting to have something untested in their body and until now i've been of this mind...to the point where i went for my jab last week and ended up not having it as i was too upset.

but having a weeeknd to think about it and travelling into work tomorrow, i'm not sure i can spend potentially the next 10 weeks trying to avoid it and fretting about it all the time.

it's hard because i'm quite healthy, eating loads of fruit and veg and still don't know anyone DIRECTLY who has had SF. i'v still got 9 days' left of train travel into London which doesn't help and am 31 weeks pregnant.

any more research out there??!!

thanks x

There's no known risks, only the Daily Mail and co spouting their scientific ignorance.

I read somewhere that the level of mercury is the same amount as you'd get in a tin of tuna. I can't remember where I read that though! Personally I think there's so much scaremongering going on and none of it is based on scientific fact as far as I can see. I plan to have the jab when it's offered (I'm 25 weeks) but I guess you just have to go with what you feel is right.

I can tell your from my personal experience what I percieve the risk to be-a bloody sore arm! I had the jab on Saturday and now, two days later there is a swollen raised area on my arm which is red and hard. I've had two sleepless nights as everytime I turn over it flipping kills!

no other side effects tho-not even the mild cold symptoms then confidently told me i'd get

Ditto the sore arm - I've just had it done this evening and already ny arm hurts to buggery. I'm making dh wait on me due to my sore arm tonight .

My GP, who I saw this evening, was very pro-vaccine, and said that the amount of mercury in the jab really is negligible.

Glad i'm not the only one Salty. Was contemplating phoning the nurse at the surgery today-she mentioned 'bruising' but I took that to mean an actual bruise rather than a golfball under my skin. I've had muscular injections before but never had this amount of soreness with them, the soreness hasnt really lessened yet. DH thinks i'm a hypochondriac of course.

If you are worried about the mercury in the Pandemrix....look up the Celvapan on NHS website. They give you all the ingredients in both jabs and the Celvapan doesn't have the mercury.

A similar question was asked on Fertility Friends the other day about relative levels of mercury, here's the reply by the pharmacist:

"There is 5 micrograms of ethylmercury per dose of vaccine (so actual mercury content will be slightly less than this)

The form of mercury found in fish is methylmercury and this has a set recommended limit per week for exposure in pregnant women (all depends on your body weight). The advise is to limit exposure to methylmercury to 0.1 micrograms/kg body weight per day so for an average 70kg women you should have no more than 7 micrograms a day (generally though this is averaged out over a week)

The amount of mercury in tuna varies obviously depending on the individual fish but average amount in canned tuna is thought to be 0.19mg/kg so roughly 19 micrograms per 100g (can't remember how big an average tin is, about 170g maybe). The amount in fresh tuna is quite a bit higher at about 40 micrograms per 100g. This is according to a 2002 Food Standards Agency survey."

Obviously the ethylmercury in the jab is injected rather than ingested so blood levels aren't directly comparable from these figures but it gives you some idea.

HTH
Z x

PS I had the vaccine on Saturday and apart from a very sore arm (ouch!) had no side effects x

I've been researching this and the level of mercury in the vaccine is said to be less than what you'd get in your normal diet on any given day, as Ziggy says. So that doesn't really concern me.

The one thing that does worry me is the lack of research about long-term effects on unborn babies. Obviously there is no information available on this yet as the vaccine simply hasn't been around for long enough. I do feel better knowing that Pandemrix is being used widely all over Scandinavia, Germany etc, but then again this could be mainly because no other vaccines will be available there until well into the new year.

Switzerland will not give Pandemrix to pregnant women because it hasn't been extensively tested and in France they prefer to offer pregnant women another vaccine (I suppose similar or the same as Celvapan).

I do think about the hysteria around the MMR which turned out to be based on bad science and brought back measles epidemics as a result. But thalidomide is also there in the back of my mind - they did once say that was safe. However, that was 40 years ago and the legal/financial risks to the drugs companies producing the new vaccines is huge if they get it wrong.

So on balance I think I will have it - my surgery doesn't offer Celvapan yet and I'll probably have given birth by the time they get it. I don't much fancy swine flu and there's plenty of research around about how pregnant women are of much higher risk of complications. But it's a difficult call.