Swine Flu Vaccine: Going To Be A Hit In Vegas

Next week brings the first mass distribution of the eagerly awaited H1N1 swine flu vaccine.  There will be people lining up at clinics, hospitals, and local CVS pharmacies to get the shot or nasal spray that is supposed to protect against this latest, sometimes deadly, variation of the age-old pig flu.

Not sure I’m going to be one of them.  I’m really struggling with justifying the benefits of the vaccination when balanced with the possible side effects.  Although betting on the odds of experiencing adverse reactions is a sucker bet even when compared to Vegas odds,  I don’t have to worry about dropping dead if I go bust on a chancy Blackjack hand.

I’m struggling even more with the decision of whether to get my toddler son vaccinated.

First, everyday we are hearing about more deaths related to the swine flu.  So, it is clearly a growing threat that seems to popping up all over the country.  The latest reports include a startling statistic.  Apparently out of 100 pregnant women who have been diagnosed with H1N1, 28 have died!  That’s over 1 out of every 4.  Scary.

Swine flu vaccination circa 2009

Let’s talk about this new vaccination that would have supposedly protected those women from ever contracting the disease.  But, I’m getting ahead of myself. Before we can talk about the 2009 vaccine, we really need to talk about the vaccine that was produced to protect against the last U.S.-based swine flu outbreak.

This was 1976, and a soldier based at Fort Dix in New Jersey had been diagnosed with swine flu. He died within 2-3 days. Within a day or so, another 2-3 soldiers in the same base had been diagnosed as having contracted the pig flu. Mass panic led to the development of a quick vaccine to protect against this particular strain that had infected the soldiers.

Why the mass panic after only one death? Because the health officials that had examined this one case publicly stated that the flu strain contracted by the soldiers in New Jersey was similar to the strain responsible for the 1918 flu pandemic.

You remember the 1918 swine flu pandemic?  It was the outbreak that spread across the globe infecting an estimated 500 million people and killing anywhere between 50 and 100 million individuals worldwide. Can you imagine? A flu outbreak that killed at least 50 million people!

So, in 1976, just mentioning the 1918 outbreak led to a major panic and rush to the nearest clinic to get vaccinated for this latest flu threat.

That photo to the left is a widely publicized picture of then President Gerald Ford receiving the 1976 swine flu vaccination. Off topic: Did nurses really wear hats like that in 1976?

Well, in 1976, the anticipated outbreak never happened.  The soldier in New Jersey was the only death associated with that strain of swine flu.  The other soldiers lived, and no other cases were ever recorded. But let’s talk about the vaccine that was developed.

During the 1976 mass vaccination campaign, 1 in every 100,000 recipients of the vaccine developed Guillain Barré syndrome (GBS), a disorder in which the body’s immune system attacks the peripheral nervous system, often leading to paralysis and death. GBS is a known potential side effect of any influenza (flu) vaccine.

There is no known cure for GBS.

In 1976 roughly 40 million Americans received the vaccine and some 4,000 developed GBS.  Of these 4,000, there were 25 deaths confirmed to have been caused by vaccine-related GBS.

So, in the 1976 Swine Flu Fiasco, as it is commonly referred to, the disease racks up one kill, the cure twenty five.

1976 Body Count:      Swine Flu 1            Swine Flu Vaccine 25

Switch back to 2009.  The CDC is already distributing information that states that when receiving the new flu vaccine “the estimated risk for more serious reactions (e.g. Guillain Barré syndrome) is between 1-10 per million persons vaccinated”.

This is a circumspect way of acknowledging that the risks associated with the new vaccine is about the same as the vaccine produced in 1976.  According to these estimates, as many as 1 in every 100,000 recipients of the vaccine will develop GBS or some other severe adverse reaction.

Once again, there is no known cure cure for GBS.

So, I have to ask myself, how bad will this outbreak really be?  1918 bad (which would be really really bad)? Or 1976 bad (which means pretty much not bad at all)?

And I have to ask myself, just in case, do I spin the roulette wheel, get the vaccination, and hope that neither I nor my son land on black?

What about you? Will you be rushing to get in line for the long awaited swine flu shot?

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