Mass Vaccination against Swine Flu H1N1 in the US

by: SusanC

Thu Aug 06, 2009 at 20:21:50 PM EDT

"The President wants the vaccination effort done safely and quickly." source

Guillain-Barre Syndrome after Influenza Vaccination - More Lessons from 1976

by: SusanC

Mon Jul 27, 2009 at 19:45:18 PM EDT

Swine Flu Vaccine in 5 Days?

by: SusanC

Wed Jul 15, 2009 at 03:26:09 AM EDT

There's been recent reports that a swine flu vaccine will be fast-tracked for use in Britain within five days after it's made.  Since this appears to come from official sources, I believe we'd be remiss not to check out what this is about.

Adjuvants, Autoimmunity, and Vaccine Safety in a Pandemic VI - Squalene Antibodies Revisited

by: SusanC

Mon Jun 29, 2009 at 20:05:25 PM EDT

• part I - First Questions
• part II - Reasons for Concern
• part III - The Story of Fluad
• part IV - Safety of MF59
• Part V - Insights from Immunology
• part VI - Squalene Antibodies Revisited

A newly published study appears to refute the connection between the presence of anti-squalene antibodies and Gulf War Syndrome, but is it convincing?

Swine Flu 1976 - Old Vaccines, New Lessons

by: SusanC

Tue Mar 31, 2009 at 20:15:08 PM EDT

Anti-Ganglioside Antibody Induction by Swine (A/NJ/1976/H1N1) and Other Influenza Vaccines: Insights into Vaccine-Associated Guillain-Barré Syndrome

The US army suffered heavy losses during the 1918 pandemic - more men died from flu than from fighting in the War.  When an outbreak of swine flu occurred in 1976 among army recruits in a camp, the US government ordered millions of doses of vaccines against the virus, in anticipation of another pandemic.  But a pandemic didn't happen.  Instead, the massive vaccination campaign resulted in reports of Guillaine-Barre syndrome (or GBS) in some vaccine recipients, eventually causing the vaccination program to be halted.  

Now, decades later, researchers sought to discover how this happened. A paper published last year (link) gives some unexpected and disturbing findings.  

Adjuvants, Autoimmunity, and Vaccine Safety in a Pandemic V - Insights from Immunology

by: SusanC

Wed Feb 18, 2009 at 21:29:49 PM EST

• part I - First Questions
• part II - Reasons for Concern
• part III - The Story of Fluad
• part IV - Safety of MF59
• Part V - Insights from Immunology
• part VI - Squalene Antibodies Revisited

Today and tomorrow, there's a meeting of the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee at the FDA.   Day 2 of the meeting deals with Clinical Studies With Pandemic Influenza Candidate Vaccines in the Pediatric Population in the Absence of an Influenza Pandemic.  Briefing information is available here.  

Adjuvants, Autoimmunity, and Vaccine Safety in a Pandemic IV - Safety of MF59

by: SusanC

Wed Oct 17, 2007 at 22:07:21 PM EDT

UPDATE: Novartis has finally confirmed what we suspected.  A review published by the company Safety of MF59™ adjuvant (Schultze 2008) states:

the results of Novartis' GLP toxicology studies performed to fulfil global health authority requirements for clinical testing or product approvals have not been published, to date.

Click on the links for

• part I - First Questions
• part II - Reasons for Concern
• part III - The Story of Fluad
• part IV - Safety of MF59
• Part V - Insights from Immunology
• part VI - Squalene Antibodies Revisited

Exploring the safety data on MF59 and MF59-adjuvanted vaccines.

Adjuvants, Autoimmunity, and Vaccine Safety in a Pandemic III - The Story of Fluad

by: SusanC

Wed Oct 17, 2007 at 12:47:02 PM EDT

• part I - First Questions
• part II - Reasons for Concern
• part III - The Story of Fluad
• part IV - Safety of MF59
• Part V - Insights from Immunology
• part VI - Squalene Antibodies Revisited

Reading the fine print, on the safety profile of adjuvanted flu vaccines.

The equivalent of "read the fine print" for a scientific paper is "read the data".  The interpretation of the data can be skewed by an author to support a larger agenda  Or an author can make mistakes.

Gary Matsumoto, Vaccine A, published by Basic Books 2004, p 134.

Adjuvants, Autoimmunity, and Vaccine Safety in a Pandemic II - Reasons for Concern

by: SusanC

Sun Oct 14, 2007 at 01:26:28 AM EDT

• part I - First Questions
• part II - Reasons for Concern
• part III - The Story of Fluad
• part IV - Safety of MF59
• Part V - Insights from Immunology
• part VI - Squalene Antibodies Revisited

The debate on the safety of oil-in-water adjuvants has received renewed attention on flublogia after the revelation and concern that tptb might be considering adding adjuvants such as MF59 to prepandemic vaccines.  There appears to be a fair amount of misunderstanding or confusion on this subject, and concerns whether all of this is nothing more than internet conspiracy rumor, so I thought this might be a good time to re-visit the issue.

Adjuvants, Autoimmunity, and Vaccine Safety in a Pandemic I - First Questions

by: SusanC

Wed Aug 08, 2007 at 23:26:27 PM EDT

• part I - First Questions
• part II - Reasons for Concern
• part III - The Story of Fluad
• part IV - Safety of MF59
• Part V - Insights from Immunology
• part VI - Squalene Antibodies Revisited

The world of science is a strange place.  You would have thought that different people working on the same substance, one group set on figuring out how to use it, the other trying to find out how it harms people, will at least have heard of each other and hopefully talked to each other from time to time.  Apparently, that doesn't happen, not in ways that you can take for granted anyhow.