In 1976, the United States Public Health Service's National Influenza Immunization Program (NIIP) sought to immunize over 200 million people against swine influenza within six months. This program faced much opposition as many doctors, pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies refused to take responsibility for mishaps. Unfortunately, cases of a rare side effect believed to be linked to the shot — Guillain-Barré syndrome, a rare neurological condition that can be fatal — emerged in the weeks after the immunizations began. More than 500 people are thought to have developed Guillain-Barré syndrome after receiving the vaccine, and 25 died. No one completely understands what causes Guillain-Barré in certain people, but the condition can develop after a bout with infection or following surgery or vaccination. The government paid millions of dollars in damages to people who developed the condition or their families. But the swine flu pandemic, which some experts estimated at the time could infect 50 million to 60 million Americans, never unfolded. Only about 200 cases of swine flu and one death were ultimately reported in the U.S., according to a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) report. The moral of the story? Don't go whole hog for a swine flu scare. If this is a (fair & balanced) public service announcement, so be it.
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The Web 2.0 Guide To Swine Flu
By Rahul K. Parikh, MD
Tag Cloud of the following article
Kudos to the Centers for Disease Control for marching onto the Internet to share information related to swine flu with us. For those who are looking for information, there are several ways to track the latest:
(Note: not an inclusive list, so if readers know others, let me know and I'll add them for everybody)Home Pages on the Web:
Multimedia:
Twitter CDC is Tweeting, which is how I found about both the White House Briefing and last Friday's briefing, on two different sites. They usually alert folks to any live events and briefing they'll be holding ahead of time
Other Sites:
The point here is a good one: keeping the public up to date and informed, and doing it in a way that prevents any widespread panic. Many of the sites also are available in Spanish, as is the CDC hotline at 1-800-232-4636. ♥
[Rahul Parikh is a Pediatrician in the San Francisco Bay Area. He regularly writes about medicine and society. Parikh grew up near Los Angeles, CA. He went to college at UC Berkeley and then attended the Tufts University School of Medicine in Boston, MA. While at Tufts, Dr. Parikh helped create the Sharewood Project, a free medical clinic that provides care to homeless and indigent citizens in Boston. He received his pediatric training at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. During that time he spent two months in India working with pediatric residents in Mumbai and Ahmedabad. He currently practice pediatrics with a special focus in adolescent medicine.]
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Copyright © 2009 Sapper's (Fair & Balanced) Rants & Raves
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