Now That President Obama Got his H1N1 Shot, Will You Get You

[Tuff Gong]

Re: Now That President Obama Got his H1N1 Shot, Will You Get

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: lonrwolf</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Curmudgeon_Milo</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I received the swine flu shot and I get the regular flu shot every year. Never suffered any ill effects at all except for a bit of a sore arm for a couple of days after the H1N1 shot.

I have not had the flu now for many years and I use to get it every year like clockwork prior to the shot. </div></div>

I'm with you Milo, I get the shot every year and this year I received both. The reason that most of these flus do not reach panademic proportions is because of people like you and I that receive the shots on a regular basis. </div></div>

Actually no!
The reason is because there are better reporting and a lot of folks are doing what they are told to do:

When they are sick stay the F outta peple face. Stay home and and be sick by yourself.
If we had to depend on Flu Shot half of the Modern World would be dead by now!

[blugiant]

Re: Now That President Obama Got his H1N1 Shot, Will You Get

ole jamaican seyinn falla fashion monkey applie


tink pon diss blakk ar more likelee fii gitt swine flu

y

[Boopie2]

Re: Now That President Obama Got his H1N1 Shot, Will You Get

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Tuff Gong</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: lonrwolf</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Curmudgeon_Milo</div><div class="ubbcode-body">I received the swine flu shot and I get the regular flu shot every year. Never suffered any ill effects at all except for a bit of a sore arm for a couple of days after the H1N1 shot.

I have not had the flu now for many years and I use to get it every year like clockwork prior to the shot. </div></div>

I'm with you Milo, I get the shot every year and this year I received both. The reason that most of these flus do not reach panademic proportions is because of people like you and I that receive the shots on a regular basis. </div></div>

Actually no!
The reason is because there are better reporting and a lot of folks are doing what they are told to do:

When they are sick stay the F outta peple face. Stay home and and be sick by yourself.
If we had to depend on Flu Shot half of the Modern World would be dead by now! </div></div>

[lonewolf]

Re: Now That President Obama Got his H1N1 Shot, Will You Get

Dis mek me laff...


<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Actually no!
The reason is because there are better reporting and a lot of folks are doing what they are told to do:

When they are sick stay the F outta peple face. Stay home and and be sick by yourself.
If we had to depend on Flu Shot <span style="font-weight: bold">half of the Modern World would be dead by now! </span></div></div>


Half of the modern world would be dead or permanently F-ed without imunizations.

Hey, make your own choice. I'm all for that. To each his own, but the facts are the facts. You can't argue with what has been achieved.



In the U.S., vaccination programs have eliminated or significantly reduced many vaccine-preventable diseases. However, these diseases still exist and can once again become common—and deadly—if vaccination coverage does not continue at high levels.

Measles
Polio
Type b (Hib) Meningitis
Hepatitis B
Pertussis (Whooping Cough)
Pneumococcal
Rubella (German Measles)
Varicella (Chickenpox)
Diphtheria
Tetanus (Lockjaw)
Mumps

<span style="font-weight: bold"> Polio</span>
Stopping vaccination against polio will leave people susceptible to infection with the polio virus. Polio virus causes acute paralysis that can lead to permanent physical disability and even death. Before polio vaccine was available, 13,000 to 20,000 cases of paralytic polio were reported each year in the United States. These annual epidemics of polio often left thousands of victims--mostly children--in braces, crutches, wheelchairs, and iron lungs. The effects were life-long.


<span style="font-weight: bold"> Measles </span>
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), nearly 900,000 measles-related deaths occurred among persons in developing countries in 1999. In populations that are not immune to measles, measles spreads rapidly. <span style="font-weight: bold">If vaccinations were stopped, each year about 2.7 million measles deaths worldwide could be expected.</span>




<span style="font-weight: bold">Haemophilus Influenzae Type b (Hib) Meningitis</span>


Before Hib vaccine became available, Hib was the most common cause of bacterial meningitis in U.S. infants and children. Before the vaccine was developed, there were approximately 20,000 invasive Hib cases annually. Approximately two-thirds of the 20,000 cases were meningitis, and one-third were other life-threatening invasive Hib diseases such as bacteria in the blood, pneumonia, or inflammation of the epiglottis. About one of every 200 U.S. children under 5 years of age got an invasive Hib disease. Hib meningitis once killed 600 children each year and left many survivors with deafness, seizures, or mental retardation.

Since introduction of conjugate Hib vaccine in December 1987, the incidence of Hib has declined by 98 percent. From 1994-1998, fewer than 10 fatal cases of invasive Hib disease were reported each year.

This preventable disease was a common, devastating illness as recently as 1990; now, most pediatricians just finishing training have never seen a case. <span style="font-weight: bold">If we were to stop immunization, we would likely soon return to the pre-vaccine numbers of invasive Hib disease cases and deaths.</span>

http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/vac-gen/whatifstop.htm

Do you need more proof?


So, what you are suggesting is that all people stop all immunizations? Do you really understand what you suggest?

[Tuff Gong]

Re: Now That President Obama Got his H1N1 Shot, Will You Get

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: lonrwolf</div><div class="ubbcode-body"> Half of the modern world would be dead or permanently F-ed without imunizations.

Hey, make your own choice. I'm all for that. To each his own, but the facts are the facts. You can't argue with what has been achieved.</div></div>

My friend we are talking about Flu.....again we are talking about Flu, the communicable disease which can be reduced if detected early and preventive advice followed.

Technically it takes two years to provide a flu vaccine, each flu vaccine incorporate multiple signatures, at least one of which is outdated by the time the vaccine is delivered.

Please don't followed the Conventional Wisdom of the Board and muddle the issue. I never chit about Polio of vaccines in general.

[lonewolf]

Re: Now That President Obama Got his H1N1 Shot, Will You Get



<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">My friend we are talking about Flu.....again we are talking about Flu, the communicable disease which can be reduced if detected early and preventive advice followed </div></div>

Tuff, do what's best for you, but...

<span style="font-weight: bold">Most healthy adults may be able to infect others beginning 1 day before symptoms develop and up to 5-7 days after becoming sick. That means that you may be able to pass on the flu to someone else before you know you are sick, as well as while you are sick</span>.

Every year in the United States, on average:

5% to 20% of the population gets the flu;
more than 200,000 people are hospitalized from flu-related complications; and
about 36,000 people die from flu-related causes.

[Tuff Gong]

Re: Now That President Obama Got his H1N1 Shot, Will You Get

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: lonrwolf</div><div class="ubbcode-body">

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">My friend we are talking about Flu.....again we are talking about Flu, the communicable disease which can be reduced if detected early and preventive advice followed </div></div>

Tuff, do what's best for you, but...

<span style="font-weight: bold">Most healthy adults may be able to infect others beginning 1 day before symptoms develop and up to 5-7 days after becoming sick. That means that you may be able to pass on the flu to someone else before you know you are sick, as well as while you are sick</span>.

Every year in the United States, on average:

5% to 20% of the population gets the flu;
more than 200,000 people are hospitalized from flu-related complications; and
about 36,000 people die from flu-related causes. </div></div>

You keep writing foolishness about do what is best for me.
Experts in the field recommend that to stop a pandemic the best method is quarantine. It is logistically impossible to deploy Flu Shots as an effective preventative.

[lonewolf]

Re: Now That President Obama Got his H1N1 Shot, Will You Get

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Tuff Gong</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: lonrwolf</div><div class="ubbcode-body">

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">My friend we are talking about Flu.....again we are talking about Flu, the communicable disease which can be reduced if detected early and preventive advice followed </div></div>

Tuff, do what's best for you, but...

<span style="font-weight: bold">Most healthy adults may be able to infect others beginning 1 day before symptoms develop and up to 5-7 days after becoming sick. That means that you may be able to pass on the flu to someone else before you know you are sick, as well as while you are sick</span>.

Every year in the United States, on average:

5% to 20% of the population gets the flu;
more than 200,000 people are hospitalized from flu-related complications; and
about 36,000 people die from flu-related causes. </div></div>

You keep writing foolishness about do what is best for me.
Experts in the field recommend that to stop a pandemic the best method is quarantine. It is logistically impossible to deploy Flu Shots as an effective preventative. </div></div>


<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">You keep writing foolishness about do what is best for me </div></div>

I was being nice, I actually think anyone that has acess to the flu shot and does not get it is an idiot.


<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Experts in the field recommend that to stop a pandemic the best method is quarantine. It is logistically impossible to deploy Flu Shots as an effective preventative. </div></div>

Who are your experts? Logistically impossible from where? You can't be talking about highly populated areas in the US. Everything I posted was from the CDC web site. It's impossible to quarantine and get results because: <span style="font-weight: bold">Most healthy adults may be able to infect others beginning 1 day before symptoms develop and up to 5-7 days after becoming sick</span>. How do you sucessfully quarantine those who don't show symptons? It's impossible and you know it.
Admit you are wrong and stop making yourself look foolish to save face.

[Tuff Gong]

Re: Now That President Obama Got his H1N1 Shot, Will You Get

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: lonrwolf</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Who are your experts? Logistically impossible from where? You can't be talking about highly populated areas in the US. Everything I posted was from the CDC web site. It's impossible to quarantine and get results because: <span style="font-weight: bold">Most healthy adults may be able to infect others beginning 1 day before symptoms develop and up to 5-7 days after becoming sick</span>. How do you sucessfully quarantine those who don't show symptons? It's impossible and you know it.
Admit you are wrong and stop making yourself look foolish to save face.</div></div>

It is not and years ago I was listening to an NPR Programme (I will try to find it).
It turns out that at least one Pandemic was averted nearly 100 years ago simply because the weather was too bad. Folks were basically trapped in their homes and could not move about therefore the flu contained itself and did not spread.

This is the point i am trying to make if proper procedures are followed the flu will not spread beyond a narrow geographic area. Recently Walmart practices were highlighted where because of their incentive/productivity schemes it basically forced sick people to come to work when it would be better if they stayed home.

I guarantee you that the fact that the Flu Season been more publicised makes it easier to folks to avoid getting the Flu especially since Flu shots is only available to a very small percentage of the population.

[twiney]

Re: Now That President Obama Got his H1N1 Shot, Will You Get

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: lonrwolf</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: Tuff Gong</div><div class="ubbcode-body"><div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: lonrwolf</div><div class="ubbcode-body">

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">My friend we are talking about Flu.....again we are talking about Flu, the communicable disease which can be reduced if detected early and preventive advice followed </div></div>

Tuff, do what's best for you, but...

<span style="font-weight: bold">Most healthy adults may be able to infect others beginning 1 day before symptoms develop and up to 5-7 days after becoming sick. That means that you may be able to pass on the flu to someone else before you know you are sick, as well as while you are sick</span>.

Every year in the United States, on average:

5% to 20% of the population gets the flu;
more than 200,000 people are hospitalized from flu-related complications; and
about 36,000 people die from flu-related causes. </div></div>

You keep writing foolishness about do what is best for me.
Experts in the field recommend that to stop a pandemic the best method is quarantine. It is logistically impossible to deploy Flu Shots as an effective preventative. </div></div>


<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">You keep writing foolishness about do what is best for me </div></div>

I was being nice, I actually think anyone that has acess to the flu shot and does not get it is an idiot.


<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Quote:</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Experts in the field recommend that to stop a pandemic the best method is quarantine. It is logistically impossible to deploy Flu Shots as an effective preventative. </div></div>

Who are your experts? Logistically impossible from where? You can't be talking about highly populated areas in the US. Everything I posted was from the CDC web site. It's impossible to quarantine and get results because: <span style="font-weight: bold">Most healthy adults may be able to infect others beginning 1 day before symptoms develop and up to 5-7 days after becoming sick</span>. How do you sucessfully quarantine those who don't show symptons? It's impossible and you know it.
Admit you are wrong and stop making yourself look foolish to save face.


</div></div>

my co-worker got swine flu b-4 anyone in the office got the flu shot ... we're she was contagious at some point in the office but no body else came down with it ... there is a huge hand washing/sanitizing campaign in my office so I think that helped ... Enough people dont have access to the flu vaccine for it to the the best preventative measure ... practicing good hygiene and and people keeping them germs to themselves like covering their cough are good ways to keep that ish in check. If the vaccine was the end all why did they set up flu assessment centres as they didnt want the regular health care places fi full up of the virus

[Tuff Gong]

Re: Now That President Obama Got his H1N1 Shot, Will You Get

This was part two of a multi-part NPR Morning Edition on Flu Vaccines and Pandemics. It will give an idea of what Governments is up against to protect its Citizens and other from run away flu viruses. this was 2005 and obviously the H1N1 Flu was a little easier to target but it still leaves other dangerous flues out there:


<span style="font-family: 'Arial Black'">Pandemic Flu Spurs Race for New Vaccine Methods</span>

<span style="font-style: italic">Copyright © 2009 National Public Radio®. For personal, noncommercial use only. See Terms of Use. For other uses, prior permission required.

text sizeAAA
Heard on Morning Edition

December 6, 2005 - RENEE MONTAGNE, host:

This is MORNING EDITION from NPR News. I'm Renee Montagne.

STEVE INSKEEP, host:

And I'm Steve Inskeep.

If a deadly new strain of flu suddenly emerged, one of the most important lines of defense would be a vaccine. Yesterday, at a meeting of health officials here in Washington, Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said one experimental method was especially promising.

Secretary MIKE LEAVITT (Health and Human Services): It will ultimately revolutionize vaccine-making, and it will save millions of lives.

INSKEEP: That method would mass-produce a human flu vaccine using cells from a dog's kidney, but the technology has not been thoroughly tested. Leavitt is not alone in hoping for improvements on a decades-old method of making vaccines, using hens' eggs, and this morning we will report on efforts to develop new and faster methods. The techniques may help in a pandemic and in the regular flu outbreaks that come each season. NPR's Richard Harris has the second of two reports.

RICHARD HARRIS reporting:

Here are some not-very-comforting facts about what would happen if a deadly new strain of flu emerged somewhere on our planet. If history is a guide, the pandemic would last about a year and millions of lives would be at risk. A vaccine against this virus would be our best protection. But Howard Pien, head of the Chiron Corporation, says don't expect a vaccine right away.

Mr. HOWARD PIEN (Chiron Corporation): It will take a considerable period of time, probably four or five months.

HARRIS: A pandemic could already be spread around the world at that point. And even then there wouldn't be enough vaccine to go around unless there's a new way to make vaccines and to have the capacity to make billions of doses in a hurry.

Mr. PIEN: These are big, big issues of the day, and if we have the time, if we have another year or two years or three years, we better not squander the time.

HARRIS: But new ways of making vaccines don't appear overnight. New technologies may carry new risks. So last month the US Food and Drug Administration checked in with two companies that are pushing forward with a new vaccine approach. Harold Shlevin from Solvay Pharmaceuticals says his company's current reliance on millions of chicken eggs for vaccine manufacture makes him nervous.

Mr. HAROLD SHLEVIN (Solvay Pharmaceuticals): If the pandemic strain of flu comes out birds, let's make that assumption, well, part of the issue is many of those strains cannot be grown in chicken eggs because they kill the chicken egg.

HARRIS: It could be tough to find a strain of virus that will grow well in eggs and be the makings of a good vaccine. And he sees an even bigger problem: the possibility there won't be enough chickens during a pandemic.

Mr. SHLEVIN: Various governments have stepped in and they're destroying the whole chicken populations. No chickens, no eggs, no vaccine under today's technology.

HARRIS: So instead his company has developed a new way to produce flu vaccines. This relies on a line of immortal cells, harvested from a cocker spaniel's kidney way back in 1958 and kept alive ever since. This approach is called cell-based technology.

Mr. SHLEVIN: Cell-based technology, you take a little vial of cells out of the freezer, put them in your bioreactor, provide the various nutrients to grow them, inoculate them with the virus, and in principle you can grow an infinite supply of virus, which makes your vaccine.

HARRIS: The bioreactor is essentially a big tank, not too much different from what you'd use to brew beer. So production of flu vaccine is limited only by how many tanks you decide to build, not how many chickens are available to lay eggs for you. Solvay Pharmaceuticals has a head start in this technology. It has built a plant in Holland to produce flu vaccines, and it is approved to sell that vaccine in the Netherlands. But Solvay's competition is not far behind.

Mr. RINO RAPPUOLI (Chief Scientist, Chiron): We will have a manufacturing facility, which is already large-scale, full-scale commercial.

HARRIS: Rino Rappuoli, chief scientist at Chiron, says that plant in Germany has already produced cell-based flu vaccines, and they've been tested for safety on 3,000 people in Europe. This factory won't satisfy demand even within Europe, but he says the company is making exact copies, clones of the equipment, to expand production capacity.

Mr. RAPPUOLI: And we are preparing to clone that facility in the United States if our discussions with the government and things are going in the right direction.

HARRIS: The US government is offering big economic incentives because companies don't have an economic incentive to go it alone. A flu pandemic would require what they call surge capacity--the ability to make a whole lot of extra vaccine in a short period of time.

Mr. RAPPUOLI: So we as manufacturers have always had this problem. We need to respond to public health, social needs, which are very important questions, but for a company it's difficult to be social. I mean, a company has to provide a return for investors, and so that's where the discussions with the government are very important.

HARRIS: Those discussions are just the backdrop for the recent FDA meeting. The issue is whether the next generation of vaccines will be effective and whether they will be safe enough to be given to hundreds of millions of Americans. FDA Advisory Committee member David Markovitz from the University of Michigan says it's a real balancing act: moving quickly in the face of a possible pandemic, but not cutting corners on safety. The new approach got a favorable reception at this non-binding advisory meeting.

Mr. DAVID MARKOVITZ (FDA Advisory Committee Member): I think the overall feeling is that this is the way things are going to go and the question is just how fast. I'm myself convinced enough to think that relatively rapidly would be good. I think other members of the committee might want to go a little more slowly.

HARRIS: Just about everyone agrees on one point. They wish this discussion had taken place years ago. That's because we're looking at at least another three to five years for the plants to be built, vaccines to be approved and manufacturing to be fully up to speed. In the meantime, the federal government's plan is to create a relatively small stockpile of experimental vaccine to protect health-care workers and others at the highest risk. Just up the road in Bethesda, at the National Institutes of Health, Gary Nabel runs one of the nation's premier vaccine labs.

Mr. GARY NABEL (NIH): This is a production suite. It's--we call it a GLP lab.

HARRIS: Air whistles out of this lab, which has been pressurized to reduce contamination. And we step on a sticky floor mat to remove dirt from our shoes.

(Soundbite of peeling noise)

Mr. NABEL: And see, you thought you had clean shoes, but, you know...

HARRIS: The cell-based vaccine would solve one problem: making sure that vaccine production can be scaled up to protect as many people as possible. But it doesn't solve the other problem: getting a vaccine in hand quickly enough to nip a pandemic in the bud.

Mr. NABEL: I think we could do much, much better than we're doing today.

HARRIS: Ideally, he says, we shouldn't need to wait for a new flu virus to emerge. Nabel says why not have a universal flu vaccine, one that doesn't need to be specially tailored to any particular strain of flu, even a pandemic strain?

Mr. NABEL: Universal means we'd just get it once, and we'd have protection against all of the flu strains there are in the world. Or if we're not able to develop a universal flu vaccine, might there be some pattern of immunization that we follow, like we all did for our childhood vaccines, where you'd vaccinate against a certain set of flu viruses in one year, another set the next year, and a third set the last year, and then you're done for life?

HARRIS: This work now has a high priority because of a possible flu pandemic. Nabel wishes the push had started before a potential crisis appeared on the horizon.

Mr. NABEL: We don't know at this point whether the pandemic will come or not. But it's at the very least been a wake-up call to us that we really need to re-examine the problem and see if we're taking the best approaches to dealing with not just pandemic flu but yearly flu as well.

HARRIS: After all, flu kills more than 30,000 Americans a year, Nabel says, and the current vaccine system only protects about a third of the people most at risk. So ideally, he says, all the effort to do something about a possible pandemic flu could pay off with new products and new vaccination routines that will help us all every year. Richard Harris, NPR News.

INSKEEP: You can investigate the flu vaccine methods in this story for yourself by finding a list of pros and cons at our Web site, npr.org.

You're listening to MORNING EDITION from NPR News.

Copyright ©2009 National Public Radio®. All rights reserved. No quotes from the materials contained herein may be used in any media without attribution to National Public Radio. This transcript is provided for personal, noncommercial use only, pursuant to our Terms of Use. Any other use requires NPR's prior permission. Visit our permissions page for further information.

NPR transcripts are created on a rush deadline by a contractor for NPR, and accuracy and availability may vary. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Please be aware that the authoritative record of NPR's programming is the audio. </span>

[Tuff Gong]

Re: Now That President Obama Got his H1N1 Shot, Will You Get


<span style="font-family: 'Arial Black'">Q&amp;A: Preparing for a Flu Pandemic</span>
ROBERT SIEGEL and MELISSA BLOCK
All Things Considered

<span style="font-style: italic">Q&amp;A Part One: What is Bird Flu and Who's At Risk?
Oct. 20, 2005
text sizeAAAOctober 21, 2005
In a two-part report, public health experts answer listeners' questions about the threat of a potential flu pandemic. The H5N1 avian flu virus has led to the deaths of 150 million birds, either through infection or culling to prevent the spread of the virus.

So far, the virus appears to be primarily spread through bird to bird contact. Some people have become infected, but the number has been relatively small, with 118 confirmed illnesses and 61 fatalities. The virus has yet to appear in birds or humans in the United States. The threat, which world leaders and health officials alike are taking very seriously, is that the virus could mutate and become easily transmitted between humans.

In part one, Dr. Hon Ip of the U.S. Geological Survey's National Wildlife Health Center answered listener questions about the virus and how it's spread. In part two, Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, answers questions about government preparations for a potential pandemic, and what individuals can do to protect themselves against an infectious disease. NPR's health editor, Joe Neel, also answers questions on flu treatments.

Q&amp;A with NIAID Director, Dr. Anthony Fauci

Q: How well prepared is the U.S. for the bird flu compared to other countries? -- Jerry Amos, Hollis, New Hampshire

A: I think we can say with confidence that no country is adequately prepared at this point for a bird flu if it comes in its most fulminate form. If you look at what we're doing versus other countries I think we are clearly as prepared, or better prepared, than any other country in the sense of our attention to it and the issue of having a vaccine in hand, although we have not been able, for a variety of reasons, to produce enough (vaccine) to the point where we would feel confident. No one is adequately prepared at this point, but we are not any worse prepared than any one else.

Q: Are first responders being trained to deal with a potential emergency? -- Rich Clark, Cold Spring, New York

A: First responders of emerging infectious diseases are being trained as part of even a broader program of how to handle emerging diseases. For example, the SARS experience was very very important in not only being a manifest of how training helped handle it, but also, it was experience to be gained for a future approach toward emerging and re-emerging infections. So yes, they are being trained, but we need to do a lot more.

Obviously, we are not where we need to be. It gets to the ability to respond to a natural catastrophe in general. When you have catastrophes that are moderate in their impact, or localized or regional in their impact, you can certainly handle them better than something that is essentially omnipresent. One of the concerns when you're dealing with a pandemic influenza is that there really isn't any nation or region that is adequately prepared for an overwhelming health crisis like this. Hospitals certainly don't have the surge capacity to be able to take care of millions more sick people in an abrupt manner. Those things we certainly have to work for, and they're not there right now.

Q: As a public school teacher, I'd like to know what emergency plans, if any, school districts have. Should each district have its own plan, or should we rely on the state or federal government? -- Valerie Agramonte, Marietta Georgia

A: The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention are working with the state and local health authorities to have them come up with their plan. A general national plan is soon to be released, but as important as that is to have the individual state and local public health authorities have their own plan of how they're going to handle that.

Q: As a nurse with some education in epidemiology, I wonder if and how emergency management of a serious bird flu epidemic would be handled. Do we have a plan for mobilization of medical forces, quarantine, triage? -- Claire Molner, Proctor, Vermont

<span style="font-family: 'Arial Black'">A: On the issue of quarantine, the president signed an executive order not too long ago, adding a pandemic influenza to the list of quarantinable diseases. The ability to respond in a surge capacity at the state and local level is not where we all want it to be but it is certainly better than it was a couple of years ago. In preparation for a biodefense type of approach, you might recall that a few years ago resources -- and we still need to do more -- were given to the states to try and prepare for these public health emergencies and certainly a pandemic flu would fall right under the category of a public health emergency.

I think there's a lot of misconception about what quarantine really is. There's quarantine of a plane that comes in with someone who may have been onboard who is sick, and others on the plane have been exposed, and you don't know whether they're sick. So you quarantine the plane, or you quarantine the ship.

The other is a situation where you have a localized outbreak in a particular town or a particular city. You might want to restrict movement in and out -- even if it's on almost a voluntary basis, it doesn't necessarily have to be enforced -- to try and get people to restrict their movements. You can do other public health things that don't constitute quarantine, by restricting access to certain public places.</span>
Q: My question is, what as a family can one do to prepare? Is there a preparation kit or a Web site with any preventative measures that one needs to take? -- Tom Pritchard from Atlanta, Georgia

A: The Web site that is most commonly used is the CDC Web site. But if you listen to the CDC recommendations about how you handle any communicable disease that is communicable by respiratory spread -- be that seasonal flu that we get confronted with predictably every year or a pandemic flu -- they are fundamental basic public health issues. Handwashing, covering your nose and your mouth when you sneeze or cough. If your child gets sick, don't send him to school. If you're sick, don't go to work. Avoid crowded places where people are confined in an indoor space. These are general fundamental public health measures that any family can prepare for.

Q: What about a vaccine, is there anything on the horizon that would be viable? -- NPR's Melissa Block

A: The U.S. government, the Department of Health and Human Services through the NIH, isolated an H5N1 virus about a year and a half ago from a North Vietnamese patient who was infected from a chicken, made a vaccine and began vaccine trials. The first stage of which shows the vaccine is safe and actually capable of inducing an immune response that is predicted to be protective against this particular virus. One of the sobering issues associated with this is that the dose required to induce that level of immune response is considerably higher than the standard dose that we use with seasonal flu, which compounds a problem that exists with production capacity. So it's less an issue of, &quot;do we or do we not have a vaccine,&quot; than it is, &quot;can we produce enough vaccine to make it available for virtually any one who needs it?&quot; And right now the answer to that is no, and that's something we're working on.

Q: If a vaccine is not available for the general population and a pandemic does develop, what are recommendations for every day life in a big city? Are any face masks on the market effective against viruses? Should disposable gloves be used as much as possible? -- Paul Lester, Houston, Texas

A: There are fundamental public health issues that will be triggered into effect if there is a pandemic or a major threat of a pandemic. They're simple things: hand washing, covering your nose and your mouth when you sneeze and cough. Viruses are transmitted from person to person in droplets and also in an aerosolized spray. Aerosolization is a finer way of the virus to spread, and there are masks that are effective against that form of transmission. Some masks are pretty good against droplets, such as the standard surgical masks, but if you really want to get the aerosolization protection, there's a mask called an &quot;N95&quot; that's specially fitted to you. When you get it fitted correctly it works, but that's not something you want to do now. It's totally unnecessary.

Q: If there is a flu pandemic, do we pull our kids from school? -- Troy Brown, Phoenix, Arizona

A: I think those recommendations -- at what point would you want to keep children out of school -- will be very clear from the CDC. But that would be just a recommendation. It's the state and local health authorities that really have the ultimate authority to keep children out of school.

So I think it's going to be a collaboration of recommendations from the federal government and also independent implementation from the state and local health authorities.

Q: My wife and I are going to China in a few months to adopt a child. What do we do if an outbreak of bird flu occurs while we are there? Could we be prevented from returning to America if an outbreak occurs in China? -- Andrew Holdun, Glendale, California

A: That's a lot of &quot;ifs,&quot; and I would say that if they're planning to go to China to adopt a child, go. There's not a large chance that you're going to have a widespread outbreak in China. Remember, there have now just been 118 confirmed cases with 61 deaths. A lot of people have gotten exposed to those sick chickens, so it's very very inefficient in its ability to spread from person to person. I would not be concerned if you have to go for something as important as adopting a child of what's going to happen if there's an outbreak there. I think that's such a small chance that they shouldn't even consider that.

Q: If we do become ill, should we report it, and to whom? -- Ben Laimon, North Potomac, Maryland

A: From an epidemiological standpoint, there's no indication that pandemic flu or bird flu is in the United States. There are bird flus that circulate all the time, but H5N1 is not here in the United States. Certainly if somebody just starts sneezing and coughing, you're not going to want to overwhelm the system by calling it up. If there is detection of the H5N1 virus in this country, public health authorities, particularly the CDC, will be tracking that very carefully, I can assure.

Q: I work as a volunteer social worker. My organization has distributed Tamiflu to each of us -- how effective is it with avian flu? -- Renee Rivera, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam

A: I would tell her not to take the Tamiflu since there is not a threat of human to human spread right now. When you start taking Tamiflu inappropriately, it can lead to resistance of the virus in question to Tamiflu, that's the first thing. As far as how effective Tamiflu is against the serious complications or the serious nature of H5N1, we don't really know. We know Tamiflu works reasonably well in the seasonal flu, the H3N2 flu that predictably circulates each year in this country. It lessens the number of days of symptoms and from a broad stand point, lessens hospitalizations. We don't have hard data because there have only been 118 people infected, and they haven't had a situation where they can give some of them Tamiflu and others not, and compare whether Tamiflu works. We're assuming that it will work with H5N1 with a reasonably good basis for that assumption, but there's no definite proof that it would make a difference with regard to hospitalization or life or death.

Q: My question about the bird flu is how is the government going to prioritize who gets medication out of the national stockpile and what their contingency plans are for getting more of it on short notice? -- David White, Statesville, North Carolina

A: Very soon the Medical and Public Health Preparedness Plan for Pandemic Flu will come out and there will be a prioritization and it will be similar to the types of things the CDC has been putting out each year. Particularly if you have a shortage, as we did last year. There's the health workers who get exposed, those who are 65 or older, individuals with chronic disease, pregnant women, people who take care of others in facilities, like nursing homes.

Q: Can I avoid most of the risks if I have funds and space to sequester myself? -- Stephanie Beard, Chandler, Arizona

A: Well certainly if you want to put yourself in a sealed compartment with a filter for a season, you can have a better protection against a respiratory virus. That's not practical at all and that's not recommended. I think one needs to see how things evolved, avoid crowded places when there is in fact flu in the community. But talking about sealing yourself in is just not practical.

Q&amp;A with Joe Neel, NPR's Health Editor

Q: There is talk about insufficient vaccine, but if there were sufficient vaccine, do we have enough syringes? -- Anne Miller, Coral Gables, Florida

A: There are sufficient syringe supplies. If a pandemic were to develop, there could be shortages of other critical medical items, such as surgical masks and disinfectants.

Q: If this is as dangerous as federal officials say it is, why doesn't the government have all U.S. labs that can, make Tamiflu? -- Rick Volante, Tappahannock, Virginia

A: First of all, Tamiflu is only moderately effective against regular flu. It is only effective if it is taken within 48 hours of the onset of flu, and it only shortens the duration of the flu by a day or so. It may reduce the severity of symptoms in some cases. What is not known at all is how effective Tamiflu might be against a pandemic strain of the flu.

The company that makes Tamiflu has said that the manufacturing process is complex and not easily duplicated. Typically, pharmaceuticals are made through a series of chemical reactions in large refinery-type operations. Building such plants takes time and is expensive; retooling an existing plant would take similar expense and time.

Q: What are the &quot;first responders&quot; instructed to do to avoid catching the avian flu; and what can ordinary citizens do to lower the risk of catching it in the event it, or another virus, becomes a pandemic? -- Scott Monosoff, Fremont, California

A: Again, we have to distinguish between avian flu, which is carried by birds, and any possible future strain of avian flu that has mutated into a human virus. The avian virus is not present in the Western Hemisphere at this time. The human virus has not appeared anywhere in the world.

Were the H5N1 bird flu to find its way to the U.S., bird handlers and poultry workers would need to take precautions, such as wearing surgical masks, gloves and other protective equipment. Pens, cages, trucks and other equipment would need regular disinfection. Regular handwashing, along with the use of a gel disinfectant would also help decrease the risk. If and when a human strain of this flu virus begins circulating, first responders would need to take similar precautions.

Other strains of flu are constantly circulating among poultry and other birds in the United States. For more information on what people can do to protect themselves, go to the CDC's Web site.


Q: At what point would a flu epidemic be considered a threat to the nation, and therefore, would it ever fall under the jurisdiction of Homeland Security? -- Gregory Bowman, Baltimore, Maryland

A: Federal officials are working on a preparedness plan for pandemic flu, but it has not been released yet. The answer to your question will likely be contained in that plan. A search of the Homeland Security Web site turns up many emergency plans related to terrorism, but no specific actions related to pandemic flu.</span>

[lonewolf]

Re: Now That President Obama Got his H1N1 Shot, Will You Get

Tuff, your two articles(interviews) mention vacination in every other sentence. Are you proving my point or your own?

Do you really mean isolation instead of true quarantine?
If that's the case then we agree to a point of issue. It makes sense to prevent people who are infected with a virus to mingle with the general public. It's common sense and so are flu shots in preventing the spread of the flu.

Isolation makes sense for influenza and quarantine doesn't.
Quarantine and isolation are both designed to interrupt the transmission of a contagious disease. Quarantine is a draconian measure and doesn't work for the flu and makes matters worse. People will intentionally evade quarantines and spread the disease faster. Historically, the rich or people of power (as usual) find ways of avoiding things that the general population have to endure. Quarantines are like closing the barn door after the horse has already got out.

[Tuff Gong]

Re: Now That President Obama Got his H1N1 Shot, Will You Get

<div class="ubbcode-block"><div class="ubbcode-header">Originally Posted By: lonrwolf</div><div class="ubbcode-body">Tuff, your two articles(interviews) mention vacination in every other sentence. Are you proving my point or your own? </div></div>

The articles also explained the difficulty of producing vaccines, delivering them on time and clarified various aspect of quarantining. As for vaccines You cannot find in any of my posts where I argues against it. You may have got me confused with another poster I think?

[Reggae plus]

Re: Now That President Obama Got his H1N1 Shot, Will You Get

Still no shot for me. I remain an idiot. [and proud of it] When the split in the medical world is somewhere around 50/50 in regards to whether or not the shot is of value and/or safe...I'll go without.

As was pointed out way up the board...this ain't about polio.

And my own experience with flu shots is...they make things worse...FOR ME.