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tacitus -> RE: Government to Intensely Track for H1N1 Shot Side Effects (9/28/2009 4:15:54 PM)
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First, the life expectancy of Americans has risen 10 years since 1960, so there is no evidence that kids today are sicker than they were back when we were kids, and drugs and vaccines have been critical in improving the health of millions of kids in that time. If there is a problem with kids today, then it's with obesity and lack of exercise, which have a far more detrimental effect on long term health than drugs do. I am all for the CDC publicizing the fact that the H1N1 vaccine may be more risky that the regular flu vaccine, if that is indeed true. But the problem is the thousands of irresponsible people out there who are claiming that it will kill more people than the H1N1 flu virus itself (which has already killed over 750 Americans). As I mentioned before, if that were true then the testing they have already done would has detected that -- if thousands were going to die from reactions to the vaccines then many times more people would suffer severe reactions to the vaccine (but live) and those cases would show up in the preliminary testing (and they haven't). So, if there is a higher risk, then it's going to be no more than going from, say, 1 in 5 million chance of serious harm to 1 in 4 million chance of serious harm. Given that at least one in every 10,000 Americans are likely to die of the H1N1 flu this year, it's vitally important to keep the risks in perspective, otherwise people at most risk from the flu will erroneously believe that they are safer not taking the vaccine when in reality they are placing themselves in far more danger.
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