Discussion Board

Thank you for another excellent newsletter filled with important and useful information, and tasty recipes.

In this month's newsletter, in the article, Preparing for Swine Flu and Other Animal-borne Infections, you said, "If an effective, safe vaccine for swine flu does become available, I will personally take it."

How will you determine if the vaccine is effective and safe prior to its being administered widely? People believed the 1976 vaccine was safe according to the manufacturers, and it was only after wide administering to millions of people, and some time had passed, that the problems were recognized.

What will your guidelines be? If this epidemic should come, and the internet is still operating, will you advise us if you have made a decision to take a vaccine, and your reasons for doing so? I hope so.

Thank you.
--Clary

Determining the safety and effectiveness of a vaccine will not be based on a few criteria, but much observation based on many years of experience. Then I will take my best guess.

I will tell you my best guess when the time comes.

John McDougall, MD

Thank you very much for responding, and being willing to think of us if the time comes. Over the years, I have come to trust your research and judgement and teachings, and have benefitted in many ways.

This is a highly charged issue for me, because it has been my choice to not take vaccines or immunizations; and only one of my children had only one vaccination; and as parents, they have chosen for their children to not take the usual shots and vaccines.

I may look at an immunization for this possible epidemic differently, and I am preparing food, water, and other storage items "as if" it will happen, and I can be no worse off in any way from my preparations if it doesn't.

Thank you for your past and current writings and alerts on this subject.

--Clary

I read this today:
Europe fast-tracking swine flu vaccine
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090726/ap_ ... fast_track

Excerpt:
...The U.S. is taking a more cautious approach: the government called Wednesday for several thousand volunteers to be injected with the swine flu vaccine in tests beginning in August to assess the vaccine's safety. American officials said results should be ready by the time the U.S. plans to roll out a vaccination campaign in October...

Anyone have any thoughts on these negative reports? :question:

Tamiflu Side Effects for Children May Do More Harm Than Good: Study
http://www.aboutlawsuits.com/tamiflu-si ... harm-5365/

Worrying Side Effects of Flu Drugs
http://www.mmail.com.my/content/10667-w ... -flu-drugs

Swine flu: GMTV's Andrew Castle says daughter 'almost died' after taking Tamiflu
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/health/swine ... miflu.html

Alarm grows over Tamiflu for children
http://news.scotsman.com/health/Alarm-g ... 5544523.jp

A simple Google search brings up many articles. I used "oxford reports on tamiflu" for my first search.

The current recommendation is NOT to give tamiflu (or any other anti-viral) for Novel H1N1 (Swine) Flu. It is a mild disease and will run its course. (If it mutates to a more virulent form, then the advice would change accordingly).

I was hoping Dr. McDougall would comment further on his opinions on the H1N1 vaccine in this month's 8/2009 newsletter.

I just received the following email from one of my daughters who is the office manager for a branch of a large Home Health Care Agency in the south:
"I heard a bunch of our nurses talking in a meeting this morning - and they reported that a lot of doctors are telling their patients not to take the 'swine' flu vaccine because it has not been properly tested."