Flumongers
(This 968th Buffalo
Sunday News column was first published on October 11, 2009.)
We
are a contentious people. Name a topic and you will immediately get two sides.
Health care, global warming and evolution are high on the list, but I am
convinced that some people would argue against gravity and for a flat earth.
Evidence seems to play no role whatsoever to many of these proselytizers.
Now
we have a serious health issue, a pandemic of H1N1 or swine flu. As of the time
I write, in the United States alone we have had more than 46,000 cases with over
300 deaths. At nearby Cornell University over 500 students have symptoms and
one has died from "flu-related complications."
Flu
always represents a health risk. Annually between 5% and 20% in this nation
suffer from it with over 200,000 hospitalized and 36,000 dying. But this year's
additional H1N1 virus is especially threatening because it has some of the
characteristics of the 1918 pandemic that killed millions around the world.
Thus
everyone should take this disease seriously. We have a tested vaccine becoming
available and I encourage every reader to take advantage of it. That is,
however, a personal decision. What you should not do is listen to the nonsense
about the flu vaccine that is beginning to saturate our media.
Retired family physician and former Air
Force flight surgeon Dr. Harriett
Hall has written cogently about this issue and I recommend to you her SkepDoc website,
which has served as a major resource for this column.
Hall
warns that we now have vaccine opponents who "spread
old falsehoods, make up new lies, distort the results of studies, misrepresent
statistics, and endanger our public health. There are websites and even
anti-swine-flu-vaccine rap videos. Press releases, e-mail campaigns, talk
shows, and blogs are stirring up irrational fears. These people are
irresponsible fearmongers. They are wrong, and they
are dangerous." Hall then offers factual responses to many of the flumongers' contentions and I summarize a few here.
Guillain-Barré Syndrome (GBS) is an
autoimmune disorder, often referred to as an AIDP. It is a rare but serious
nerve disease that can cause paralysis, but the majority of patients recover
when they receive prompt treatment. In a perfect example of the misapplication
of statistical information, flu critics claim that GBS is
being caused by flu vaccines. The basis for their claim: a report that
identified 54 cases of GBS after vaccination in the U.S. in 2004.
In response to this contention, Hall carefully interprets the
statistics: GBS, she notes, already affects 1 to 4 of every 100,000 people. The
increased risk from vaccines is "no more than one in a million."
J. B. Grabenstein puts this in a
different way: "The risk of GBS after a flu shot pales in comparison to
the risk of serious adverse events if infected with the influenza virus: 60 to
70 cases of GBS vs. 20,000 deaths from influenza. Keeping things on the same
scale, people over 65 years of age can choose from a risk of one case of GBS
per million people or 10,000 cases of hospitalization and 1500 deaths due to
influenza."
Flu vaccine opponent Dr. Joseph Mercola
argues that squalene, a component of some flu
vaccines, caused Gulf War Syndrome in anthrax vaccines. Hall points out that
there was no squalene in anthrax vaccine,
responds in detail to Mercola's charges and
concludes, "There is a large body of data demonstrating the safety of squalene."
Critics also claim that flu vaccine effectiveness is particularly
low in the elderly. Hall responds that, although "the elderly are not as
well protected by the vaccine: that's why it's so important for younger people
to be vaccinated, reducing the prevalence of the disease in the population and
thereby reducing the likelihood of the elderly being exposed. In other words,
don't just get the flu shot for yourself, get it for Grandma."
My favorite Hall response is also to Mercola,
who claims, "Injecting organisms into your body to provoke immunity is
contrary to nature." Hall answers: "Nature kills people. Doing
something contrary to nature is what medicine is all about. It is a good
thing."
These are only a few of Hall's responses. They clearly suggest
checking scientific answers to the wild claims that beset
us.-- Gerry Rising