The flu shots that were coming from a supplier in England and has been reported as being contaminated. Now there is a shortage, so not everyone can get them this year.

I just wonder how long this has been going on and they're just now catching it.

For instance, last year the flu shot nearly killed me. I have never been so sick in my life.

How closely are these vaccines monitored? Is there a site that tells me anything about what is in the flu shots?

What is your opinion on the flu shot? Do you get it each year? I, personally, after that last episode will not take it again. I have been loyal to getting it each year, but not again.

I do not take the shot, but I was planning on getting both of my children immunized. My husband has no choice on getting it, but he's never had a problem with it.

"I just wonder how long this has been going on and they're just now catching it." - soaringhorse

According to the New York Times, the British notified the US health officials on Oct. 5th. APparently, there was some confusion over when the US was first notified.

NYTimes.com

2nd Article in NYTimes.com

The question of whether a flu shot can make anyone sick is, I suspect, not a matter of contamination but a matter of your already having had within you a type of flu against which the flu shot did not protect you. I read that the flu shot which is generally given in a particular year is to protect one from the most likely strain of flu one will get and not to protect one against every strain of flu out there. It is a statistics game, not a perfect scenario. So it sounds as though you were one of those for whom the particular flu shot did no good, not did bad. I don't believe that a flu shot will cause either the same strain against which it is meant to protect one or another strain. I regret that you fell through the cracks in the statistics department, and we can only hope that monitoring will increase so as to prevent other variables from turning into what should be other avoidable cracks. You are probably self-immunized against that flu strain which you caught, and I think that I had the same one by chance for sure. I had no flu shot, but I was otherwise run down physically. Maybe you felt soooo sick, because you, too, were already run down physically.

I thought the flu shot was actually a low dose the the strain (or whatever it's called) that causes the flu, and that was why some people got sick. They were actually given a small dose of the flu.

A few years ago I know a woman that died within hours of taking the shot. Could've been she was gonna die anyway, but the timing was very fitting to be caused by the shot. I've known several people that feel sick after taking it, but they still get it every year.

Soaring, when you say that you wonder how long this has been going on and they're just now catching it, you meant years, right? I wondered that too. Didn't want to register for DG's links.

I've never taken one and don't intend to. I hate needles.

Well, it's awful peculiar that not only me, but other people at work got severe vomiting, diarrhea, high temp, 104 degrees, and just flat out could not even keep fluids in them for the first twenty four hours. The place where I work offers the flu shot free, but after I have spoken with my fellow employees, and not one of us had any signs of sickness before this, I'm thinking that was a bad vaccine last year. I asked the nurse at the nurses station about it, and she said she could give me info on what exactly was put in that strain, but I never got back to her.
Just wondering, remember SARS was going rapid last year, do you think that was in the strain?

Honi, I believe you are correct - flu shots do contain a slight dose of whatever strain of flu health officials think will be "dominant" during that particular flu season. It's sort of like homeopathic medicine. By introducing a small amount of a "toxin" to your body, your natural immune system gets a boost and hopefully can start building up antibodies to fight the infection should you ever come in contact with that particular strain in it's full potency. When you get a flu shot, the main complaint is suppose to be nothing more than soreness in the muscle at the sight of injection and possibly a low grade fever.

Those who have severe reactions possible had a dificient immune system to start with. If you read the form now, it says that if you have or ever have had Guillain Barre Syndrome you cannot have the shot. GBS is an auto-immune disease/neuropathy. So apparently, you have negative reactions to the shot if your immune system has been compromised.

Honiluv, right, I meant in years, because I do remember getting severly ill about 5 years back afterwards, too. I put it off as that maybe I was already sick, but this last time it was just too many people getting sick about four days after the shot.

It is interesting and also annoying to be awaiting some truth in the media, which may never arrive. These days we trust that we have sufficient information to do what is good for us, only to discover that we have put our lives more at risk (in some cases, if we live to make this discovery).

According to the CDC it is impossible to get the flu from the flu shot. You are injected with an inactive strain of the virus. The most common adverse side-effect caused by the flu virus is fever and aches. This is not the flu virus, it is the symptom of your body's immune system recognizing and attempting to fight the virus. Other, more serious reactions though rare, are due to allergic reactions to the elements within the injection.

http://www.cdc.gov/flu/about/qa/flushot.htm

There is some talk about a spray form being developed. Anyone hear about this?

I've heard there is a nasal spray available, that is intended for those ages 5 to 49.

What virus is in the injections are dead critters - that is what "inactive" means.

However you are not getting just the dead virus and water, other things are added to keep the dead critters "appearing" to be alive so your immune system will engage and create its own antibodies to the strain injected. Preservatives, Adjuvants (a substance enhancing the immune response to an antigen), and stabilizers. Some of these may include things like aluminum salts, MSG, streptomycin, and other wonderful chemicals.

The virus in the vaccine is dead - meaning it can not breed and take over. When we contract a viral or bacterial disease what happens is that the critters (viruses, bacterias) multiply and take over, their presence causes the immune system to create antibodies.

The symptoms of flus and colds are not just the flu and cold themselves but of your body's immune system at war. Fever, vomiting, runny nose, coughing are all part of the bodies attempt to kill off and remove the virus/bacteria from the body. This is why a cut with a slight infection grows warm, it is a localized "fever" to kill off the invading germs.

Take puss, most people think that puss is the infection only, its not, it is composed of white blood cells and other antibodies surrounding the infection cells.

When you are immunized it is possible for the body's response to "mimic" the illness itself, in other words your reaction is not the flu but your immune system fighting an infection that is not dangerous. The most common local pain is not from the injection, but from your body's response to the injection, which is basically sending the body's defenders to fight an invader.

http://www.bupadoc.com/health_information/html/health_news/281003flu.html

Tells how some scientists believe that part of the bigger problem of flu is not the virus itself, but the body's response is exaggerated causign more damage than the disease itself.

David

UPDATE: Meridian Bioscience has distributed test kits with the virus H2N2 virus. The vials were supposedly all incinerated after they discovered this error. The 1957 pandemic strain are used for internal quality control checks to demonstrate that a lab is able to correctly identify viruses or as a way for labs to get certified by the College of American Pathologists.

Click here for news from Yahoo

quote:

On March 26, National Microbial Laboratory Canada detected the 1957 pandemic strain in a sample not connected with the test kit. After informing WHO and the CDC of the strange finding, the lab investigated. It informed the U.N. health agency on Friday that it had traced the virus to the test kit.

Makes you wonder, just how careful are they?

Are we just guinea pigs, Honiluv? Yep, I think so! By the way, I didn't get the flu shot this year, did you?

I've never gotten the flu shot.

Well, I see people waiting in line to get their flu shot today, and once again, I will not get mine. Once you've been ill, to the point of 105 degree temp with convulsions...you will think twice about it. Here's some more proof that the flu vaccine was contaminated in 2002 by a bacteria:

atla.org

Seems like this Chiron company was the one who started it, look at the time line down at the bottom of the page.

Also, there is some interesting info on Chiron's headquarters in California on this page, concerning Bush and this flu vaccination shortage on this next link:

newsmakingnews.com

I will not accept the fact that my immune system was weak, I fight colds pretty good, while I have seen others hang on to them longer, and they have severe reactions to the viruses that tend to go around at work, while I may just get a little bit of the symptons.

If I can't trust what is in these vaccinations, and I know alot of people feel the same way, what kind of protection do we have if there were a pandemic?

Maybe the patient has a sub clinical infection they are beginning to fight off and get a vacinnation on top of this and then get sick.
Do not ever get a measles vacinnation if you have a case of chicken pox.