http://www.google.com/hostednews/canadianpress/article/ALeqM5g-jBo3N9xWt8pxrXRQvzljFetL0ghttp://abcnews.go.com/Health/SwineFluNews/cdc-reports-increased-h1n1-risk-seasonal-flu-shot/story?id=8676187
There is currently some small indications that the results of the Canadian study might be biased or based on faulty methodology.
[quote]Likewise, an official of the World Health Organization (WHO) said that investigators in countries other than Canada had not found a similar risk increase when they looked at their own data.
"We are in contact with other countries and are having them look at their own data to see if they could have similar observations, and none has been able to find anything like that," said Marie-Paule Kieny, director of the World Health Organization's vaccine research initiative.[/quote]
thanks shug..Enter the intense new monitoring. On top of routine vaccine tracking, there are these government-sponsored projects:
_Harvard Medical School scientists are linking large insurance databases that cover up to 50 million people with vaccination registries around the country for real-time checks of whether people see a doctor in the weeks after a flu shot and why. The huge numbers make it possible to quickly compare rates of complaints among the vaccinated and unvaccinated, said the project leader, Dr. Richard Platt, Harvard's population medicine chief.
_Johns Hopkins University will direct e-mails to at least 100,000 vaccine recipients to track how they're feeling, including the smaller complaints that wouldn't prompt a doctor visit. If anything seems connected, researchers can call to follow up with detailed questions.
_The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is preparing take-home cards that tell vaccine recipients how to report any suspected side effects to the nation's Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting system.
"We don't have any reason to expect any unusual problems with this vaccine," said Dr. Neal Halsey, director of Hopkins' Institute for Vaccine Safety, who is directing the e-mail surveillance.
After all, the new H1N1 vaccine is a mere recipe change from the regular winter flu shot that's been used for decades in hundreds of millions of people without serious problems. Nor have there been any red flags in the few thousand people given test doses in studies to determine the right H1N1 dose. They've gotten the same sore arms and occasional headache or fever that's par for a winter flu shot.[/quote]