H1N1 And The Great Coverup (Minus the coverup)

Now, I myself have mixed views on natural medicine and homeopathy. I was raised in an environment where vaccines = bad and dangerous, natural = the only way to go. That said, it's slightly odd for me to be defending a vaccine. At this point in my life I think that, for the most part, natural remedies are relatively safe and can be helpful, but by no means should they replace traditional medicine. This post isn't on any of that though. This is strictly referring to this article on NaturalNews.com. Natural News will be the subject of a future post. The site has taken a strong "anything traditional medicine is evil and corrupt, take vitamins and herbs and you'll be fine." stance. They have a extremist view on the matter and hardly ever have sources for their claims, any link leads to an article on the website itself. The article is very long so I'm only going to cover a few points.

Claim: There was never an independent, randomized, double-blind, placebo-controlled study proving either the safety or effectiveness of the H1N1 swine flu vaccine.

Hm. I wasn't aware that's how we're doing things now. As with all drugs, vaccines must go through a long and arduous approval process before they get anywhere near the market. As stated here, Phase 1, are safety and immunogenicity studies performed in a small number of closely monitored subjects. Phase 2 studies are dose-ranging studies and may enroll hundreds of subjects. Finally, Phase 3 trials typically enroll thousands of individuals and provide the critical documentation of effectiveness and important additional safety data required for licensing. At any stage of the clinical or animal studies, if data raise significant concerns about either safety or effectiveness, FDA may request additional information or studies, or may halt ongoing clinical studies.

As far as the H1N1 vaccine itself, yes, it did receive at least 3 controlled studies. This information comes directly from the CSL Influenza A vaccine package insert itself. This is, for the most part, all you need to read to refute any of the Natural News claims. The first study, was a US randomized, double-blinded, placebo-controlled, multicenter study with a total of 1,357 healthy subjects ranging from ages 18 to 65 years old. The second, was a UK study with 275 healthy subjects age 65 and older. Study 3, also in the UK, involved 406 healthy subjects 18 to 60+ in age. This study compared the vaccine with a European-licensed trivalent inactivated influenza vaccine as an active control. This information on it's own should be enough to render this article false, but then they go on to rant about some vaccine god who they think people believe in to make the vaccines work...alright then. So lets go down the list of ingredients of the H1N1 vaccine and see just how dangerous it's claimed to be.

May as well get this out of the way first. Thiomersal  - Used as a preservative. Thiomersal is only present in the multi-dose presentations, not the single dose. I really don't want to get into this but, the controversy over Thiomersal in vaccines was based off of people thinking that there was a link between it, and the rising cases of autism. You can read about the whole controversy and how the scientific opinion is based directly against this in the Wikipedia article on it.

The Influenza Virus - Obviously. This is how vaccines work, the virus is weakened so greatly that it's harmless, but your body recognizes it. Sends out anti bodies and ta da.

Sodium Chloride - SC is simply table salt...that's it. Your salt shaker must be plotting the downfall of America as I type.
  
Monosodium phosphate - Is a chemical compound of sodium and it's used as a laxative and can be used with other compounds as a pH buffer to balance the pH content for numerous applications, which is it's use here.

 Disodium Phosphate -  is a sodium salt of phosphoric acid. It's used commercially as an anti-caking agent and can also be used as a laxative.

Potassium Chloride - Potassium is vital to the human body and it's functions, especially in the beating of your heart...you know..kinda important. Potassium chloride is usually how it's replenished.

Monobasic potassium phosphate - Is used as a food additive and is also used in pH buffering, which is it's use here, as well as many other chemical applications. 

Calcium Chloride - Is a natural electrolyte in the body and can be used as a firming agent in foods as well as many other commercial applications.

 So there you go, the ingredients speak for themselves. The other main thing I wanted to mention was, later on in the article the author says, quote "I have absolutely no doubt that healthy-dose vitamin D supplementation (4000 IUs a day) would prove to be significantly more effective than influenza vaccines at preventing flu infections" Far from being healthy, studies show it is of no effect and can even be dangerous to take doses that large. Vitamin mega-dosing is a popular idea in the natural medicine field, but it's one that can be dangerous and should be regarded with extreme caution.