Bird Flu - what do you think will be the rules of who get the shots first?

[KLF44]

I bet that it will be that everybody that works for the government will get if first and if there is any left then whoever has the most money can buy get the shot.

[BrklynLiberal]

1. I think the whole thing is a fraud and the opposite will happen.

The public will be forced to take these shots, and suffer the unforeseen consequences,
Big pharma is going to make lots of money off the forced vaccinations,.

[Skink]

2. Last years Flu vaccine shortage was a test run...

to messure the Hysteria.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

13. Right. A fraud. Sure, whatever you say.

[TallahasseeGrannie]

3. I would hope

first responders and medical personnel first. Then the elderly and very young, then teachers and hospital employees.

[Silverhair]

4. There isn't any vaccine yet.

Furthermore, there may not be. A vaccine for Avian Flu can not be made until it mutates into it's easily contagious human to human form. If it mutates into a highly contagious form, it could be here in epidemic form months before a vaccine is ready for even the first person.

The problem with flu vaccine is that flu continually mutates quickly and there are different strains. You can be vaccinated against one strain and catch another. The Avian Flu could mutate again into to a second different strain and the vaccine would be useless against the new one.

The first part of the problem is NOT political - it is the nature of the flu virus itself.

[TahitiNut]

8. Is oseltamivir phosphate completely ineffective?

Furthermore, I'm wondering whether a preliminary vaccine derived from H5N1 wouldn't have some level of efficacy.

A virus that's cross-species communicable in avian species and communicable to humans sure shouldn't take long to become transmittable between members of one species: us.

[Silverhair]

14. Hell if I know.

I have no idea what that stuff is. What I know is what I have researched on the web and by reading about the 1918 flu.

[kestrel91316]

11. There is a vaccine, but they are not able to make enough of it

in time to head off a pandemic.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

15. Sorry, but no. There is NO current vaccine that can be used....

...against the version of Avian Flu that can be easily passed human-to-human. That's because, as far as we know, that highly infectious version does not yet exist...but it's getting there.

[kestrel91316]

16. I could SWEAR that they have a vaccine that will protect against

H5N1, thought I read about it either in a weekly newsmagazine or maybe Smithsonian or National Geographic or LA Times in the past week or so. I could SWEAR.

[kestrel91316]

17. HA HA HA, gotcha! Google "H5N1 vaccine". There IS.

http://www.stjude.org/media/0,2561,453_2137_4638,00.html

http://www.hhs.gov/ophep/bioshield/avianinfluenza.html

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=104&STORY=/www/story/04-25-2003/0001934012&EDATE=

http://www.rense.com/general63/ffbi.htm

http://www.news-medical.net/?id=8685

I could go on but I am tired of copying and pasting. There IS a vaccine for H5N1. It DOES protect. It IS in development/early production.

If the virus mutates slightly, this may affect vaccine efficacy to some extent, but it will not make the vaccine useless. The critical part is that it protects against HEMAGGLUTININ 5 and NEURAMINIDASE 1. These are the important antigens to acquire immunity to.

[sam sarrha]

5. utility workers, truck drivers and medical personel, Poor are last again

[KenCarson]

7. are you saying those people are NOT part of the poor?

just because they have jobs

[Xithras]

6. You assume there will be a vaccine.

There's never a gurantee that there will be a vaccine for any disease. We assume there will be because previous strains have had vaccines, but that's only because the flu virus is relatively weak. There's no way to know if we'd even be able to create a vaccine for a more powerful strain.

[The Backlash Cometh]

9. People in health care should get them first, followed by

the old, the infirmed, the young and their mothers.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

10. I bet my doctor finds an alternative

to getting a shot. I'll ask her what to recommend when I see her tomorrow.

[kestrel91316]

12. Workers in human healthcare and first responders should get

first dibs. Utility workers and essential government personnel next (yes, I DO want Congress and SCOTUS and WH officials vaccinated). Public health/epidemiology personnel and nuclear power plant staff also come to mind. I am afraid that they will put us veterinarians quite low on the priority list, forgetting that we are part of Public Health.