Tag: H1N1

Recycling Gone Wild – Flu vaccine syringes!

~ Pharmer

Children told to be tested for HIV after flu vaccines reused | 9news.com.

People have caught the ‘green bug’ — an infection with  enthusiasm for recycling.  This has extended into health care environments where some inappropriate recycling can be observed.

For example certain plastics and containers are recycled, or inappropriately transferred from patient  rooms to be reused in other patient rooms.   This is a danger for the spread of infection, and the rampant spread of  staph and clostridium infections may be resulting from this and other bad practices. Some health care employees cannot be dissuaded from these practices.

Above linked is a news story about a pediatric clinic in Colorado, (Med Peds Clinic of Fort Collins) where some enterprising employee decided to recycle half used   syringe doses of flu vaccine.

Those syringes (to a normal health care worker) are single use items.  Even if it had been appropriate to use half of the dose, the remainder should have been tossed out  in the biohazardous waste.

Instead the  medical assistant changed the needles on the syringe and recycled.

So…….  a lot of kids have apparently received half flu doses, and may have been exposed to infection from other patients.   There is a practice  of pulling back a bit  on the syringe, when injecting a vaccine, to make sure it’s not being shot directly into a blood vessel.

Dr Mark S. Simmons of the clinic stated :  “we are a little dismayed that one of our former medical assistants did not follow procedures when handling this” Recommendations from the clinic are that patients who received the vaccines be tested for  HIV, Hepatitis B and Hepatitis C, (etc.)   There is not a mention of who would cover this expense.

Some things shouldn’t be recycled.

Excess Flu Vaccine after the Shortage

~ Pharmer

We saw this after the last flu panic too……  loads of wasted flu vaccine after incidents of rationing and vaccine hoarding.

U.S. has 71 million unused flu vaccine doses | Reuters.

The same thing happened this year after the H1N1 panic.  Vaccine became widely available only after the flu had abated.

Interested in obtaining the vaccine waned when it became apparent that the panic was overblown, and as usual, the  CDC and other government advisory groups had  little knowledge about this strain of flu virus.

What’s left is the usual government waste:  almost 70 million  unused H1H1 flu vaccine doses.

Note that the above linked article pretends to have a figure of  U.S. deaths caused by H1N1 virus.   That number is actually unknown.

From the memory division of the Pharm,  here’s  a blast from the 2004/2005 flu season  when the fears of  shortage drove Illinois governor Blagojevich to order unapproved vaccines from Europe, which were eventually wasted..

Your tax dollars at work………

H1N1 flu vaccine subpotency and why to follow the Pharmer

~ Pharmer

That 800,000 flu vaccines, targeted for kids, have been recalled by Sanofi Pasteur is Zero surprise to those who have been listening to  the Pharmer  nail another set of correct medical predictions to the wall.  

You can be absolutely certain that  instability has less to do with the subpotency than the pressure from the government to rapidly produce vaccine from this slow replicating H1N1 influenza A virus.

There is no report on how many kids have gotten the subpotent vaccine, due to the “story” that the vaccine has lost potency over time.   (Translation — it was marginal in its production due to the attempt to stretch insufficient material into the production of millions of doses).   The lack of need for revaccination is due to the fact that the peak H1N1 season has passed — before the late produced vaccines have had significant effect.

Government recovery from this latest mismanagement will be to claim that we were saved from the ravages of the Swine Flu by the efforts of Kathleen Sebelius teaching us  how to cough or sneeze into our elbows. 

Your tax dollars are HARD at work.

National Health Care Power Grab

~ Pharmer

This one might cause Obama to fall on his face.

He declared an national emergency due to the swine flu. Now go down and reread the post below…..

And given the facts, realize that Obama is grabbing power in order to move against a thing which is unquantifiable, and over which his activity will have little to NO influence.

He’s going to waste billions and billions of money on this effort.

The H1N1 influenza is HERE, in unknown amount. The vaccine distribution is just beginning, and there is not much of it.

And remember, its JUST another Flu.

Will we be having national emergencies every year???

Oink! More Fun with the Swine Flu

~ Pharmer ~ 1 Comment

On the Shortage of H1N1 Influenza A vaccine…. (trumpet fanfare)… the Indiana state Commissioner of Health:

“Vaccine supply is a challenge and I realize this has caused frustration for many of you. We expected to receive an ample supply of vaccine by mid-October. Unfortunately, we have only received about 30% of the doses that were expected by this time due to limited production. The virus is not replicating at the speed that was originally expected which has led to the delay in manufacturing sufficient supply of the vaccine. Clearly this has created an additional challenge for all of us as demand for the vaccine is outstripping supply.”

Someone else can have mine. 😉

Now….. as for the virus not replicating at the speed which was expected…..

Maybe it’s a leftist virus; they have trouble replicating also, or accomplishing anything else they set out to do.

For most of you, what this means is that the swine flu (‘just another flu’) will have passed through your ‘hood, before this vaccine (which Pharmer considers experimental) has been widely distributed enough for YOU to have it.

Three Reasons why all the swine flu statistics will remain inaccurate to the degree of being BOGUS:

People are reporting assumed swine flu cases (respiratory illnesses which have not been identified, but appear to be flu-like to whichever person is reporting).

Testing which is done, is identifying a flu virus as influenza A, )and there are a lot of those) but and is assumed to be the (media frenzy) bug du jour, H1N1 influenza A.

and the third reason that the numbers are bogus….. Newly developed tests for swine flu virus are being used, this one by Quest diagnostics and 3M. These tests (here’s another one,by Diatherix) are permitted emergency use for this season only, and do not yet have actual FDA approval. This in itself does not mean the tests are no good at all. However, you should also be aware of this bit of practical information: Tests for flu virus are far from perfect, (even those which have been approved) vary in specificity and efficiency, and are dogged with the problem of false negative results particularly during peak seasons.

New tests to differentiate the virus, mass confusion, media frenzy, and you won’t be getting any good statistics concerning this particular flu bug.

Fun reading-