Some Swine Flu food for thought

My sister has symptoms of swine flu right now. So I've done some research. For most people this is considered to be more mild than originally planned. But, there are still a few people dying from it. (My 28 year old patient from a few weeks ago died from complications of swine flu.)
A big concern surrounding this, and probably what makes this flu so alarming is that our nation doesn't seem to be ready to handle the virus should it progress to a crisis pandemic. We need to understand that the current virus is not considered to be extremely dangerous.(You are still more likely to die from the regular flu virus than from the Swine Flu.) The H1N1 flu has to mutate to become a more dangerous virus to be able to be lethal to most people. However, a big concern is that the Swine flu virus is closely following the pattern of the 1918 Flu pandemic that first appeared in early spring as a mild virus and returned later in the year, during the regular flu season, and killed millions of people. Swine flu, is being called a "new" virus because the combination hasn't actually been seen before. It is comprised of three different types of flu, including one part Swine, one part Avian flu and one part regular flu virus. People who are older than 40-50 seem to have some degree of immune response to H1N1. They think that this is because traditional Swine flu has been around before during these patients lifetime, whereas, younger patients, who are experiencing higher mortality rates with the virus may not have been exposed to the virus which could mean that the last time Swine flu has been seen historically is probably sometime in the 50s or 60s.
This week, my work was scheduled to recieve flu shots for the regular flu virus, and found out that the order was not available. I don't regularly get the flu shot anyway so I wasn't very concerned about it. If you are interested in getting one, you will probably still be able to locate a vaccine for yourself.(although, the Walgreens here in Cedar City had only 50 vaccines for the general public.) However this shortage is expected to be worse with the H1N1 vaccine which is planned for release in mid October. The US is planning to give the vaccine only to high risk patient populations like pregnant women, children under 3, or health care workers. This number of people will most likely use up all of the available vaccines, and the general public probably wont even have the vaccine available to them. Like the regular flu, there will be a few strains of flu present in the vaccine. Researchers are working to find what they estimate to be the most dangerous mutations to the virus. If the virus mutates, the antiviral drugs, Tamiflu and Relenza, are not expected to have any effect on the virus. The virus seems to already be mutating because they are only seeing these antivirals working in 70% of cases currently. The scary thought is that the vaccine may be the only life saving treatment, should the virus have a high mortality rate and that treatment may not be available to the majority of the population in time to be effective. (The virus could also mutate and become less harmful, on a lighter note. :) Another possible setback is that H1N1 vaccine is meant to be a supplemental vaccine to the regular flu shot and they are reccomending that people recieve the two vaccines 30 days apart. So if you don't have your regular flu shot now, by the time it will be considered safe to recieve your H1N1 vaccine, the vaccine may not be available.
Another thing to think about is the safety of the actual vaccine. Researchers normally work for the entire year on establishing safety for the flu shot for the flu season that they are preparing for. The flu virus mutates every year, but it is not actually considered to be a "new" virus. This makes the release of a vaccine for a "new" virus in 8 months or less, pretty risky. The last time America provided a rushed vaccine for a new flu, this is what happened: In 1976, a new flu virus was seen at an army base in America that killed one man in a matter of a couple of days. This was oversensationalized in the media, and created some panic among much of the population. Henry Ford was trying to win the election for his second term and passed a bill to create a vaccine for the new virus to be ready before the start of the flu season. The government paid for a mass inoculation program but was asked by the research company to assume the liability for the potential side effects of the vaccine. Such a relatively high number of people died of acute heart conditions within a few days of receiving the vaccine that the mass inoculation program was suspended. On top of that, more people were diagnosed with a rare and deadly Neurological disease called Guillian Barre as a side effect of the vaccine, than would have died from the flu. Wanna know what happened with the extremely virulent flu virus they were vaccinated against? It never hit. Just a few things to think about.

PS get better Sunni! You might actually be lucky to be getting it now rather than later if it does mutate to something worse.(not to be Pollyanna or anything.)