Tuesday, October 27, 2009

Is swine flu making pharmaceutical companies rich?

OK, who else do you want making vaccines? Companies exist to make money. That doesn’t mean we don’t ever need what they’re selling. I’m not discounting that there’s marketing and hype in pharmaceuticals, like many other industries. But I’m not going to forswear all medicines because Big Pharma is making a profit. If they weren’t making a profit, they wouldn’t be making the stuff.

In other words, if there’s proof swine flu’s a hoax and those people who died were misdiagnosed, let’s talk about a conspiracy. Otherwise, it’s a dangerous argument to make when people’s health could be protected with a swine flu shot.
Flu shots work best when everybody gets one. It’s called herd immunity. Not getting one increases everyone’s risk.

SHOOT: One of the better articles I've read on swine flu. Just so you know, though, in the past week 435 people have died of swine flu in North America, that's a 32% increase. In South America 485 people have died over the past week, an 18% increase. In the European Union deaths are up 18%.
Don’t be misled by swine flu skeptics

• A recent study in the Journal of the American Medical Association found swine flu kills people by depriving their blood of oxygen, which, in the most severe cases, leads to organ failure and death.

A Canadian study, under the leadership of Dr. Anand Kumar of the Health Sciences Centre and St. Boniface Hospital in Winnipeg, found the average age of those hospitalized with swine flu was about 32, and almost two-thirds were women.

• While it’s true that seasonal flu kills far more people than have so far died from swine flu worldwide, two things should be remembered.

First, this hemisphere is just entering its flu season.

Second, children and young adults are already dying in numbers greater than you’d expect from seasonal flu.

Fact: The H1N1 vaccine is not some new, never-before-tried approach to immunizing people.

• Some people dispute flu shots work at all.

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