H1N1 Flu Still Around

  • This fall, the H1N1 vaccine will be combined with the regular flu shot. (Photo courtesy of the Center for Disease Control and Prevention)

You might think the flu season is over, but H1N1 flu is still around. Rebecca Williams reports health officials still want you to get vaccinated against the virus:

Transcript

You might think the flu season is over, but H1N1 flu is still around. Rebecca Williams reports health officials still want you to get vaccinated against the virus:

H1N1 flu peaked in the U-S last October and November.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates through the middle of January, 57 million Americans got sick and 12-thousand people died.

Right now, most of the people getting sick with H1N1 are in the Southeastern U-S.

Tom Skinner is with the CDC.

“We wouldn’t be surprised to see activity continue into the spring and early summer. How much activity we may see moving forward into the fall and winter it’s just hard to tell.”

He says anyone who hasn’t gotten the vaccine should. Especially people with the greatest risk of complications from the flu. Those are pregnant women, kids younger than 5 years old and adults older than 65.

This fall, the H1N1 vaccine will be combined with the regular flu shot.

For The Environment Report, I’m Rebecca Williams.

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Risk the Shot or Risk the Flu

  • A study by the Harvard School of Public Health finds that only 51% of parents nationwide plan to get their kids vaccinated against the new swine flu. (Photo courtesy of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention)

Public health officials want people
to get vaccinated for swine flu.
But only half of parents nationwide
say they plan to get their kids vaccinated.
Many say they’re worried about vaccine
side-effects. Julie Grant reports some
government policies may have inadvertently
made people concerned about vaccine safety:

Transcript

Public health officials want people
to get vaccinated for swine flu.
But only half of parents nationwide
say they plan to get their kids vaccinated.
Many say they’re worried about vaccine
side-effects. Julie Grant reports some
government policies may have inadvertently
made people concerned about vaccine safety:

Some of the schools near where I live in Ohio have absentee
rates of 20%. Kids are reporting flu-like symptoms. Some
schools are even closing down to keep more people from
getting sick.

At the same time, a study by the Harvard School of Public
Health finds that only 51% of parents nationwide plan to get
their kids vaccinated against the new swine flu.

The vaccine has a serious public relations problem.

One reason people are worried: thimerosal.

Thimerosal is a preservative used in vaccines. It prevents
bacteria and fungus from contaminating vaccine bottles.
Thimerosal is almost half mercury, by weight. And that
makes a lot of people nervous.

As a precaution, it was taken out of most American vaccines
about twenty years ago. But it’s still used a lot in flu shots.

Lynn Gregor has two little children. She’s been leaning
toward getting them vaccinated for swine flu.
But she just heard about thimerosal, and she’s concerned.

“Because even if it’s a teeny, tiny bit of mercury, which is
what that product is connected with. Because a teeny tiny
bit of mercury can have a big impact.”

The Centers for Disease Control says the type of mercury in
thimerosal is different than the kind that’s in thermometers.
Lots of people think thimerosal is linked with increased
autism rates. But public health officials say science does not
bear that out.

“There has been no credible evidence of a harm that’s linked
to thimerosal.”

That’s Donn Moyer. He’s spokesman for the Washington
state Department of Health. It’s one of six states that have
passed laws making it illegal to give young children and
pregnant women flu shots that contain thimerosal.

Moyer says the health department didn’t ask for the law. It
says thimerosal is safe. But, politicians wanted to appease
people concerned about thimerosal.

The state of Washington’s concern is not about the actual
safety of thimerosal, it’s about the public’s perception of
thimerosal.

“The goal was to maintain public confidence in vaccine
programs and to encourage parents to have their kids
vaccinated.”

But now that the new swine flu is here, Washington is
suspending its law. The swine flu seems to be hitting young
children especially hard, and Moyer says infants and
pregnant women should get immunized – even if the only
shots available contain thimerosal.

“We don’t see any credible risk of health effect from the
thimerosal and it could protect against a very, very serious
influenza infection.”

That seems like a mixed message to parents. And it’s part
of the confusion between the science and politics of this
issue.

(Fox news music intro)

Anchor: “We are tracking H1N1 and health officials here in
the US…”

On this Fox news report Dr. Kent Holtorf is labeled an
“infectious disease expert”, and he warns people against the
vaccine.

Holtorf: “And it’s been shown to cause autism in children
with mitochondrial dysfunction. It’s controversial, though
highly implicated.”

Anchor: “Would you give it to your kids?”

Holtorf: “I definitely would not.”

Some Right-leaning commentators are sharing their
suspicions about the vaccine from the government. And, on
the Left, one natural health newsletter put out a special
edition warning against vaccination.

This all leaves federal health officials with a big job to do:
use the preponderance of science to convince people that
swine flu is potentially more dangerous than the vaccine and
thimerosal.

The mother we talked to – Lynn Gregor – wants to protect
her kids from swine flu, and she’s thinking about getting
them vaccinated.

“If they don’t get it, I’m going to be really worried all winter.
I’m going to be really concerned.”

But when Gregor hears so many people are opting out of the
vaccine – and that some states actually ban thimerosal most
of the time – she’s not sure what to do.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

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Salmonella Vaccine Coming Soon?

  • While a salmonella vaccine is in the works, researchers don't think it's suited for countries like the United States (Photo courtesy of the Centers for Disease Control)

Researchers are working on a new vaccine to prevent salmonella poisoning. But, Julie Grant reports, the researchers say it probably won’t help us when we’re faced with salmonella tainted tomatoes or alfalfa sprouts:

Transcript

Researchers are working on a new vaccine to prevent salmonella poisoning. But, Julie Grant reports, the researchers say it probably won’t help us when we’re faced with salmonella tainted tomatoes or alfalfa sprouts:

Salmonella poisoning affects about 20-million people worldwide each year and causes 200,000 deaths. A vaccine might sound like a good idea.

Arthur Thompson has been working on one at the Institute of Food Research in England. His group has found that salmonella relies on glucose for its survival. So they’re designing a vaccine to use that against the bacteria.

But Thompson thinks a salmonella vaccine should not be used to solve a problem that industrialized nations can already prevent.

“I don’t think it would be appropriate really, for something like this. I mean, I think in this case, it’s more a case of preventing the contamination in the first place, really.”

Thompson says the vaccine is better suited for people in developing nations where salmonella causes still causes typhoid fever.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

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The Great Vaccination Debate

  • There are parts of the country where up to 20% of families are saying ‘no’ to vaccines. (Photo by Bill Branson, courtesy of the National Cancer Institute)

Babies and young children get a lot more vaccines today than they did ten years ago. To most parents, it’s a chance to protect their children from more diseases. But there are pockets of places where lots of people are opting out of vaccines. Julie Grant reports that it has the Centers for Disease Control concerned:

Transcript

Babies and young children get a lot more vaccines today than they did ten years ago. To most parents, it’s a chance to protect their children from more diseases. But there are pockets of places where lots of people are opting out of vaccines. Julie Grant reports that it has the Centers for Disease Control concerned:

Heather Waltz has a five month old daughter. Most Americans her age have already started a series of vaccinations – to prevent everything from Hepatitis B, to Diphtheria, to Polio.

But Waltz’s little girl isn’t going to get those shots. Her mom worries they could cause things like autism, juvenile diabetes and even cancer.

“I think the jury’s still out, as far as what the research says. But there is enough anecdotal sort of stuff to make me aware and decide that, really, right at this point, vaccinating wasn’t what I wanted to do.”

Waltz is among a small, but growing number of parents who are becoming skeptical of vaccines.

Lance Rodewald is director of immunization services at the Centers for Disease Control.

He says more than 90% of American children are vaccinated. But there are parts of the country where up to 20% of families are saying ‘no’ to vaccines.

“And that’s getting to a rate of lack of protection of children that really can be a fertile ground for the spreading of diseases like measles. And we actually saw that last year.”

In one case last year, Rodewald says a child who wasn’t vaccinated caught the measles in Switzerland and brought it back to Arizona.

“The parents didn’t realize that the child had measles – brought him to the pediatricians office where there were babies that were too young to be vaccinated that got measles. And then that particular outbreak went through four generations of spread, from child to child to child to child before it was able to be contained.”

Measles can cause more than just a nasty rash. In rare cases, it can lead to death. Measles still causes 200,000 deaths around the world. But it’s been almost eradicated in the U.S. because of vaccines.

Rodewald says many parents are concerned about vaccines today because of a ten-year old scientific article that linked the vaccine for measles, mumps and rubella to autism. Rodewald says the science in that article proved to be wrong.

“The authors withdrew their names from the article. But this particular study set off a whole series of concerns about vaccines and autism that, to this day, is still talked about.”

Rodewald says many studies have been done and found no association, no cause and effect, between vaccines and autism.

It’s tough for parents to wade through all the information that’s out there these days. And there are so many vaccines to try to understand. Back in the mid-1990s, children were given 6 vaccines. Today, they’re supposed to get more than twice that many.

Mother Heather Waltz tries to keep up with it all and says she still plans to avoid vaccines.

Waltz: “For every bit of research and every article I find sort of helping me support my point, there’s a million other bits of research and articles saying that I’m a bad parent, or saying that I’m somehow damaging the health of the entire United States by not vaccinating my child. Just this idea that she could be a measles monster and just running around and infecting her classmates with measles or something like that, and that would be a terrible thing.”

Grant: “What do you think when you see that?”

Waltz: “It doesn’t make logical sense to me. Because to me, if you have 30 kids in a classroom, and my one isn’t vaccinated, wouldn’t my child be the one at risk? Not the public’s.”

But even if Waltz’s daughter doesn’t get vaccinated, she’ll probably be safe from these diseases. With so many other kids getting inoculations, most of the U.S. is not fertile ground for them to regain traction.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

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Id Chips for All Livestock

  • These ear tags are becoming a thing of the past as states try out high-tech identification chips. (Photo courtesy of the USDA)

The federal government is phasing in a national identification tracking system for livestock to help trace and curb threats, such as Mad Cow disease and even bio-terrorism. One state is even advancing what it calls micro-chip, injectable social security numbers for livestock. But many farmers worry that Big Brother may be moving into the barn. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Joyce Kryszak reports:

Transcript

The federal government is phasing in a national identification tracking system for livestock to help trace and curb threats, such as Mad Cow disease and even bio-terrorism. One state is even advancing, what it calls micro-chip, injectable social security numbers for livestock. But many farmers worry that Big Brother may be moving into the barn. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Joyce Kryszak reports:


The Gingerich Farm isn’t hard to find. Its fields are speckled with hundreds of black and white Holsteins. Dairy farmer Earl Gingerich Jr. takes us inside one of the barns for a closer look at some of his babies.


“These are a little noisy over here since we just moved ’em. Some of them tend to bellow…”


Gingerich is rather fond of the five hundred cows on his Western New York farm, and he doesn’t mind the hard work that goes along with them. Seven days a week, in good weather and bad. For him, Gingerich says it’s all about the cows.


“When you get up and you see the animals that are in the background and they’re waiting for you to take care of them and they need you, it’s like having a pet around, and taking that animal and yougrow her up to be a full-size, adult animal, you know why you’re doing it.”


So, Gingerich says anything he can do to protect his herd is a good idea. He takes part in the state’s voluntary vaccination program. Bright orange tags, each bearing a bold black number, are evidence of that. They dangle from the cows’ ears as they flick away barn flies while chewing the newest cut of hay.


(Sound of mooing)


But these tags will soon be obsolete. By 2009, the Department of Agriculture’s national animal identification program will require a standardized tracking system for every livestock animal in the United States.


Bruce Akey is an Assistant Veterinarian for New York state. He says the system will be able to trace the movements of animals backwards and forwards.


“Whether they’re sold to someone else on an individual basis, or they go to livestock markets, or go to slaughter plants, or anything like that, those movements can be recorded at those points at which they pass into commerce, and those movements can also be recorded in a national database.”


It’s the integrity of that database that is one major concern for many farmers and their advocates. They say animal rights extremists or terrorists could also get access to the information on the database about farms.


Farmers worry they could learn about chemicals and medicines used at the farm, and use it against them. Dairy farmer Earl Gingerich knows first-hand what can happen. Someone used a batch of antibiotics to contaminate ten thousand pounds of milk on his farm.


“We did have on a recording, which we couldn’t trace, and it said something to the effect of, ‘This should teach you a lesson now.'”


One microchip ID method being advanced in New York and other states is heightening bio-security concerns. The radio frequency chips can are embedded in ear tags or injected under the animals’ skin.


The stored data is read by large panel scanners at auction barns or hand held models, available to anyone. The cost is also still a big question. Maybe a few dollars for each chip and about five thousand dollars for large readers.


Peter Gregg is spokesman for the state’s Farm Bureau. He says they support a national tracking system, but Gregg says the government will have to make it secure – and pay for it.


“You know, we are operating on too slim of margins as it is to be able to pick up the tab for a program like this, and the other aspect is that we would have to make sure that there is protection of private rights.”


State veteranarian Bruce Akey says the government is listening to those concerns. He says they’re working to make the program cost-neutral or at least share costs with farmers. And Akey says Congress is hearing arguments that a private entity, such as a cooperative, should be allowed to manage the database. Advocates say they prefer that to the government being in charge of private information. But Akey says either way, there has to be a dependable way to track animals.


“It may seem a little like 1984, but it’s the state of technology, it’s the state of the marketplace – on both a national and an international scope,” said Akey. “That along with the fact that we now have diseases like Mad Cow disease and other food safety issues that more and more consumers are demanding that we be able to trace these animals and address the source of the problem.”


For now, states are rushing to comply with the first phase of the national ID program. By March of next year, every livestock and poultry farm in the country must be located and assigned a premises identification number. Then, each and every farm creature – be it cow or horse, elk or fish – will get its very own animal social security number.


For the GLRC, I’m Joyce Kryszak.

Related Links

Common Vaccines Contain Toxic Chemical

When you go to get your flu shot, there’s a good chance you’ll also be getting a dose of a toxic chemical. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

When you go to get your flu shot, there’s a good chance you’ll also be getting a dose of a toxic
chemical. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:


Thimerosal long has been used as a preservative in vaccines. But it contains mercury, and mercury
is not good for anyone. In children it can damage intellectual and nervous system
development. The mercury preservative has been removed from many vaccines, but Barbara Loe
Fisher with the National Vaccine Information Center says it’s still used too often.


“We still have it in influenza vaccine, diptheria-tetanus, some hepatitis B vaccines. Those are all
given to children. And there’s a pneumococcal vaccine that’s given to sick children that also has
Thimerosal, so, you know, on any given day a child could get more mercury than they should be
exposed to because the manufacturers just haven’t gotten it out of all the vaccine.”


Loe Fisher says manufacturers can produce the vaccines in single dose vials, eliminating the need
for the preservative, but the pharmaceutical companies have been resistant because it’s cheaper to
produce multi-dose vials with the mercury preservative.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

Horse Disease Spreading?

A form of encephalitis may be killing horses in the northern Great Lakes region. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mary Jo Wagner explains:

Transcript

A form of Encephalitis may be killing horses in the Northern Great Lakes region. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Mary Jo Wagner reports.


Twenty-eight horses with likely cases of “Eastern Equine Encephalitis” have died in Wisconsin in the past few weeks. A national lab has confirmed the disease in one of the horses. It is transmitted by infected mosquitoes. Health officials are concerned about the possible outbreak, because mosquitoes can also transfer the disease to humans where it causes flu-like symptoms — in some cases it can even kill people. So researchers in Minnesota and Wisconsin are trapping mosquitoes to test for the virus. In the meantime, Wisconsin state veterinarian Clarence Siroky says residents in several counties are scrambling to get their horses vaccinated.


“What we’re going to see is less and less horses involved but that doesn’t mean there’s less of a problem out there.”


That’s because, while there is a vaccine for horses, there’s none for humans.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Mary Jo Wagner.

New Vaccine for West Nile Virus?

Researchers might soon have a vaccine to protect birds from the West Nile virus. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

Researchers might soon have a vaccine to protect birds from the West Nile virus. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Lester Graham reports.


The centers for disease control and the U.S. Army are getting help to develop a vaccine for prevention of the mosquito borne West Nile virus. Here in the U.S. in the past couple of years, the virus has been responsible for the deaths of thousands of birds from more than seventy species. Michael Hutchins is with the American Zoo and Aquarium Association. He says research into a vaccine ahs been driven by the need to protect birds in zoos.


“The current studies are to develop an injectable vaccine, but the intention is to try to take that and develop an ingestible variety that could be spread on bird feed and would therefore have a hopefully-big impact on wild birds as well.”


Chicago’s Brookfield Zoo, the Walt Disney Foundation, the Wildlife Conservation Society and the American Bird Conservancy have all contributed to the project. Hutchins says a vaccine could be developed as soon as the next month or so. For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, this is Lester Graham.

Air-Drop Fights Raccoon Disease

Ohio health officials are using airplanes and helicopters in a
battle against raccoon rabies that could affect all states west of their
border. The potentially-fatal disease invaded Ohio from Pennsylvania in
1996. Since then, officials have been air-dropping tons of biscuits
laced with vaccine to try to keep the disease walled off just inside
Ohio’s eastern border. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Bill Cohen
reports: