Concerns raised over swine flu vaccine
London, UK - A warning that the new swine flu is linked to a deadly nerve disease has been sent by the British Government to senior neurologists in a confidential letter.
The letter from the Health Protection Agency, the official body that oversees public health in Great Britain, was leaked to The Mail newspaper in mid-August, 2009, leading to demands to know why the information has not been given to the public before the vaccination of millions of people, including children, begins.
London’s Daily Mail detailed a troubling report in which neurologists are warned to be aware of an increase in a brain disorder called Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS), which is suspected of being triggered by the swine flu vaccine. GBS is a disorder in which the body’s immune system attacks part of the peripheral nervous system, causing paralysis, inability to breathe, and in rare cases has been fatal.
Concerns have already been raised that the new vaccine has not been sufficiently tested and that the effects are unknown.
In 1976 a similar swine flu vaccine in use in the United States was implicated in more deaths from the vaccination than from swine flu itself. That vaccine was thought to have increased the risk of contracting GBS by eight times and was withdrawn after just ten weeks.
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in Atlanta, Georgia, has changed its recommendation for annual seasonal influenza vaccination for children aged 6 months to 18 years to a “full recommendation.”
Only about 40 percent of the U.S. population received a flu vaccine last year. This year the CDC is recommending and emphasizing “an intensification of use” of the vaccine.
