Experts find swine flu vaccines safe
POSTED October 19, 2009 - 10:18 | POSTED BY Kangna Agarwal
Last edited by Harpreet Bhagrath on October 19, 2009 - 13:10
They maintain that the vaccine "is the absolute best protection and a perfectly safe one".
“We've been baking this bread for 60 years, and we're pretty good at it, buddy," said Kenneth Alexander, an infectious disease expert at the University of Chicago.
"A lot misinformation is being brought up and spread around," said Jesse Goodman, the Food and Drug Administration’s, (FDA) acting deputy commissioner for public health. "We think it is important to have the actual facts laid out and let people make their own decisions."
Thimerosal behind anti-vaccine doubts
The anti-vaccine activists have largely been raising questions about an ingredient present in the vaccine called thimerosal, a preservative added in very small amounts to prevent the vaccine from deteriorating.
They allege that the preservative is highly toxic and can cause autism and other neurological disorders.
However, the researchers maintained that the preservative poses absolutely no harm as very little quantity of the same is added in the vaccine. Also, nasal spray doses do not contain thimerosal, they informed.
Critics also suspect that the vaccine contains "adjuvants"--compounds that stimulate the immune system and increase the response to a vaccine.
However, Anne Schuchat, director of immunization and respiratory diseases, Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), U.S., has confirmed that such practice is not followed in the United States.
Swine flu vaccines undergo further trial
At present, both arm-shot vaccine and the nasal spray doses are being tested on new volunteers by the five U.S. pharmaceutical firms-- CSL Limited, Novartis Vaccines, Sanofi-Pasteur Inc., GlaxoSmithKline and MedImmune, which are licensed to make up to 250 million doses of the vaccine by next spring for the U.S. market.
"It is tested to see if it produces the level of antibody production in the blood that reaches the FDA standard," said William Schaffner, an infectious-disease specialist at Vanderbilt Univeristy, Nashville, Tennessee, United States. "It is also tested for safety in the volunteers, something I know a little bit about since I was one of the volunteers for this vaccine."
In order to reassure the people and the critics, the FDA has even posted the contents of the vaccines produced by these five companies, including the ingredients, on its website last week.
The World Health Organization (WHO) has also substantiated the fact that the H1N1 flu vaccine is safe, calling it the most important protection against the pandemic flu.
