Scare stories

I find news stories fascinating chiefly because of the different slant each individual reporter puts on the same story. The current panic the public issue is the one of the Swine Flue vaccine carrying what appears to be a very slight risk of Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS). This seems to relate back to the same thing happening in 1976 in America. The facts - as far as I can ascertain them - are that 40 million Americans were vaccinated and about 500 got GBS of whom 25 died. The American government paid out large sums in compensation as might be expected.

The scare stories relate this to the imminent release of the Swine Flu Vaccine because of some supposedly secret letter issued warning doctors to look out for and report any cases of GBS following vaccination. My interpretation of this is that GBS is a pretty rare illness and doctors need to be reminded that they might come across it and to be aware of it as a possible diagnosis.

The less responsible stories highlight the fact that more people died of GBS as a result of the vaccine than died of Swine Flu. Could this just be because 40 million had been vaccinated and therefore probably did not get Swine Flu? No vaccine is 100% safe from what I can find out any more than anything else comes with a 100% guarantee. I have a flu vaccination every year because it seems sensible to do so even though I do know of someone who died as an apparent result of the annual flu jab. It's all about relative risk again - something the media does not report on.

What scares me more than the above is the apparently virulent (and growing) body of public opinion which is rabidly anti vaccination for any disease. The most common reason put forward is that 'vaccines reduce your immune system's ability to fight disease'. My scientific knowledge is not that great but I was under the impression that vaccination shows your immune system what to fight and therefore boosts it. I remember learning at school about Edward Jenner and cowpox/smallpox which ultimately resulted in smallpox being eradicated in this country if not the world.

I'm also concerned at the number of people who believe the Swine Flu vaccination is compulsory. I believe there has to be an Act of Parliament to do something like this as there was in the nineteenth century to make smallpox vaccination compulsory. Currently it is wholly voluntary.

One domestic appliance that is all right and family history

We had our central heating boiler serviced today and I'm glad to say it was given a clean bill of health. The man who does it has just recovered from swine flu. He said that for him it was much like ordinary flu with a few more hallucinations. He says there are quite a few cases in Lincolnshire judging by the queue when his wife went to the hospital to pick up his Tamiflu. He's the first person I've come across who's had it.

I received the birth certificate for my uncle - who I never knew - today. He was born in March 1918. The GRO seem to think I gave them the wrong reference for the death so I am going to have to look at that again. It seemed very odd after being curious about this person all my life to actually see proof of his birth and it definitely is the right person.

Is this really a pandemic?

Flu of any description is very unpleasant as I know from personal experience. certainly the last time I had it I didn't really care whether I recovered or not for about 3 days - which is bad. I can't help feeling the dangers of the swine flu are somewhat exaggerated just as they were with SARS and bird flu. Having lived through a smallpox epidemic - not that I remember much about it except queueing until late in the evening for the vaccination; as well as two serious flu epidemics and the Cuban missile crisis I'm not sure I'm going to lose any sleep over it.

Are a few cases in most of the major countries the criteria for a pandemic? As a percentage of world population the numbers seem trivial at present. Just looked it up in Wikipedia which quotes the World Health Organisation. It has to be a new disease and one that causes serious illness and spreads easily amongst humans. www.wikipedia.com So now we know.