and see our own jim bow: Analysis of the Pelosi Health Care Reform Bill
As Congress struggles to rein in health care costs as part of its sweeping reform efforts, hospitals in New York City and other urban areas that provide some of the most expensive care are among the primary targets.
Q & A Regarding 2009 H1N1 Influenza Vaccine Supply Why is there less 2009 H1N1 flu vaccine available in October than was expected?
Q & A Regarding 2009 H1N1 Influenza Vaccine Supply
Why is there less 2009 H1N1 flu vaccine available in October than was expected?
26.6 million of a projected 250 million vaccine doses are now available. The rest will be, at a rate of ~40 million a month. You can follow the numbers here.
Decades of safe influenza inoculations mean specialists aren't expecting problems with the swine flu vaccine, because it's made the same way as the regular winter flu vaccine. But systems to track the health of millions of Americans are being tapped to make sure — to spot any rare but real problems quickly, and to explain the inevitable false alarms when common disorders coincide with inoculation. U.S. health officials have spotted no concerns to date, Dr. Bruce Gellin, head of the National Vaccine Program Office, told The Associated Press.
Decades of safe influenza inoculations mean specialists aren't expecting problems with the swine flu vaccine, because it's made the same way as the regular winter flu vaccine. But systems to track the health of millions of Americans are being tapped to make sure — to spot any rare but real problems quickly, and to explain the inevitable false alarms when common disorders coincide with inoculation.
U.S. health officials have spotted no concerns to date, Dr. Bruce Gellin, head of the National Vaccine Program Office, told The Associated Press.
An interview we did last week with Bruce Gellin can be found here. More from Tony Fauci at NIH:
A leading government health figure says tests on millions of people who have received the H1N1 flu vaccine show that it's safe and effective.
Here's the NIAID page:
Initial Results Show Pregnant Women Mount Strong Immune Response To One Dose of 2009 H1N1 Flu Vaccine
The World Health Organization last week recommended one dose of vaccine for all children, but the United States is ignoring that advice. The organization’s primary goal is to make sure that the world’s vaccine supplies stretch as far as possible among the world’s children. It endorses vaccine-stretching adjuvants and favors one dose per child so more children can get one. Federal health officials, by contrast, are trying to make sure that American children are fully protected first. They have also decided not to use adjuvants, even though they think they are safe, because anti-vaccine lobbyists have campaigned against them, calling them dangerous, and officials feared that some Americans would be scared away from being vaccinated.
The World Health Organization last week recommended one dose of vaccine for all children, but the United States is ignoring that advice. The organization’s primary goal is to make sure that the world’s vaccine supplies stretch as far as possible among the world’s children. It endorses vaccine-stretching adjuvants and favors one dose per child so more children can get one.
Federal health officials, by contrast, are trying to make sure that American children are fully protected first. They have also decided not to use adjuvants, even though they think they are safe, because anti-vaccine lobbyists have campaigned against them, calling them dangerous, and officials feared that some Americans would be scared away from being vaccinated.
Also:
One dose of swine flu vaccine protects pregnant women against the flu, but children under 10 still need two doses, federal officials said Monday, announcing further results of clinical trials of the vaccine.
In calling the terms a national model, CNA/NNOC repeated that it continues to hear from nurses at other hospitals across the nation of serious lags in hospital readiness in such major areas as isolating contagious patients, distribution of N-95 masks, re-use of the masks, informing staff when they have been potentially exposed, and training everyone on the best policies and procedures.
This is a moving target, as advice on personal protective equipment changes and equipment shortages plague most hospital systems. Having everyone involved is a good thing.
With the CERN particle physics lab due to start shooting particles around its Large Hadron Collider (LHC) again this month, and the first particle collisions expected in December, anti-LHC campaigners are on the warpath again. A new group calling itself the Committee on CERN Experimental Dangers (ConCERNed) will submit a complaint on 3 November to the human rights committee of the United Nations calling for work with the LHC to be stopped because it threatens life on Earth and so violates the complainants human rights
I figure threatening life on earth counts as "health care". And it just goes to show that nutters are not confined to medical issues.