UK Scraps Plans to Vax Children Under 5 for H1N1
Read the full article and comment at PulseToday.
The Department of Health has revealed it is to scrap plans for healthy children under five to continue to be vaccinated against swine flu, just three months after urging GPs to vaccinate more than three million youngsters against the outbreak.
In a major U-Turn, the Chief Medical Officer, Sir Liam Donaldson, revealed the programme of vaccinating healthy children would wrap up at the end of next month, although GPs have been told to continue to try to vaccinate children until then.
Extending the vaccination campaign to children has proved a disappointment, with just 17% of children in England having had the vaccine according to the latest uptake figures.
GP leaders blamed protracted negotiations with the Government, which refused to provide concessions on GP workload via a national deal, for the lack of uptake in a campaign which ended up being launched as a hugely patchwork and bitter set of local arrangements between PCTs and GPs.
The move to scrap child vaccination against swine flu will also be seen as vindication by many GPs, with the majority of respondents to a Pulse poll in December claiming that it was a waste of NHS resources.
A spokesperson for the Department of Health said: ‘The programme was extended to young healthy children because more people in this age group were hospitalised.
‘We want to ensure that the NHS has the opportunity to complete this programme of work so that all children in this age group can have the vaccine if their parents and carers wish.
‘Following advice from JCVI, and given the low levels of swine flu virus circulating, the risk from the virus is lower for young children than the clinical risk groups so we will not be extending that part of the programme beyond the end of March.’
It means GPs have an impossible task of vaccinating more than 2.5 million children in just over a month, with only 518,000 doses having been given to healthy children to date.
Dr Dean Marshall, a GPC negotiator on swine flu, said: ‘I believe the take up of the vaccine among children would have been much greater had we not wasted several weeks in negotiations with the Government which meant the campaign did not get under way until after Christmas, by which time fears over the illness had lessened.'
The Government also revealed that just 32% of all target groups had been vaccinated in England, which confirms Pulse's predictions that the vast majority of GPs will fail to receive reduced thresholds in this year's patient survey, after the GPC's national deal based on vaccination of at risk groups aged between 5-65.
Sir Liam revealed overall figures for vaccination take up were far worse in England than other parts of the UK and elsewhere in Europe, adding: ‘We continue to receive anecdotal accounts of people not being aware of their need and entitlement for vaccination or believing that vaccination clinics are unavailable.
It would be really helpful if you [GPs] were able to check whether awareness and access to the vaccine is high in your practice. That way we can ensure that this important protection is widely in place.’
Thanks guys;
I sent her the link to this article. I hope she gets it.
Posted by: Benedetta | February 23, 2010 at 03:17 PM
Well, of course they don't want the kids to get the vaccine that's already been paid for and stockpiled. They want to make sure they get this year's fresh cash flow version that's to be bundled with the regular flu shot. If the kids got the H1N1 shot now, how on earth would they be convinced to get it again in the autumn? It makes perfect sense, from a greedy pharmaco pov.
Posted by: Garbo | February 23, 2010 at 02:10 PM
To Benedetta, Many links have been observed between Kawasaki and mercury. For example, the symptoms of KD are similar to the symptoms of Pink Disease, a known mercury disorder. Further, KD occurence increased by something like 10 times during the years in which more mercury vaccines were added to the US schedule ( 1985 onwards) In India too, Kawasaki popped up as a common disorder after the Indian Pediatric Association added many more doses of Hib and HepB vaccines to the pediatric schedule (year 2000). Kawasaki was a disorder that would have stayed in Japan, if public health folks in the US had not allowed infants to be given high levels of mercury in vaccines. I suppose one would also have to add that other sources of mercury have also increased in western nations. The answer for the person you mention is that she should ask her doctor for the "insert" of the flu vaccine and she should practise reading it. Once she does that, it will be very easy for her to spot the word "Thimerosal". For any future vaccine, she can ask for the insert in advance and satisfy herself.This is a far better method than trusting doctors to give you a non mercury vaccine. They often really do not know what they are giving. Sorry to make things more complicated still- I believe one should ask oneself if one really wants ones child filled with aluminum. The vaccines that do not contain mercury, often contain aluminum,an element which is both neurotoxic and carcinogenic. I would also recommend that the mother should stop giving her child fish for about a year, to give the child a chance to excrete the mercury currently in the body tissues. She could also look for other possible sources of mercury in her environment- water, air, high fructose corn syrup, etc.- and try to eliminate them.
Posted by: Cherry Sperlin Misra | February 23, 2010 at 12:59 PM
Posted by: Henderson | February 23, 2010 at 12:55 PM
I am glad they are stopping. Personally I thought the h1n1 was all being taken far to seriously since the beginning! Far more people die of the common flu then from the swine flu! I'm not impressed!
Nor was I impressed with how our goverments treated as though it were the new Black Death come to ravage the land it kill off this generation's 70% off the planet! Either there was a large profit motive, or politicans are insane!
Neither suggestion gives me any comfort! This is why I shall skip shots and stick to my Vitamin C! I haven't got sick since I started taking it two years ago! And it's virus free!
Posted by: Darian (nickname) | February 23, 2010 at 11:28 AM
Re: "GP leaders blamed protracted negotiations with the Government, which refused to provide concessions on GP workload via a national deal, for the lack of uptake..."
With only 17% of children being vaccinated, why is there no mention of the possibility of parental concerns being a potential if not major factor in 83% of the children not being vaccinated? Oh No this obvious factor cannot even be mentioned. The GP leaders have to come up with another "plausible explanation" besides the fact that parents are alarmed about these vaccines and don't want to risk getting their children damaged by them.
Posted by: Autism Grandma | February 23, 2010 at 01:11 AM
Doctors in Britain have not been telling their patients to get. The NHS isn't stupid. They pay for all sick people in the country. They do not profit off of sick people. So they are preventing more illness. Where as in the US.... someone profits. I don't know one person who has had the damn shot who hasn't been sick, sicker, or super sick since. There is something wrong with that.
Posted by: maggie | February 22, 2010 at 08:16 PM
Congradulations;
Just read on the Kawasaki's website from a parent from Canada that her child came down with Kawasaki's 10 days after the H1N1 vaccine. She is trying to figure out how she can or should not give her child anymore. From what I have heard Canada but the adjuvant to theirs and there are a lot of health problems have arisen.
Posted by: Benedetta | February 22, 2010 at 05:05 PM
"...the take up of the vaccine among children would have been much greater had we not wasted several weeks in negotiations with the Government which meant the campaign did not get under way until after Christmas, by which time fears over the illness had lessened.'
http://tinyurl.com/ykjojzg
Posted by: Randy | February 22, 2010 at 02:48 PM