[Bagor]

Originally Posted by drewboy12

also if they actually didn't think this was serious governments wouldn't be spending Billions on it to give out free shots.

Unless you're the Germans then you give the public one and yourselves a different one.

Just a week after it emerged that the German armed forces was getting a different kind of A/H1N1 vaccine to the general population, Der Spiegel magazine reports that the government will also get special treatment.

The general population will be offered the GlaxoSmithKline vaccine, called Pandemrix, which contains a new booster element, or adjuvant, as well as a preservative containing mercury.

Controversy has grown around the rapid licensing of the GSK vaccine – and a similar one being made by Novartis. Critics said not enough testing had been conducted before European licensing authorities rushed an approval.

Chancellor Angela Merkel, her cabinet members and ministry civil servants as well as those working for other agencies will get Celvapan, produced by US firm Baxter, which does not have the adjuvant or the preservative, according to Der Spiegel.

Originally Posted by Rhettzky

I dunno, seems like heresay. There are 10 million healthy people in Europe that have been vaccinated and the base of the vaccine has been around for many years. The adjuvant additive bothered me a little at first because I thought there was a lack of research, but the more I looked into it and the more health professionals I talked to, the faster I realized that there was really no reason to be concerned.

From the same article:

Meanwhile some medical associations are advising their members not to administer the new vaccine. President of the German Association of General and Family Medicine, Michael Kochen, has called on German general doctors not to give it to patients. “The risks outweigh the benefits,” he said.

Wolfram Hartmann, president of the Association of Paediatricians, accused the government of making false scientific statements. He said children under the age of three should not be given the shots.

http://www.thelocal.de/national/20091018-22649.html