[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by photon

I didn't find it technically troubled, other scientists evaluated the paper and found it so. Getting published is the beginning, not the end.

For the links, the PDF one seemed very weak to me; it was reported in a psychological journal, not a medical one, and it seemed to depend a lot of self-reporting, almost assuming the vaccine - illness link rather than trying to establish it. If they're trying to establish a medical link, why publish in a psychological journal?

And both are only valid for people deployed in the Gulf War and related to multiple vaccines in a short time, as the first link says:

"Finally, our results should be viewed only in the narrow context of service personnel deployed to the Gulf war. The combination of multiple vaccines before deployment seems safe, and this study provides no evidence that vaccine regimens currently used in civilians are harmful."

My intention wasn't to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that vaccines or adjuvant is harmful, but only that the question is there and debated in the scientific community. People aren't just pulling these issues out of thin air which some people seem to think. I think it's a valid reason to take a wait-and-see approach with this vaccine.

Is 130 too few? I don't know, what's the normal number for a new vaccine? Maybe that's all they ever do? Without more information it's difficult to evaluate the number of 130.

Well, hypathetically speaking, if the adverse side effects appeared 1% of people, that sample size would be too small as there would be a reasonably big chance none of them would get it, or not enough to make it valid.... yet that would be a big enough number to be a concern imo.

Who cares where the scientists were born? That's just an appeal to emotion again.

It's not where they were born, but where they did the study. Every country has certain standards and we don't know if their standards are the same. Did they screen the test subject like we would? I bet most if not all the people getting the vaccine don't know. At least if it was a Canadian study, that information would be more accessible.

I linked to Lchoy's post because he's been providing information from the FAQ provided by the Public Health Agency of Canada.

Well, it's different information than CBC is reporting.

http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2009/...-approval.html

That's the story for virtually all drugs — including vaccines. Yet it took only a few months for Health Canada to give the go ahead to Arepranix H1N1. That's the vaccine GlaxoSmithKline has developed exclusively in the Canadian fight against the swine flu pandemic.

The reason is that Section 30.1 of the Food and Drugs Act gives the minister of health the authority to fast-track a drug, "to deal with a significant risk, direct or indirect, to human health, public safety, or the environment."

GlaxoSmithKline has been making all of Canada's flu vaccines for nearly a decade. Normally, it takes the company about six months to produce a season's flu vaccine - once a particular strain of virus has been identified.

No but the adjuvant has been used elsewhere. To evaluate if having the adjuvant in the flu vaccine posts a significant risk compared with the known vaccine would require more knowledge of biology than I have, and the WHO held consultations to that effect already, and determined that there was no significant safety barriers to testing or implementing the vaccine.

That's great news... but it will be even better news once enough time goes by that we actually know for sure.

I didn't say that you can take it for granted that the same mistakes won't be made. I said that one can't assume that the same mistakes will be made, and to infer that they are making the same mistakes would require evidence to that effect.

Nor can we infer anything else (like that we learned enough from the mistake). But if we're talking about vaccine track records, as most people who are demanding people go out and get it immediately (with no questions asked) are, then you need to bring up the mishaps as well as the successes. The truth is, vaccines in general, have been a great thing... but there is risk. When I see people talking down to others and calling them stupid and selfish for not getting the vaccine, I think it's necessary to point out that the apprehension is based on something real. It's not irrational.