Flu vaccines for all children

[silverfox]

All two to 17-year-olds in the UK are to be offered annual flu vaccinations...

...The children will be immunised using a nasal spray rather than an injection, starting in 2014 at the earliest.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-18969338

Given the expense of this maybe we should ask the question why, especially as flu is only a minor inconvenience to the majority of healthy children?

Would I be a conspiracy nutter if I queried whether the government knows more than it is telling us? Could it be related to the mutation of bird flu in Asia and the new flu virus found in seals in the US?

I think we should be told

(New flu virus found in seals concerns scientists http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-19055961)

[El Pibe]

Yes.

Vaccine will be of no use against a mutated cross-species strain.

I do tend to agree that it really should be only offered to children with health conditions.

But then 19 healthy kids died in the 2009 pandemic, that's 19 devastated families probably demanding enquiries as to why vaccines weren't offered to kids etc.

In politics the old adage about damned if you do damned if you don't is truer than in most walks of life.

[silverfox]

Who's the say what the vaccine will contain?

[El Pibe]

well it won't contain a vaccine for a hitherto unknown mutation will it.

Or are you suggesting it will contain mind control drugs?

Has New Nexus hacked your account?

[silverfox]

You misunderstand vaccination El Pibe. It exposes you to very mild strains of the very thing it aims to prevent.

[El Pibe]

Ah sorry, too much time exposed to NewNexusitis means my immune response tends to kick in at the merest whiff..

[silverfox]

You're correct in the sense that a general flu vaccine would be ineffective against a specifically mutated strain - hence the fear of a pandemic.

Which again begs the question why? Why is the government proposing a mass vaccination programme? Millions of people have been exposed to the Avian influenza strain H5N1 in Asia and suffer no ill effects so it would only make sense if elements of this strain was included in the vaccine.

[Huguenot]

Surely it's just a political or financial palliative?

Everyone thinks the Tories are cutting disproportionately, so they roll out an apparently expensive white elephant that probably simply resolved an outstanding contractual dispute at low cost.

There may have been a contract signed recently that promised ?xxx expenditure over Y years in return for a supplier discount. Austerity hit, targets were missed, and now we have a a make-good.

Either way, not worth bothering about it.

I don't see why it should need to be anything more than that?

[silverfox]

Good point. That could be the reason

[Huguenot]

Or how about the shelf life of anti-virals is 5 years, need to use it or burn it? Might have bought loads a few years ago.

Dunno - agree it seems a load of old bollards though.

[Marmora Man]

Children do not suffer unduly from flu (despite the 19 deaths quoted above). However, they do make excellent carriers of the virus and, as a result, transmit it into the wide and more vulnerable population. Vaccinating all children is expected to pay off economically and socially by reducing hospitalisations of elderly due to flu (I think but cannot confirm the figure is circa 11,000 fewer) and reducing deaths among the elderly by circa 1,000.

All in all a good idea and neither a conspiracy by New Nexus lizards nor a Tory sop.

[silverfox]

Yes but...

If there were 24,605 schools in January 2010 (figures are for England only) and they have, say, 250 pupils each (6,151,250) plus add Scottish, Welsh and Northern Irish school children plus government projections for an increase in pupils by 2014 plus number of children aged 2 to 4 then you must be looking at at least 8+ million children aged 2 to 17 eligible for flu vaccines in 2014.

That strikes me as a lot of vaccines, a lot of needles/sprayers, Heath service personnel to administer the nasal spray, transport, refrigerated storage etc etc.

Where's the potential savings?

The only justification for such a mass programme would be to minimise the risk of a pandemic to the general population and the H3N3 strain of Seal flu would be one of these potential threats.

The question is then, will the nation's children be oinking, slapping their arms together and balancing balls on their noses after the vaccinations?

http://education.gov.uk/popularquestions/schools/buildings/a005553/how-many-schools-are-there-in-england

[Huguenot]

MM Whilst I agree with the principals of your argument if flu vaccines worked, they don't.

Everybody involved must know this.

[Marmora Man]

Huguenot Wrote:

-------------------------------------------------------

> MM Whilst I agree with the principals of your

> argument if flu vaccines worked, they don't.

>

> Everybody involved must know this.

Hugenot - you must be reading too many conspiracist blogs, I thought better of you. Flu vaccines do work - there are problems, one of which is the lack of "herd immunity", which the programme to vaccinate all children will address and improve.

I can be as cynical as any man, and perhaps more so about health issues as I work inside the sector. However, I do tend to place a high degree of confidence in the medical research behind the Chief Medical officer's flu vaccine plan as do physicians I work with.

[Huguenot]

I appreciate that, but we're talking cross purposes.

The individual vaccines are effective.

The rate of mutation and the vast variety of bugs on call means that the effectiveness against one strain is immaterial.

This one is absolute bollocks.

[New Nexus]

http://www.ecomed.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/3-tomljenovic.pdf

[uncleglen]

The incidence of c.o.p.d. in the population of elderly people that used to smoke heavily is high at present and these people are also at high risk of being hospitalised if they get a chest infection and that is very expensive.

[silverfox]

MM said:

"...I do tend to place a high degree of confidence in the medical research behind the Chief Medical officer's flu vaccine plan as do physicians I work with..."

There's nothing wrong with that MM and generally I would agree with that. (I personally accepted the assurances on MMR)However, sometimes the real purpose is on a 'need to know' basis.

This vaccination proposal is extraordinary. We have a nasty form of TB sweeping this country and the world and there's no mention of a mass vaccination programme. Within living memory TB carries were locked away for the safety of the general population in what were quasi-prisons.

This is not a case of the Chief Medical officer recommending that people have a flu jab because there is a nasty new form of Spanish flu around. The proposal will see all 2-year-old children embark on a 16-year annual flu vaccination programme from 2014.

Why?

(Correction: the strain of Seal flu referred to above should be H3N8. Sorry for the typo)

[Marmora Man]

Silver Fox said "This is not a case of the Chief Medical officer recommending that people have a flu jab because there is a nasty new form of Spanish flu around. The proposal will see all 2-year-old children embark on a 16-year annual flu vaccination programme from 2014.

Why?"

Because the flu vaccine, even over 16 years is estimated to be very, very safe. So the downside is very, very low. The upside is 2,000 lives saved a year and 11,000 hospital cases avoided every year. Socially and financially this makes absolute sense.

I agree that a similar mass vaccination against TB might be a good idea - tho' altho' it is becoming a major problem again it is, at present, only effecting a small and discrete segment of the general population.

[silverfox]

I'm having trouble finding figures for the number of school children in the UK. I've found the following from August 2007 but don't know how authoritative it is:

UK school population: Approx 9.5 million children.

England: 8,200,000

Wales: 494,181

Scotland: 743,561

http://pippaking.blogspot.co.uk/2007/08/how-many-children.html

So if there were 9.5 million in 2007 it's probably a reasonable guess they'll be about 12 million in 2014 at least, especially including 2 to 4 year olds.

So again, how does this make sense financially? Unless there's a different motive for the mass vaccination campaign.

[Burbage]

silverfox Wrote:

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> So again, how does this make sense financially?

> Unless there's a different motive for the mass

> vaccination campaign.

It makes sense financially because children who are vaccinated against the disease aren't going to spread it to more vulnerable people who, as uncleglen pointed out, catch things expensively.

Schools, together with hospitals, act as distribution hubs for infections. The current thinking of our finest medical minds is that it's easier to get kids to stick things up their noses than it is to persuade nurses to get vaccinated.