GlaxoSmithKline Pulls Swine Flu Vaccines in Canada

My first surprise in reading this article was the fact that there are different kinds of swine flu vaccine, and being inquisitive by nature, of course wonder why that is?  Are there diverse kinds of swine flu….or is there even a real thing called swine flu?  Are we ingesting vaccines of God only knows what, under the pretext that there is something out there called swine flu that might kill us or make us seriously ill?  Is it coincidental that the timing of this, of getting the vaccine for the swine flu comes around during that time of year when we North Americans are plagued with the good old fashioned ordinary flu?  Do we simply only have the regular flu that hits this time of the year, every year like clockwork?

What’s going on out there folks – and hopefully those who haven’t taken the swine flu shot and see this article – yes posted by US Today – that talks of us here in Canada having a different vaccine to that in the USA – you too will ask yourself some more penetrating and probing questions…and will decide not to take it and suffer through the regular good old fashion flu symptoms that our bodies have learned to ward off year after year!

Again, I ask the question, how many kinds of swine flu are there, that we have different kinds of vaccines?

GlaxoSmithKline pulls swine flu vaccines in Canada

http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2009-11-24-glaxo-flu-vaccine-pull_N.htm

By Rita Rubin, USA TODAY

Drug company GlaxoSmithKline has told Canadian doctors to stop using one lot of its H1N1 vaccine until an investigation into a higher.than.expected number of severe allergic reactions is completed.

“The voluntary hold has no impact on the United States,” company spokeswoman Sarah Alspach said Tuesday. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved GSK’s H1N1 vaccine this month, Alspach said, and the company expects to begin shipping it out in the USA in December. The U.S. vaccine will not be identical to Arepanrix, the GSK H1N1 vaccine used in Canada. Arepanrix contains an adjuvant, a substance designed to boost the immune response, but adjuvants have never been approved for use in U.S. flu vaccines.

Almost all of the 172,000 doses in question, distributed the week of Nov. 2 to six Canadian provinces, already have been administered, said Geoffrey Matthews, a spokeswoman for the
Public Health Agency of Canada, which, with GSK and Health Canada, is investigating cases of anaphylaxis.
On Nov. 18, Matthews said, his agency asked the company to tell the provinces to stop using vaccine from the lot. Symptoms of anaphylaxis include trouble breathing, chest tightness and swelling of the mouth and throat. Six cases have been reported, Matthews says, and all patients have fully recovered from what is a treatable but life.threatening event. Fewer than two cases would usually be expected if every dose in the lot had been administered. Canadians who have received the vaccine and not had an allergic reaction have no reason to worry, Matthews said.
In the USA, the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System said that as of Nov. 13 it had received 116 reports of serious health events related to the vaccine, including eight deaths – similar to the number in previous years after a similar number of seasonal flu vaccine doses had been shipped.