Vaccine to cure every type of flu

[Indy]

The vaccine to prevent every strain of flu
by FIONA MacRAE

Last updated at 09:08am on 29th December 2006

Described as the 'holy grail' of flu vaccines, it would protect against all strains of influenza A - the virus behind both bird flu and the nastiest outbreaks of winter flu.

Just a couple of injections could give long-lasting immunity - unlike the current vaccine which has to be given every year.

The brainchild of scientists at Cambridge biotech firm Acambis, working with Belgian researchers, the vaccine will be tested on humans for the first time in the next few months.

A similar universal flu vaccine, being developed by Swiss vaccine firm Cytos Biotechnology, could also be tested on people in 2007 - and the vaccines on the market in around five years.

Importantly, the vaccines would also be quicker and easier to make than the traditional jabs, meaning vast quantities could be stockpiled against a global outbreak of bird flu...MORE HERE (http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/health/healthmain.html?in_article_id=425227&in_page_id=1774)


Wow. This would really be a huge breakthrough in our fighting off viruses. I wouldn't want to be one of their human guinea pigs tho. :para

[Phoenix]

That would be awesome. It would have to be studied a long time before I would be interested, though.

[cassandra]

I would not be interested. I currently do not use flu shots and think that more haneous strains will occur because of this.

[Indy]

What is the flu?

The flu is a contagious respiratory illness caused by influenza viruses. It can cause mild to severe illness, and at times can lead to death. The best way to prevent this illness is by getting a flu vaccination.

Every year in the United States , on average:

5% to 20% of the population gets the flu;

more than 200,000 people are hospitalized from flu complications, and;

about 36,000 people die from flu.

Some people, such as older people, young children, and people with certain health conditions, are at high risk for serious flu complications.



LINK (http://www.health.state.ny.us/diseases/communicable/influenza/fact_sheet.htm)


I wonder if people felt the same way about the polio vaccine when it first came out? Once the drug is proven safe, it could potentially save millions of lives world wide.

[Phoenix]

I just need 1 kid with 1 bout of vomiting and I am all for preventing another event. :para

[Indy]

:bump

[Kurtz]

This is the year I quit flu vaccinations:
1976: Fear of a great plague
By PAUL MICKLE
On the cold afternoon of February 5, 1976, an Army recruit told his drill instructor at Fort Dix that he felt tired and weak but not sick enough to see military medics or skip a big training hike.

Within 24 hours, 19-year-old Pvt. David Lewis of Ashley Falls, Mass., was dead, killed by an influenza not seen since the plague of 1918-19, which took 500,000 American lives and 20 million worldwide.

Two weeks after the recruit's death, health officials disclosed to America that something called "swine flu" had killed Lewis and hospitalized four of his fellow soldiers at the Army base in Burlington County.

The ominous name of the flu alone was enough to touch off civilian fear of an epidemic. And government doctors knew from tests hastily conducted at Dix after Lewis' death that 500 soldiers had caught swine flu without falling ill.

Any flu able to reach that many people so fast was capable of becoming another worldwide plague, the doctors warned, raising these questions:

Does America mobilize for mass inoculations in time to have everybody ready for the next flu season? Or should the country wait to see if the new virus would, as they often do, get stronger to hit harder in the second year?

Thus was born what would become known to some medical historians as a fiasco and to others as perhaps the finest hour of America's public health bureaucracy.

Only young Lewis died from the swine flu itself in 1976. But as the critics are quick to point out, hundreds of Americans were killed or seriously injured by the inoculation the government gave them to stave off the virus.
more at:
http://www.capitalcentury.com/1976.html

[April15]

On this earth humans share the world with many life forms. Some friendly and some not. When the immune system is not kept working by staveing off virus's and bacteria that are harmfull we get immunodefiecent. Give me the bugs and the hell with every virus or bacteria.