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    <recommendedItem id="20100101_19_414"
                     title="H1N1 Vaccination Still a Good Idea, CDC Says"
                     score="0.014"
                     href="http://www.medpagetoday.com/InfectiousDisease/SwineFlu/tb/18325?impressionId=1265762555056"
                     
      &lt;p&gt;Although pandemic H1N1 influenza activity appears to have leveled off, the CDC remains wary of what the future may hold.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;No states were reporting widespread influenza activity, and only six  --  Alabama, Georgia, Maine, New Jersey, New Mexico, and Virginia  --  were reporting regional activity, Anne Schuchat, MD, director of the CDC&apos;s National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases, told reporters on a conference call today.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Influenza-like activity remained below the baseline level for this time of year for the third straight week, Schuchat said.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&quot;That&apos;s fairly similar to what we would normally see at this time of year with seasonal flu,&quot; she said.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;However, she said that the H1N1 virus continues to circulate, causing severe disease and death in some cases.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Although total activity is down, Schuchat noted that the proportion of deaths attributed to either flu or pneumonia is higher than the epidemic threshold, and has been for the past three weeks. The reasons were unclear, but she said there are no indications that the virus has become more virulent.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;But, she said, &quot;H1N1 vaccination remains a good idea.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The most recent results of the CDC&apos;s National H1N1 Flu Survey revealed that about 70 million people, or 23.4% of Americans, have been vaccinated so far. About 76 million doses of the vaccine have been used because of the requirement that children younger than 10 get two.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;About 37% of children up to age 18 have been vaccinated. For those younger than 10, 37% have received their second dose.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Vaccine supply remains ample, Schuchat said, with about 124 million doses shipped around the country up to this point.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Citing an &quot;unprecedented&quot; effort to monitor safety, she said there have not been any major safety concerns identified.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&quot;So if safety was the reason that you were waiting, I think you can be reassured on that front.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;

    </recommendedItem>
    <recommendedItem id="20100101_19_302"
                     title="WHO Calls H1N1 Response Imperfect"
                     score="0.007"
                     href="http://www.medpagetoday.com/InfectiousDisease/SwineFlu/tb/18165?impressionId=1265762555056"
                     
      &lt;p&gt;The World Health Organization says its response to the H1N1 pandemic could have been better, but was not unduly swayed by drug manufacturers.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&quot;We are under no illusions that this response was the perfect response,&quot; Keiji Fukuda, MD, the agency&apos;s top flu expert, told a hearing being held by the Council of Europe&apos;s health committee.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;But he added, &quot;The influenza pandemic policies and responses recommended and taken by WHO were not improperly influenced by the pharmaceutical industry.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The council&apos;s hearing is a response to criticism by some European politicians, as well as elements of the media, that the danger of the H1N1 pandemic was exaggerated, perhaps to allow drug companies to score multimillion-dollar contracts for vaccines and antivirals.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;In North America, many experts defended the response to the outbreak, which WHO last April declared a phase six pandemic  --  the highest level. The phases reflect that an infectious agent is widely spread and causing disease in the community, but they say nothing about the severity of the disease.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&quot;I do not believe that the record supports the claim that health officials in the U.S. or WHO exaggerated the threat,&quot; said Andy Pavia, MD, of the University of Utah in Salt Lake City.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Pavia said in an e-mail that health officials had a choice  --  to assume the threat was minor or to react strongly.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&quot;The choice is obvious,&quot; Pavia said, &quot;and I would not want to be in a position of explaining to the families of victims why we planned for the mildest outcome.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;For the most part, illness caused by the disease has been mild, although several thousand people have died around the world and many more were sick enough to require intensive care.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;But the relatively low number of deaths has prompted Wolfgang Wodarg, MD, a German member of the council&apos;s Parliamentary Assembly, to dub the outbreak a &quot;false pandemic&quot; and call for this week&apos;s hearing.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&quot;What we have experienced now is that millions of people have been vaccinated unnecessarily,&quot; Wodarg said. &quot;This is damage done to people, in order to earn money.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Fukuda, on the other hand, said today the pandemic &quot;is a scientifically well-documented event.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&quot;The labeling of the pandemic as &quot;fake&quot; is to ignore recent history and science,&quot; he said, &quot;and to trivialize the deaths of over 14,000 people and the many additional serious illnesses experienced by others.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Utah&apos;s Pavia echoed that sentiment. Ask any front-line doctor if the H1N1 flu was mild, he said, &quot;and prepare to get your head handed to you.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;One of them was Daniel Hinthorn, MD, of the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City, Kan. &quot;As a physician who saw many patients with this disease, I believe it was very serious in many people,&quot; he wrote in an e-mail. &quot;The threat was not exaggerated, at least to my mind.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Even last month, as flu activity in the U.S. declined, he said his hospital treated 11 inpatients for the flu, including six in intensive care, while &quot;lots of others&quot; were being seen in emergency wards and clinics.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;On the other hand, to say the threat was exaggerated &quot;is merely to say the obvious,&quot; argued Philip Alcabes, PhD, of City University of New York City. By the time a vaccine was available, &quot;this outbreak was far less serious than feared,&quot; he said in an e-mail.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;But &quot;reality-based skepticism about swine flu&quot; doesn&apos;t mean that people would refuse immunization  --  not if an outbreak was a real public danger, caused by a &quot;highly transmissible agent, likely to be virulent, highly preventable with reliably effective vaccine.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;He warned that public health professionals must avoid &quot;falling in love with the most dire forecast and then pushing high-tech precautions against the worst-case scenario.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;When that happens, &quot;people have to be excused for wondering whether the officials, the media, and the pharmaceutical companies were in cahoots on swine flu,&quot; he said.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;But several experts argued that preparing for a worst-case scenario was the responsible thing to do.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Sometimes, &quot;mother nature throws us a break,&quot; argued Howard Markel, MD, PhD, of the University of Michigan in Ann Arbor.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&quot;We responded to a threat without knowing the future,&quot; he said in an e-mail. &quot;A far worse outcome might have occurred if we did not take the threat seriously and H1N1 turned out to be worse than we initially predicted.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The public health response should be compared to the use of seat belts or auto insurance, according to Gregory Poland, MD, of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minn.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Every day, he said in an e-mail, he puts on his seat belt before driving. &quot;I don&apos;t finish each day and say &apos;What a waste, I didn&apos;t have an accident,&apos;&quot; he said.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&quot;It is (and remains) unpredictable as to whether this virus could further mutate or change in a manner such that it could literally turn deadly within weeks,&quot; he said. &quot;If this pandemic had been deadly (and you don&apos;t know until you are into it) and we weren&apos;t prepared, the criticism would have been overwhelming.&quot; Poland said.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;He and others also noted that the flu season isn&apos;t over yet.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&quot;This argument should be taking place at the end of the flu season in late March, not now,&quot; said Peter Katona, MD, of the University of California Los Angeles. &quot;Flu is unpredictable, and this is the heart of the argument.&quot;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;&lt;em&gt;This article was developed in collaboration with ABC News. &lt;/em&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;http://www.medpagetoday.com/upload/2009/10/1/14357_1.jpg&quot; mce_src=&quot;http://www.medpagetoday.com/upload/2009/10/1/14357_1.jpg&quot; alt=&quot;&quot;&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
    </recommendedItem>
    <recommendedItem id="20100101_19_160"
                     title="CDC Says 20% of Americans Got H1N1 Flu Shot"
                     score="-0.004"
                     href="http://www.medpagetoday.com/InfectiousDisease/SwineFlu/tb/17990?impressionId=1265762555056"
                     
      &lt;p&gt;As 2009 ended, an estimated 55 million Americans had been infected with the H1N1 pandemic flu and roughly one in five Americans had been vaccinated against the disease, the CDC said.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The immunization data works out to about 61 million people, the agency said in an early release issue of &lt;em&gt;Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report&lt;/em&gt;.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The proportion of people vaccinated was higher among those in priority groups, the agency said, including 29.4% of children ages 6 months through 18 years and 38% of pregnant women.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;At the same time, the CDC issued new estimates of the toll taken by the pandemic virus since the outbreak began last April: &lt;ul&gt; &lt;li&gt;About 55 million people had been infected up to Dec. 12, although the estimates ranged from 39 million to as high as 80 million.&lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;About 246,000 needed inpatient care, although the number ranged from 173,000 to 362,000. &lt;/li&gt; &lt;li&gt;And about 11,160 died, with the estimate ranging from 7,880 to 16,460.&lt;/li&gt; &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The vaccination findings are based on two surveys  --  the National 2009 H1N1 Flu Survey and the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System survey, which took place from Dec. 27 to Jan. 2 and from Dec. 1 to 27, respectively.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;Because vaccine was expected to be in short supply at the beginning, the CDC established initial target groups, including pregnant women, people living with or caring for infants under 6 months, healthcare and emergency medical services personnel, children and young adults, and adults with certain medical conditions.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The CDC estimated that 27.9% of those people got vaccinated.&lt;/p&gt;
&lt;p&gt;The agency said the vaccine supply is now &quot;ample&quot; and efforts to promote general vaccination should continue.&lt;/p&gt;

    </recommendedItem>
    <recommendedItem id="20090101_19_1270"
                     title="Obama Says Swine Flu Outbreak is &apos;Not a Cause for Alarm&apos;"
                     score="-0.005"
                     href="http://www.medpagetoday.com/InfectiousDisease/URItheFlu/tb/13909?impressionId=1265762555056"
                     
       WASHINGTON, April 27 -- President Barack Obama said Monday that the emerging cases of swine flu are a &quot;cause for concern,&quot; but &quot;not a cause for alarm.&quot; 
              &lt;p&gt; 
              &lt;p&gt;The President delivered brief remarks about swine flu during a prescheduled address to members of the National Academy of Sciences here in Washington.
              &lt;p&gt; 
              &lt;p&gt;The World Health Organization is reporting there are now 40 confirmed cases of swine flu in the U.S. American health officials could not immediately be reached for comment, but the CDC has scheduled a 1 p.m. EDT press briefing.&lt;p&gt;&lt;p&gt;Most of Obama&apos;s speech dealt with his promise of an &quot;historic commitment to science,&quot; and he focused only briefly on swine flu, saying &quot;If there was ever a day that reminded us of our shared stake in science and research, it&apos;s today.&quot; 
              &lt;p&gt; 
              &lt;p&gt;The number of confirmed cases of swine flu grew from two U.S. cases to 20 in less than a week.
              &lt;p&gt; 
              &lt;p&gt;The CDC confirmed eight cases in New York, seven in California, two in Texas, two in Kansas, and one in Ohio.
              &lt;p&gt; 
              &lt;p&gt;&quot;I&apos;m getting regular updates on the situation from the responsible agencies, and the Department of Health and Human Services as well as the Centers for Disease Control will be offering regular updates to the American people so that they know what steps are being taken and what steps they may need to take,&quot; he said. 
               &lt;p&gt;
              &lt;p&gt;Meanwhile, in Canada, officials are reporting six confirmed cases of swine flu -- four high school students in Nova Scotia and two young men in British Columbia, on the country&apos;s west coast. The cases -- all linked to Mexican travel -- were reportedly mild and all the patients are recovering. None of the patients required hospital care.
               &lt;p&gt;
              &lt;p&gt;Despite that, &quot;nobody should take this for granted in any way,&quot; said David Butler-Jones, M.D., Canada&apos;s chief public health officer. &quot;It doesn&apos;t mean we won&apos;t see either more severe illness or more potential deaths,&quot; he told a news conference Sunday.
              &lt;p&gt;
             &lt;p&gt;Indeed, the outbreak is only in its early stages &quot;and there is a lot more unknown than is known,&quot; said Frank Plummer, M.D., the scientific director general of Canada&apos;s National Microbiology Laboratory in Winnipeg, which has done much of the testing of the virus for Mexico.
             &lt;p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.medpagetoday.com/InfectiousDisease/SwineFlu/&quot; title=&quot;Swine Flu Coverage&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;/images/swine.jpg&quot; border=&quot;0&quot;&gt;
    </recommendedItem>
    <recommendedItem id="20090101_19_1278"
                     title="Extra Testing Doubles Swine Flu Cases"
                     score="-0.005"
                     href="http://www.medpagetoday.com/InfectiousDisease/SwineFlu/tb/13916?impressionId=1265762555056"
                     
      TORONTO, April 27 -- Although the number of confirmed cases of swine flu in the U.S. has doubled, the CDC is cautioning that the increase does not mean the disease is spreading.
              &lt;p&gt; 
              &lt;p&gt;The number of confirmed cases rose to 40 from 20 today after additional testing of students at a New York city prep school, according to Richard Besser, M.D., acting director of the agency.
              &lt;p&gt; 
              &lt;p&gt;All 20 of the newly confirmed cases were among students at the school, he said in a telephone press conference, and, outside of that, the situation in the U.S. has not changed.
              &lt;p&gt; 
              &lt;p&gt;&quot;The increase really reflects additional testing in that group and not an ongoing spread,&quot; Dr. Besser said.
              &lt;p&gt; 
              &lt;p&gt;Of the 40 cases, only one person required hospital care and all have now recovered, Dr. Besser said. 
              &lt;p&gt; 
              &lt;p&gt;That&apos;s a sharp contrast to the situation in Mexico -- the apparent starting point of the outbreak -- where officials are blaming about 100 deaths on the swine flu.
              &lt;p&gt; 
              &lt;p&gt;But, Dr. Besser said, &quot;I wouldn&apos;t rest on the fact that we have only seen cases in this country that are less severe. As we continue to look, I expect we will see additional cases, and I expect that the spectrum of disease will expand.&quot;
              &lt;p&gt; 
              &lt;p&gt;Dr. Besser said the CDC is creating a &quot;seed stock&quot; -- using the circulating swine flu strain -- that could be used to create a vaccine if it&apos;s decided one is needed.
              &lt;p&gt; 
              &lt;p&gt;But he said such a step is not easy and involves &quot;tradeoffs,&quot; such as looking at next year&apos;s seasonal vaccine and deciding whether to include this strain or some other type.
              &lt;p&gt; 
              &lt;p&gt;&quot;Those discussions are under way, so that if we decide to manufacture a vaccine we&apos;d be ready to start that process,&quot; he said.
              &lt;p&gt; 
              &lt;p&gt;He added that the current flu vaccine does not seem to be effective against the swine flu.
              &lt;p&gt; 
              &lt;p&gt;Dr. Besser said it&apos;s still not clear where or how the swine flu started. Influenza is endemic in pigs and is usually associated -- in the animals -- with relatively high morbidity and relatively low mortality.
              &lt;p&gt; 
              &lt;p&gt;The CDC is working with the U.S. Department of Agriculture and Mexican authorities to find epidemiological links between human cases and possible exposure to pigs.
              &lt;p&gt; 
              &lt;p&gt;&quot;We&apos;re not finding that linkage here,&quot; he said.
              &lt;p&gt; 
              &lt;p&gt;The World Health Organization was debating today whether to raise its pandemic threat level, currently set at three on a six-point scale. But Dr. Besser said that WHO&apos;s actions on the matter won&apos;t affect the U.S. response to the outbreak.
              &lt;p&gt; 
              &lt;p&gt;&quot;It really doesn&apos;t matter from our perspective what you call this,&quot; he said. &quot;Our actions are based on what&apos;s happening in our country and our communities.&quot;
              &lt;p&gt; 
              &lt;p&gt;In phase three, according to WHO, a virus has been able to jump from animals to people and cause small outbreaks. In phase four, there is sustained human-to-human transmission.
              &lt;p&gt; 
              &lt;p&gt;But stepping up one phase, Dr. Besser said, &quot;would not change anything that we are currently doing.&quot;
              &lt;p&gt; 
              &lt;p&gt;Dr. Besser said any public concern that pork products might be unsafe is unfounded. He said consumers should cook the meat well to avoid other possible infectious disease, but swine flu can&apos;t be transmitted by eating pork.
              &lt;p&gt; 
              &lt;p&gt;In other developments:
              &lt;p&gt; 
              &lt;ul&gt;
                &lt;li&gt;The CDC will be distributing yellow cards at U.S. ports of entry, informing travelers of the symptoms of the flu and giving them advice on what they should do if they feel ill.
                &lt;li&gt;The agency is issuing a travel advisory, suggesting that nonessential travel to Mexico should be avoided. The advisory will also include precautions travelers should take if they are obliged to travel south of the border.
                &lt;li&gt;Under the federal public health emergency, the agency is releasing 11 million courses of antiviral drugs to three states -- California, New York, and Texas.
              &lt;/ul&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;p&gt;&lt;a href=&quot;http://www.medpagetoday.com/InfectiousDisease/SwineFlu/&quot; title=&quot;Swine Flu Coverage&quot;&gt;&lt;img src=&quot;/images/swine.jpg&quot; border=&quot;0&quot;&gt;
          
    </recommendedItem>
</recommendedContent>
