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    Topical cautionary tales

    Jamboree
    Jamboree
    Jamboree

    • Post n°1

    Topical cautionary tales Empty Topical cautionary tales

    Post by Jamboree Fri 18 Sep 2020, 00:32

    Some topical cautionary tales from The Telegraph.

    Take note -- as world leaders compete in the COVID vaccine race.





    Cautionary tales



    1955 - The ‘Cutter incident’

    The US government unveiled a new polio vaccine, vaccinating 200,000 children, but a batch from Cutter Laboratories accidentally contained live polio virus.
    According to Dr Howard Markel, a US paediatrician and history of medicine professor in America, 40,000 children contracted polio, several hundred were paralysed, and ten died. Some blame point to the horrifying incident as this century's driver for a growing hesitancy around vaccines globally.

    1976 - Fort Dix flu

    Hundreds of soldiers at the US military base Fort Dix contracted a new swine flu strain, and there were epidemic warnings.  President Gerald Ford – facing an election – fast-tracked a vaccine for mass innoculation, and 45 million Americans got the jab.
    Of those vaccinated, 450 developed the paralyzing Guillain-Barré syndrome, with 30 deaths. Meanwhile the flu strain never made it out of the base, and only one soldier died. 

    2009-10 - Swine flu and Pandemrix

    The Pandemrix vaccine was given to six million people in the UK, to high risk groups, including children. It had been granted speedy approval by the EMA.
    But clinicians saw a rise in cases of narcolepsy, or sleeping sickness, and a UK Health Protection Agency (now Public Health England) study among 4-18 year olds later found that one in every 55,000 jabs had led to narcolepsy.


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