Pregnant women refused H1N1 vaccine in Ottawa.

This was on Radio-Canada.

A group of pregnant women in their first trimester who had been waiting for hours in an Ottawa community health centre for the vaccination against H1N1 flu were told to go home. A health care worker told them that the only form of vaccine that they currently had in stock was the type with an adjuvant. The women were told that health authorities had decided NOT to administer this form of the vaccine to women in the first 20 weeks of their pregnancy.

Unfortunately this information was not communicated to media or to front line health care workers who could have determined from a preliminary triage that these women were candidates for the non-adjuvanted form of the vaccine, which won't be available until next month to clinics. I just checked the CBC news site, it still only identifies all "pregnant women" as a priority group.

One wonders how many of these pregnant women will become ill from being exposed - while waiting for hours in a community centre clinic - to a great number of people, contagious with other illnesses.

It would appear that on the Gatineau side of the river, in spite of other confusion, at least that message was clearly provided.

Update: Urgh - some public health officials are waffling about the risks of the adjuvant administered to first-trimester pregnant women, lots of loose talk about balancing danger of getting H1N1 if one has a pre-existing health conditions and the effect it might have on fetal development. More attemps to cover all eventualities and all asses. Urgh.

Body Bags Sent to Manitoba Reserves as Prep for H1N1

This is beyond horrifying. Mere months after federal officials dithered about what public health resources and material support should be provided to Aboriginal Reserves in Manitoba, this happens.

Aboriginal leaders in Manitoba are horrified that some of the reserves hardest hit by swine flu in the spring have received dozens of body bags from Health Canada.

The body bags — which were sent to the remote northern reserves of Wasagamack, St. Theresa Point and Garden Hill — came in a shipment of hand sanitizers and face masks.

Chief Jerry Knott of Wasagamack First Nation said his community's nursing station received about 30 body bags.

"This disturbed our community members and continues to be a major concern. We had asked for funding so we can get organized and to ensure medicines, hand sanitizers and other preventative kits were in place but, instead, we are shocked to receive the body bags," he said. "To me, this is unacceptable and I am demanding an answer.

Stephen Harper's New Conservative Government: incompetent, callous, or both?

Always Look On The (b)Right Side of Life!

Inside the Queensway's Kady O'Malley liveblogs the H1N1 hearing: (Flu) shots all round!

ToeDancer who frequently comments at DAMMIT JANET! and who is a veritable source of wisdom and knowledge spotted this observation from Conservative MP Cathy McLeod cited by O'Malley:

Hey, did you know we were “really lucky to have SARS”? Because we were, according to the Conservative MP up now ... — it allowed us to prepare for *this*. Why, going on that logic, aren’t we lucky to be facing a possible H1N1 outbreak, since you never know when the bubonic plague might make a return appearance?

Oh my. I guess that McLeod felt prodded to speak up, given that MP Carolyn Bennett expressed strong concern about the fact that much of the preparation work was being done via conference call, and asked how well the government is measuring and testing capacity to revise “the plan”, while MP Judy Wasylycia-Leis suggested that the government was putting a “rosy face” on its readiness, but witnesses delegated by native communities were presenting a completely different version of reality, including the startling revelation that some Manitoba communities are being forced to hold fundraising drives for flu kits.

The hearing was concluded by a rousing chorus of "Always Look On The Bright Side of Life" by the members of Stephen Harper's Conservative Government.

Kidding.

H1N1 and pregnant women

One of the many lies that pro-lies zygote zealots continue to maintain as a corollary to their belief in human incubators, is that pregnant women's lives should be sacrificed in order to save The Fetus©™. This belief is based on doctrine that claims men's role is to lead - in the Catholic Church for example - and women's is to breed. This manifests itself in the manner that church patriarchs dealt with the case of the pregnant 9 year old girl in Brazil and the comatose Eluana Englaro. In the US, personhood for The Fetus©™ regulations have run roughshod over the rights of women to life-saving medical care.

Normal people don't feel that way fortunately. As the World Health Organization and various public health and safety organizations consider the next steps in containing the H1N1 virus, pregnant women are discussing their options, in view of the high fatality rate that threatens them in particular.

Every time I see an assurance from health authorities that the H1N1 vaccine will be available in a few months, I develop a little knot of dread in the pit of my stomach. I have a big, scary decision to make soon.

I'm pregnant; the baby's due in January. That puts me in one of the high-risk categories for H1N1, and it also puts me on the priority list for the vaccine when it comes. There are excellent reasons to roll up my sleeve and take the shot. H1N1 is a known, serious risk to pregnant women; many have already fallen ill and died.

My immune system was strong before I became pregnant and I have no respiratory problems, but I know (believe me, I know) that pregnancy changes everything. I can't trust this body to act predictably anymore, not for the next six months anyway.

The trouble is, I also have trouble trusting what medical authorities tell me. It's not that I have some irrational fear of medical science in general. Medical science is great. I just returned from a visit to my new family doctor, and I couldn't be happier to have one after searching for five years. I am grateful to live in a country that doesn't have an epidemic of polio or diphtheria, and I know I can thank vaccines for that. Vaccines are up there with porcelain and the printing press on the list of wonderful, civilization-advancing inventions.

But the thing about vaccines -- and with all medical interventions -- is that every one requires an analysis of risk. In most cases, the risk of an adverse reaction to the vaccine is known and is much lower than the risk of not getting the vaccine.

As one of the priority groups for a new vaccine, though, I'll be a guinea pig, and so will my fetus. I'll need to trust that the medical authorities, who are rushing to get this vaccine into production, have conducted enough research to be sure that the risk from the vaccine is lower than the risk of contracting H1N1 and suffering major complications.

Kate Heartfield has a right to be concerned; Fatiha Idrissi Kaitouni in Montréal who contracted the virus during the last month of her pregnancy died and so did another woman in the US. Their babies survived but neither mother had the chance to hold her child in her arms.

Here's the challenge facing epidemiologists: during pregnancy, many elements of a woman's immunological defense system are suppressed so that her body does not reject the fetus. This makes her more vulnerable if exposed to pathogens.

"If we base it on what we know of the 1918, 1957 pandemics, what we know about pre-existing antibody levels to swine influenza in the population, based on that I would say for this particular virus, pregnant women may suffer more serious consequences, especially in the third trimester," she said. "And they should probably seek care early if they have influenza-like illness."

Studies done after the disastrous 1918 Spanish flu - which took its heaviest toll on young adults - showed astonishing death rates among pregnant women, said Dr. Michael Osterholm, an infectious diseases expert at the University of Minnesota.

Skowronski's review paper suggests there were also very high rates of spontaneous abortions during that pandemic - 26 per cent in pregnant women who became infected and 52 per cent among those who went on to develop pneumonia from their infection.

Osterholm explained pregnancy is a precarious state for a woman from an immunological point of view. In order that the mother's body does not reject the fetus, part of the immune system has to be effectively dialled down.

From here.

Fatiha Idrissi Kaitouni was an early childhood educator. In Québec, some school boards are being pro-active and taking measures to ensure that pregnant teachers and other workers can protect themselves from exposure to the virus, as is their right under provincial regulations.

More to the point, alcohol-based "sanitizers" may promote infection.

Crazy Bitches R Us have been writing about the outbreak of H1N1 on reserves in Manitoba since the possibility emerged in the community of St. Theresa Point First Nation, on June 2nd.

Yesterday A Creative Revolution covered the hand-wringing idiocy around sending alcohol-based sanitizers to the aboriginal communities affected by the outbreak of H1N1.

It turns out though that there may be legitimate concerns regarding alcohol-based sanitizers, the danger they present and the harm they cause, besides the fact they are not as efficient as washing the hands thoroughly with soap and warm water.

Many, many non-Aboriginal children have been rushed to hospitals and treated for alcohol poisoning because they ingested small amounts of sanitizer when they licked their hands.

As well, non-alcoholic sanitizers may be safer, less toxic and more effective. The active ingredient is benzalkonium chloride.

This in no way leaves federal health officials off the hook for the racist assumptions of staff members. Instead of procrastinating and spinning their wheels, why didn't they share their concerns with the Aboriginal and First Nations community leaders?