Anti-Swine Flu Vaccination Linked To Increased Risk of Narcolepsy In Young Adults | NanoPatents

Pandemrix is an influenza vaccination, created in 2009 to combat H1N1, known as Swine Flu. Now, a team of Swedish clinicians testing the vaccine for links to immune-related or neurological diseases have linked Pandemrix to an increased risk of narcolepsy in young adults.

Using a population-based prospective cohort study, the team analyzed data from regional vaccination registries and national health registries, covering seven healthcare regions and 61% of the Swedish population.

7 Common Myths About Pandemics and New Diseases | HuffPo

Novel diseases and pandemics have captured our global attention. Yet, for all we hear about them, what do we actually know — or perhaps more accurately, not know about them? Here we dispel common myths about novel diseases and pandemics.

Myth 1. They’re just a public health problem.
Novel diseases and pandemics typically are perceived to fall squarely into the public health realm. Paradoxically, they actually interface with nearly every other sector. For example, they raise major concerns for food production, biosecurity and environmental health. And their implications can be expensive; the costs of SARS to the global economy was estimated by BioERA at >$30-$50 billion, and the past decade of outbreaks has been responsible for hundreds of $US billions in losses.

H3N2v: An emerging swine flu | Various sources

July 27, 2012 – Dozen Symptomatic H3N2v Cases At LaPorte County Fair, Recombinomics

WSBT spoke with several parents off camera who said at least a dozen children who had similar symptoms as the pigs and other sick children were treated at local hospitals and doctor’s offices.

CDC Warns That New Swine Flu Strain Has ‘Pandemic Potential’ – chicagotribune.com

The A(H3N2)v swine flu strain that has infected at least 18 Americans since Sept. 2010 has shown the potential for human-to-human transmission. According to the paper, which was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the H3N2 strains “resemble viruses with pandemic potential.” Terrence Tumpey, one of the authors of the study, says the current seasonal flu vaccine won’t protect against this swine flu strain, although he says the CDC is working on creating a vaccine for swine flu variants such as the one he studied…. go here chicagotribune.com

Farmyard antibiotics linked to superbugs | New Scientist

Dosing livestock with antibiotics can be bad for farmers’ health. A strain of MRSA that causes skin infections and sepsis in farm workers evolved its resistance to antibiotics inside farm animals.  The ST398 strain of MRSA first appeared in 2003 and is prevalent in US livestock. Humans who pick it up from animals can become dangerously ill, but it cannot yet spread from human to human.