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thewayneLet's just lead off with a quote from the article:
"Doctors around the US have anecdotally reported an uptick of children critically ill with the flu developing severe, life-threatening neurological complications, which can be marked by seizures, delirium, hallucinations, decreased consciousness, lethargy, personality changes, and abnormalities in brain imaging."
Yes, it says anecdotally. But when doctors start comparing notes and the notes are all pointing in the same direction, that means something. Additionally, Massachusetts has released a clinician advisory after detecting an uptick in neurological complications in pediatric flu patients.
Unfortunately the time scale is too short to know whether this is recoverable brain damage, a lot of neurological insult is not. This could be long-lasting, if not permanent, damage.
Unfortunately for the way that the USA collects flu data, there's no specific category that tracks this kind of problem unless there's a fatality, so there could be a serious or near fatal problem and it's hard to know about it. Some states do have their own reporting requirements, but it's not a uniform thing.
https://arstechnica.com/health/2025/02/the-flu-may-be-attacking-more-childrens-brains-than-usual-this-year/
And of course, there's more bad news. Next year's flu shot is at risk. But first, let's talk about how the flu shot is planned.
Every year the FDA and the WHO independently have meetings to plan the mix of flu vaccines. They do this early in the year because the production of the vaccines takes about six months. They monitor the southern hemisphere's winter - the northern hemisphere's summer - to see what flu strains happen as those are the ones most likely to travel north and be dominant for the north's flu season upcoming. Experts meet, discuss things, and plan the vaccine.
At least that's how it works in reasonably sane presidential administrations.
The FDA cancelled the spring meeting of the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) that was scheduled to take place in about two weeks time.
The World Health Organization will be meeting tomorrow in London for their discussion, presumably to release this information to northern hemisphere United Nations members. Both the FDA and CDC will be attending.
From the Gizmodo article: "Despite the VRBPAC cancellation, the FDA says that next year’s flu shot will not be in peril.
“The FDA will make public its recommendations to manufacturers in time for updated vaccines to be available for the 2025-2026 influenza season,” an FDA spokesperson told Gizmodo in an email. The agency, however, offered no details as to how its expected recommendations will now be crafted.
The FDA’s decision is the latest move to raise questions about the Trump administration’s commitment to ensuring safe and effective vaccines for Americans. Earlier this month, the federal government abruptly delayed a meeting by the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which helps decide the scheduling and insurance coverage of vaccines."
I'm guessing the FDA vaccine will either be a copy of the WHO vaccine, or it will be made up by the pharma companies that suck up the most to the current administration.
https://gizmodo.com/next-years-flu-shot-in-danger-after-fda-cancels-crucial-meeting-2000569241
"Doctors around the US have anecdotally reported an uptick of children critically ill with the flu developing severe, life-threatening neurological complications, which can be marked by seizures, delirium, hallucinations, decreased consciousness, lethargy, personality changes, and abnormalities in brain imaging."
Yes, it says anecdotally. But when doctors start comparing notes and the notes are all pointing in the same direction, that means something. Additionally, Massachusetts has released a clinician advisory after detecting an uptick in neurological complications in pediatric flu patients.
Unfortunately the time scale is too short to know whether this is recoverable brain damage, a lot of neurological insult is not. This could be long-lasting, if not permanent, damage.
Unfortunately for the way that the USA collects flu data, there's no specific category that tracks this kind of problem unless there's a fatality, so there could be a serious or near fatal problem and it's hard to know about it. Some states do have their own reporting requirements, but it's not a uniform thing.
https://arstechnica.com/health/2025/02/the-flu-may-be-attacking-more-childrens-brains-than-usual-this-year/
And of course, there's more bad news. Next year's flu shot is at risk. But first, let's talk about how the flu shot is planned.
Every year the FDA and the WHO independently have meetings to plan the mix of flu vaccines. They do this early in the year because the production of the vaccines takes about six months. They monitor the southern hemisphere's winter - the northern hemisphere's summer - to see what flu strains happen as those are the ones most likely to travel north and be dominant for the north's flu season upcoming. Experts meet, discuss things, and plan the vaccine.
At least that's how it works in reasonably sane presidential administrations.
The FDA cancelled the spring meeting of the Vaccines and Related Biological Products Advisory Committee (VRBPAC) that was scheduled to take place in about two weeks time.
The World Health Organization will be meeting tomorrow in London for their discussion, presumably to release this information to northern hemisphere United Nations members. Both the FDA and CDC will be attending.
From the Gizmodo article: "Despite the VRBPAC cancellation, the FDA says that next year’s flu shot will not be in peril.
“The FDA will make public its recommendations to manufacturers in time for updated vaccines to be available for the 2025-2026 influenza season,” an FDA spokesperson told Gizmodo in an email. The agency, however, offered no details as to how its expected recommendations will now be crafted.
The FDA’s decision is the latest move to raise questions about the Trump administration’s commitment to ensuring safe and effective vaccines for Americans. Earlier this month, the federal government abruptly delayed a meeting by the CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices (ACIP), which helps decide the scheduling and insurance coverage of vaccines."
I'm guessing the FDA vaccine will either be a copy of the WHO vaccine, or it will be made up by the pharma companies that suck up the most to the current administration.
https://gizmodo.com/next-years-flu-shot-in-danger-after-fda-cancels-crucial-meeting-2000569241
no subject
Date: 2025-02-27 09:35 pm (UTC)Oh that's how it works? In that case, we'll just have ICE meet the virii at the border and send them back to their home countries. Boom, done!
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Date: 2025-02-27 09:40 pm (UTC)Excellent idea! You, my friend, could easily earn a cabinet post with thinking like that! (no insult intended) ;-)
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Date: 2025-02-27 10:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-02-28 10:46 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-02-28 05:39 pm (UTC)Except the American penny has recently been given the boot! They might start running north soon!
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Date: 2025-02-27 09:55 pm (UTC)"Neurotropic vasculitis" and immune damage make people more vulnerable to everything, and influenza is already really bad. It doesn't generally seem as bad as it is because people are mostly dry and warm and fed hereabouts, but as that gets less true you start to see just how bad it is. (The actuarial argument for making flu vaccines widely available after initially making them available to the "vulnerable" was that the benefit to the health care system was much larger than expected. Cutting flu infection numbers matters, it's a lot worse than is generally thought.)
I'm seeing unspecified non-COVID coronavirus outbreaks coming by on the Ontario outbreak tracker; "common cold" coronaviruses do kill people, it's historically very rare but it happens. The immune damage may well be making it less rare.
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Date: 2025-02-27 10:22 pm (UTC)Yeah, there's a non-C19/non-flu virus spreading around, it can be (temporarily) rather debilitating, but not very lethal. It's done quite a number on shutting down schools/districts in ten states down here from sick kids or teachers or bus drivers.
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Date: 2025-02-28 01:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-02-28 03:22 am (UTC)Hopefully it's not lying doggo, waiting to strike again! Very glad to hear that your numbers are pretty much back to normal.
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Date: 2025-02-27 10:39 pm (UTC)I'm also pretty sure that that flu messed with my working memory and started chronic inflammation in my body, though the inflammation could have been triggered by a later flu. My first memory of having an oversized inflammatory response was in 1970, and that problem has never resolved. The memory issues restricted my lifetime income. I have to say that I'm really, really happy with all the research being done around Long Covid because much of it directly helps me.
The fact that people are stupid enough to resist vaccinations is mind boggling.
no subject
Date: 2025-02-28 12:16 am (UTC)The amount of "hey, wait" and the publication of "all that alzheimer's research is unquestionably fraud (because several someones else looked at those mechanisms)" and "this is annoyingly connected" does seem to be a good thing.
Not entirely soon enough, but I'll take what I can get, too.
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Date: 2025-02-28 03:16 am (UTC)A friend of mine now living in Mexico has an overactive immune system, i.e. autoimmune disorder. He lives in the boonies, owns/runs a fairly large lemon orchard. A year or two ago he was scheduled to get a Covid vaccination: the clinic was initially thinking of hospitalizing him overnight to keep an eye on him, instead sent a nurse home with him who spent the night to watch for any adverse reaction. Fortunately he didn't have one. He's very cautious getting vaccinations, but still gets every one he possibly can.
no subject
Date: 2025-02-28 03:21 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-02-28 03:24 am (UTC)Ditto. A monovalent Covid booster I'll run a low-grade fever for the weekend, so I always get them on a Friday after work and just resign myself to feeling sucky for the next couple of days. It was interesting because the one time that I was able to get a multi-valent vax, no fever! IIRC, my second Shingrix booster I felt pretty bad for a couple of days. I've taken to always getting vaccinations on Fridays, just in case.
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Date: 2025-02-28 03:27 am (UTC)Like you I try and make sure I have nothing to do for at least three days.
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Date: 2025-02-28 03:30 am (UTC)I'll never get a double vax! I also always get them in my right arm: aside from sleeping on my left side and being left-handed, there's research that if you always get them in the same arm/butt cheek that you'll build a stronger immune response as you're always stimulating the same T-cells.
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Date: 2025-02-28 04:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-02-27 09:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-02-27 10:23 pm (UTC)ROFL! I remember back in the '90s in Phoenix when we were having semi-annual 100 year floods.
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Date: 2025-02-27 11:57 pm (UTC)The news these days is so disturbing I can't even stay informed without a breakdown.
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Date: 2025-02-28 03:19 am (UTC)I'm sure the EU health org is not relying on data from the USA for their blend. Well, they may take some data for this year's mix with a bit of a jaundiced view, but they'll probably severely discount any future data. Sadly and understandably, many are the scientists exiting the USA for Canada and other places, and I doubt they'll return. I read a story about one company that is entirely relocating its R&D to Canada.
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Date: 2025-02-28 12:47 am (UTC)Hugs, Jon
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Date: 2025-02-28 03:21 am (UTC)We were F'ed the moment the orange shitgibbon was elected, much less when Robert Fucking Kennedy Junior Mints was approved by the Benedict Arnolds in the Senate.
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Date: 2025-02-28 03:27 pm (UTC)And don't even get me started on Susan Collins. She needs to retire. :o
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Date: 2025-02-28 05:46 pm (UTC)I think the Dems have been quiet for two reasons. One, they're in the minority and are pretty much completely impotent. The R's aren't doing much of anything, they passed a budget bill along party lines, that's the only thing that I've heard coming out of Congress in terms of legislation so far this year. Two, the more that all the weird action goes on without their interfering, it's clear it's all Republican activity and more likely to infuriate the R base, to the benefit of the D's. IMO.
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Date: 2025-02-28 11:37 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-03-01 02:17 am (UTC)There have been some Senate Dems who have voted for some of the nominees, but very few. And on several notable occasions, R's voting against the nominees!
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Date: 2025-03-02 01:31 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-03-02 01:55 am (UTC)Mitch voted against RFK Jr, and a couple have voted against others. In one case, there was a 50/50 split which required Mascara Boy to come down for the tie-break and get the nominee in.
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Date: 2025-03-02 02:46 am (UTC)ARGH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Date: 2025-03-02 03:47 am (UTC)He has no more fucks to give: he's not running for re-election. He personally loathes the orange shitgibbon and knows he might have to leave early.
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Date: 2025-03-02 04:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-03-02 05:50 am (UTC)Absolutely!
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Date: 2025-03-01 04:03 am (UTC)These are the kinds of things where you know a lot of people will get hurt, and you wish that the universe were just enough that the people who get hurt are the people who are doing the very stupid stuff.