Go to my new blog, focussed solely on homeschooling, learning, and family life: www.educatingrisa.com. I feel I’ve rather lost the plot of this blog with the whole Swine Flu tangent, but so many people have let me know how helpful they’ve found it I want to keep it available. This blog is now retired (though I may rant here again if something gets under my skin!). Hope to see you at my new blog!

While the journey and research into H1N1 has been quite interesting for me, it’s time for me to move on from this topic and get back to my real life (Happy birthday honey! You get your wife back!). So I thought I’d leave you with a few final thoughts I have about swine flu. Analogies One of the main ways both the public and the media have tried to make sense of swine flu is through analogies, or comparisons. We’ve got H1N1 compared to seasonal flu; swine flu 2009 to swine flu 1976 (or 1957 or 1918)....

After noticing a rate of severe allergic reactions higher than expected (1 in 20,000 vaccinations rather than the expected 1 in 100,000 vaccinations) GSK has asked provincial governments using vaccine from one particular lot shipment to stop using it. I am pleased to see the company taking this seriously and monitoring for statistically anomalies post-vaccination. Details here. See also here.

An interesting study was released today, looking at 58 children admitted to Toronto’s Sick Kids Hospital between May and July 2009 with severe H1N1, compared with 200 kids admitted for seasonal flu between 2004 and 2009. Details in this article here. Here’s the things that stood out to me: Every year, Sick Kids admits about 40 children with seasonal flu. With 58 admitted for H1N1 to the end of July, this number will be far higher this year with H1N1, as the second wave numbers (ongoing right now) which are higher than July’s are not included. 22%...

Interesting piece in the National Post today, very much along the lines of what I have been advocating and trying to do on this blog. It’s from Joe Schwarz, and titled “An Injection of H1N1 Reason.” You can read his op ed piece here, and below I’ve included my response.  Excellent post! I have been blogging on this very topic, and there's a few things I have to add. 1- When reading anti-vac folks (or anyone else), I recommend you click on links provided or look up studies referenced. By doing so and reading original sources I...

I’ve been asked this question a lot. Here is what Andre Picard, health reporter for Canada’s Globe and Mail newspaper, had to say in his column The Daily H1N1 Question. Tuesday, Nov. 10 Today, we a number of related questions: Q: Is it true that I can’t sue if the swine flu vaccine makes me sick or kills me? Q: I’ve read some pretty frightening things about vaccines on the Internet. How many people do they actually kill? Q: I read that in the U.S. vaccine makers can’t be sued. Is that...

I’m puzzling over the status of H1N1 here in Alberta. We’re clearly in the “second wave” here, with sharp rises in hospitalizations, ICU admissions and deaths in the past 2 weeks or so. The current lab-confirmed stats for Alberta say there have been 25 H1N1 deaths here (as of November 9): http://www.health.alberta.ca/health-info/influenza-H1N1-cases.html On the one hand, given the many media sources saying “Canada has 2000-4000 deaths from seasonal flu annually” (or 2000-8000, or 4000-8000, or….I’ve seen several different estimates, but all in this range), and given that Alberta has about 10% of Canada’s population, I’d expect 200-800 deaths...

I quite like this map from the Globe and Mail, as it gives the stats on hospitalizations, ICU admissions and deaths from lab-confirmed H1N1 in the different provinces and territories, as well as for Canada as a whole. I particularly like that it gives both the raw numbers, as well as ‘how many per million’—by hovering my mouse over Alberta, I can see how any per million in my province are being put in ICU for confirmed H1N1, for example. The data is current to October 31, and is updated weekly after FluWatch Canada publishes its cumulative weekly report. For...

In my previous blogpost I discussed an argument I have seen given by many on the conspiracy/anti-vaccination side, and here I’m going to discuss another. But let me clarify—though I am taking these particular arguments to task, I am NOT pro-vaccination. I am not anti-vaccination either. I am trying my best (and no doubt falling short at times) to offer ways for you to make sense of the overwhelming stream of info coming at us about H1N1, and—as always—leaving your family’s health care decisions up to you. Perhaps you’ve seen charts of pediatric deaths from flu like this...

The latest CDC data  (thru Oct. 24) says that there have been 114 pediatric deaths from H1N1, a number higher than normal for flu. At the same time, there are a number of blogs, news reports and so on trying to convince us that H1N1 is either (a) some kind of giant conspiracy or (b) being blown out of proportion, and they make arguments like this : H1N1 is really no big deal for kids. There’s only been 74 pediatric deaths so far this flu season—last flu season there were 117! Some even provide support for this...