For the last 15 years, physician and epidemiologist Tom Jefferson, MD, has made it his mission to conduct extensive reviews of all studies of seasonal influenza vaccines. With colleagues at the Cochrane Collaboration, Dr. Jefferson has co-authored over 10 Cochrane reviews to answer a wide range of questions such as: do these vaccines reduce the chance of getting influenza or reduce the risk of complications, hospitalizations and deaths in elderly people, children, healthy adults and asthmatics? Based in Rome, Italy, Dr. Jefferson has published extensively and is, arguably, the world’s leading authority on the quality of the evidence supporting seasonal influenza vaccines. As we head into winter, the U.S. media is reporting a new, more ominous viral threat that may well become a pandemic. It is, of course, the swine flu, now known as the H1N1 virus or the 2009 H1N1 virus. Dr. Jefferson is interviewed by Maryann Napoli. click here for the rest of the story
Children to be tested with Swine Flu vaccine
The National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases will soon schedule trials of Sanofi-Aventis’ vaccine in children aged 6 months to 17 years old. Vaccine and Treatment Evaluation units are used as the testing grounds. Several universities around the country conduct the tests. Supposedly this summer healthy adults were tested with no overarching problems presenting. The experiment was deemed successful enough that now children can be tested.
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