Clips: H1N1 stories in the news
Anger and confusion over H1N1 vaccine
Seattle Times health reporter Kyung Song today writes about the anger and confusion over the H1N1 flu vaccine shortage and how it’s being distributed.
Song writes:
Take an acute shortage of swine-flu vaccine, two distinct forms of it, plus latitude given by the state to local health officials about how to dole it out — and what do you get? Widespread confusion and anger about who, when and where residents in the Puget Sound area can get protection against swine flu
To learn more:
- Read Kyung Song’s article: A dose of anger, doubt over swine-flu vaccine shortage.
New drug offers hope for patients with severe H1N1 infections
The New York Times highlights the case of Athena Gurno, a 30-year-old Seattle mother, who was treated with an experimental drug after she fell seriously ill with H1N1 influenza.
Gurno was near death when doctors tried the new drug, peramivir, writes New York Times reporter Andrew Pollack. Gurno survived.
Pollack writes:
On Thursday, the federal government ordered, on an emergency basis, 10,000 treatment courses of peramivir for its national stockpile. It is paying $22.5 million, or about $2,250 a patient. Shares of BioCryst rose nearly 13 percent, to $11.39.
Peramivir is given intravenously, making it usable by hospitalized patients who are too ill to take two approved flu drugs that work against the virus in similar ways — Tamiflu by Roche, which is typically given as a pill, or Relenza from GlaxoSmithKline, which is inhaled.
To learn more:
- Read Pollack’s article New Drug for H1N1 Flu Offers Hope.
- Visit the Web site of the manufacturer BioCryst.
Bogus H1N1 treatments abound on the Internet
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration is going after manufacturers and Internet marketers peddling products that they fraudulently claim are effective at preventing or treating H1N1 influenza, writes Leslie Wayne in the New York Times.
The Food and Drug Administration has identified 140 different dubious products sold online and has sent letters to 75 manufacturers. It is violation of federal law to market products that claim to prevent or treat H1N1 and that have not been approved by the F.D.A.
The agency has gone after sellers of gloves, inhalers, masks, shampoos, herbal extracts, air fresheners and an array of vitamins that make claims about fighting swine flu. Some of the Web sites were fly-by-night operations that have since closed down.
To learn more:
- Read Wayne’s article: F.D.A. Fighting False Online Claims About Swine Flu Treatments.
- Read the FDA’s Consumer Update article describing the agency’s effort to halt the sale of these products.
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