Health officials plan H1N1 flu message – MedCity Morning Read, Sept. 28, 2009

The H1N1 flu vaccine is not yet available, but federal officials already are planning a public-relations response to the deaths and illnesses that inevitably will be reported, according to The New York Times.

The officials “remember how sensational reports of deaths and illnesses derailed the large-scale flu vaccine drive of 1976,” the Times reported. At that time, three elderly Pittsburgh residents died soon after getting flu shots from the same clinic, leading to the suggestion that the vaccine was responsible. But scientists considered it a “freakish coincidence,” the Times said.

Thirty-three years later, officials are figuring out how best to reassure people that the vaccine is not necessarily responsible for events such as heart attacks, strokes, seizures or miscarriages.

The latter is of particular concern to officials, the Times said, because pregnant women are on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s list of people slated to receive the first doses of the vaccine.

“There are about 2,400 miscarriages a day in the U.S.,” said Dr. Jay C. Butler, chief of the swine flu vaccine task force at the CDC, as quoted in the Times. “You’ll see things that would have happened anyway. But the vaccine doesn’t cause miscarriages. It also doesn’t cause auto accidents, but they happen.”

The Times noted that the CDC regularly holds news conferences, updates its Facebook page and Twitter feed and maintains an entire Web site, flu.gov, devoted to the H1N1 pandemic. The agency also plans to track adverse events once the flu shots begin. If an event is associated with the vaccine, the CDC will say so, the Times quoted Butler as saying. “The process will be as transparent as we can make it.”

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• Cleveland stops questionable EMS practice of payments going to official’s suburban home (Cleveland Plain Dealer)
• Burst of technology helps blind to see (New York Times)
• Medical research changes Ky. image (Associated Press)
• Does the Senate health care finance bill require transparency for hospital pricing? (A Happy Hospitalist)
• Will victory on health care reform mean defeat for the Democrats? (Health Care Blog)
• Nonprofit hospitals need to earn their exemptions (Health Beat)