WASHINGTON — Independent health advisers begin monitoring the safety of the swine-flu vaccine today, an extra step the government promised in this year’s unprecedented program to watch for possible side effects.
Decades of safe influenza inoculations mean specialists aren’t expecting problems, because the H1N1 vaccine is made the same way as the regular winter flu vaccine. But systems to track the health of millions of Americans are being tapped to make sure — to spot any rare but real problems quickly and to explain the inevitable false alarms when common disorders coincide with inoculation.
U.S. health officials have spotted no concerns to date, Dr. Bruce Gellin, head of the National Vaccine Program Office, told The Associated Press.
A specially appointed working group of independent experts will track the vaccine’s safety too. Although the group will deliberate in private meetings, starting today, its charge is to raise a red flag if members think the feds miss anything. How many ultimately line up depends in part on public confidence in the vaccine’s safety.
A report in The Lancet British medical journal on Friday said the intense monitoring will be crucial for an additional reason: separating normal disease rates from real vaccine risks. For example, 2,500 miscarriages and about 3,000 heart attacks occur every day in the U.S. — and some are sure to coincide with vaccination yet not be caused by it.
