Virginia teen athlete in wheelchair after H1N1 vaccine shot

A teenage Virginia athlete is in a wheel chair now after suffering Guillain-Barre Syndrome within hours after receiving an H1N1 swine flu vaccine shot. 14-year-old Jordan McFarland developed severe headaches, muscle spasms and weakness in his legs after being injected. He will need “extensive physical therapy” to recovery, reports MSNBC. Plus, he’ll need the help of a walker for four to six weeks.

Guillain-Barre Syndrome (GBS) is the name given to anyone who exhibits a particular set of neurological symptoms including muscle weakness and muscle spasms. GBS is now increasingly occurring following H1N1 vaccine injections. It was diagnosed in thousands of patients following the 1976 swine flu vaccine scare, and it appears to be recurring here in 2009 as the swine flu vaccine makes it into more widespread distribution.

Health authorities, however, remain adamant that H1N1 vaccines are never the cause of GBS, and that such diagnoses are “pure coincidence.” This blatantly unscientific P.R. tactic is designed to dismiss any and all concerns over the neurological side effects of H1N1 vaccines by simply denying they exist. To date, the CDC has received reports of five additional people being diagnosed with GBS following swine flu vaccinations, but it dismisses them all as coincidence. “It’s much less than we’d expect,” says CDC official Dr. Claudia J. Vellozzi. (Which is sort of interesting all by itself, because it reveals that the CDC expects a lot more people to get GBS following vaccine injections…)

At the same time, part of the reason the CDC isn’t receiving many reports on neurological disorders caused by H1N1 vaccines is because they participated in a massive media brainwashing event that prepped the population to dismiss all side effects by pre-announcing the bizarre idea that “side effects experienced after vaccine injections are not related to vaccines.”

This was an organized, nationwide media brainwashing campaign engineered by the CDC, FDA and drug companies. It sought to pre-program health consumers to automatically dismiss serious side effects that appeared in the hours after receiving swine flu vaccine injections.

The campaign worked. In fact, even the GBS of this young man, Jordan McFarland, wasn’t submitted to the CDC. It only came to light when his step-mother submitted details to MSNBC.com’s reader reporting tool. In other words, this was citizen journalism at work, where a parent submitted information directly to the media.

For this to occur is exceedingly rare. Most parents would simply wait for their doctor to submit such information to health authorities, not knowing that submitting reports of vaccine-related side effects remains voluntary in modern medicine.

No requirement to report vaccine side effects

You read that right: There is no requirement that doctors send reports of vaccine side effects to any health authority at all. And that raises the question: So how do they really know how many people are suffering neurological side effects from the H1N1 vaccines?

http://www.naturalnews.com/027473_Guillain-Barre_Syndrome_swine_flu_vaccine.html

Va. teen suffers rare illness after swine flu shot

A 14-year-old Virginia boy is weak and struggling to walk after coming down with a reported case of Guillain-Barre syndrome within hours after receiving the H1N1 vaccine for swine flu.

Jordan McFarland, a high school athlete from Alexandria, Va., left Inova Fairfax Hospital for Children Tuesday night in a wheelchair nearly a week after developing severe headaches, muscle spasms and weakness in his legs following a swine flu shot. He will likely need the assistance of a walker for four to six weeks, plus extensive physical therapy.

“The doctor said I’ll recover fully, but it’s going to take some time,” the teenager said.

Jordan is among the first people in the nation to report developing the potentially life-threatening muscle disorder after receiving the H1N1 vaccine this fall. His alarming reaction was submitted via msnbc.com’s reader reporting tool, First Person, by his stepmother, Arlene Connin.

Increased cases of GBS were found in patients who received a 1976 swine flu vaccine, but government health officials say they’ve seen no rise in the condition associated with the current outbreak.

So far, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have received five reports of GBS in people who received the H1N1 vaccine since Oct. 6, not including Jordan’s case, said Dr. Claudia J. Vellozzi, deputy director for immunization safety.

Out of about 40 million doses of H1N1 vaccine available to date, that’s a far lower rate of GBS than the 1 case that develops in every 1 million people who receive the regular flu vaccine.

“It’s much less than we’d expect,” she said, adding that many cases go unreported.

In 1976, about 1 additional case of GBS developed in every 100,000 people who were vaccinated against the swine flu, according to the CDC.

Jordan’s parents said doctors diagnosed the teen with GBS, a rare muscle disorder that develops when a person’s own immune system attacks the nerves, causing muscle weakness, difficulty walking and sometimes paralysis and death.

Hospital officials didn’t dispute that the boy had GBS, but refused to comment on the boy’s condition or treatment, even after his family granted permission.

“They don’t want to create a fear or panic in the community,” said Jordan’s stepmother, Connin.

Connin and Jordan’s father, Calvin McFarland, both 38, believe the shot sparked the illness that came on 18 hours after the boy’s vaccination.

No clear link
But Vellozzi said there’s no clear link between the new vaccine and the disease.

“We know that GBS and other illnesses occur routinely in the U.S.,” Vellozzi said, noting that 80 to 120 cases are diagnosed each week in the general population.

“There are events that follow vaccination. That’s what they are, they happened to follow vaccination.”

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/33845867/ns/health-cold_and_flu/