Dr. Marie C. McCormick, a Harvard School of Public Health professor, is head of a scientific panel reviewing data related to the safety of the swine flu vaccine.
(Suzanne Kreiter/Globe Staff)
DR. MARIE C. MCCORMICK | G Force
Swine flu monitor
Dr. Marie C. McCormick, a Harvard School of Public Health professor, is head of a scientific panel reviewing data related to the safety of the swine flu vaccine.
(Suzanne Kreiter/Globe Staff)
The swine flu vaccine has been greeted with an unusual amalgam of feverish anticipation - and resolute opposition. In some corners of the blogosphere, suspicions have been raised about its safety, despite testing that has turned up no problems. Federal health agencies have established unprecedented monitoring networks to detect side effects. Still, last week, an independent panel of scientific advisers - led by Dr. Marie McCormick, professor of maternal and child health at the Harvard School of Public Health - was convened to provide another ongoing safety check. McCormick talked about the vaccine and the safety monitoring panel by phone from her Boston office.
STEPHEN SMITH
Q. What is the panel’s mandate?
A. To review the data as it emerges from a variety of sources on the potential side effects from the 2009 H1N1 vaccine. This working group is unique in that it will actually look at data that comes from different agencies. This is a much broader look at a vaccine as it is being rolled out than has ever been done before.
Q. Why was the panel necessary, given the array of safety monitoring networks already looking for problems?
A. The reason for this, to be honest, is this vaccine - although it is building on 30 years of history with seasonal flu vaccine that has been remarkably safe - this vaccine was rolled out on an emergent basis. The feeling was the public health community had an extra special obligation to look at this vaccine and assess its safety.
Q. Why do you think swine flu vaccine has incited controversy?
A. It’s part of a broader picture of questioning vaccines in general that emerged in the 1990s that came from a variety of sources - among them was the very rapid expansion of the vaccine schedule for children. The other side of this is that our vaccines have been very successful, and young parents have not had the experience of the diseases they prevent. So they’ve not seen the bad side effects of measles. They haven’t seen the cases of meningitis. And then there’s been the whole controversy of various types of immunizations and autism, which has frightened a lot of people regardless of the [lack of] evidence. Then there’s the sense of mandate - which is peculiarly American - and the government is not going to tell me what to do.
On top of this general unease, there’s a lot of controversy about how severe this disease is. If you’re sitting in the intensive care unit in a hospital, you may see a 25 percent increase in admissions. If you’re out in the community, people get sick for a few days and then they’re fine. And there’s some very real hesitancy about this particular vaccine, even though it’s actually being done with more testing than the seasonal flu vaccine.
Q. Are you planning on getting vaccinated?
A. When it becomes available, I will certainly have it. I do see patients in the fall, and all my patients are younger than 3, so it’s really both for their protection and mine.
Interview was condensed and edited. 
© Copyright 2009 Globe Newspaper Company.
