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ST. CLAIRSVILLE, Ohio -- While drug companies are gearing up to release the H-1-N-1 or swine flu vaccine, an online British newspaper relates the shot to a potentially deadly nerve disease.





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"Mail Online" reveals the British government sent letters to 600 top neurologists, urging them to be alert for cases of Guillian-Barre Syndrome after people get the swine flu shot.

The letters refer to what it calls "the 1976 debacle" in the United States when 25 people died from the shots, while only one died from the swine flu.

One senior neurologist is quoted as saying, "I won't get the shot because of the risk."

Guillian-Barre Syndrome causes paralysis and in some patients respiratory failure and death.

In 1976, President Gerald Ford gave the go-ahead for a mass vaccination against swine flu, but it was stopped after ten weeks because the shot took far more lives than the flu.

But now, American health officials are again advising people to get the shots.

"Oh yes, they definitely are," confirms Lynn Schrum, infectious disease nurse at the Belmont County Health Department. "They advise it for pregnant women, for young people, anyone with chronic conditions such as lung disease, heart disease, diabetes and anyone between the ages of 5 and 65, also people with weakened immune systems and health care workers."

According to Mail Online, in 1976, one out of every 80,000 people who got the shot got Guillian-Barre Syndrome.

Today they estimate one or two out of every million who get the shot could get the syndrome.

U.S. officials are still urging people to get the vaccine.

WTRF-TV

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