Saturday 03, 2009 (foodconsumer.org) – Wciv.com reported on October 2 that a pregnant woman in South Carolina died from swine flu shortly after birth. Readers should not worried about the risk because the risk is tiny compared to other risks.

Dr. Anthony Gregg at the University of South Carolina School of Medicine was cited as telling WIS-TV that the woman had not received any flu vaccine meaning that it is not the fault of any vaccine and her other children became sick a few weeks after her death.

The newborn baby seems to be healthy without any swine flu symptoms.

Women should not panic hearing this story. As of this day, according to media reports, about 27 pregnant women have died of swine flu complications since the start of the outbreak or later called pandemic.

In comparison, pregnant women are more likely to die from other causes. Based on the information released from the government, 12 in every 100,000 pregnant women who gave live birth in 2004 died from various causes.

The public has already decided that the risk of swine flu is similar to that of seasonal flu according to a small web survey by foodconsumer.org although the government has been saying that pregnant women are at high risk of getting infected with the flu.

Washing hands and voiding seeing doctors in hospitals and clinics where swine flu patients are gathered may help reduce their risk of contracting the flu.

Pregnant women who want to receive swine flu vaccine, which is expected early in October, should not get the nasal spray type as it uses a live virus, which can cause more harm than good to pregnant women and fetuses. They should use only the vaccine from a single dose syringe, which contains no mercury or thymerosal while the 10-dose pack swine flu vaccine contains the toxic chemical as a preservative.

By David liu  davidl at foodconsumer dot org