Why I'm testing the bird flu jab

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http://observer.guardian.co.uk/focus/story/0,,1789882,00.html Why I'm testing the bird flu jab Jo Revill, the Observer's Health Editor, believes medical trials on humans are the only way to stop a killer pandemic - which is why she's volunteered Sunday June 4, 2006The Observer Five days ago I became a volunteer for the first clinical trial in Britain investigating the safety of a vaccine for the human form of bird flu. At the Churchill Hospital in Oxford, I went through the long process of enrolment, health checks, questions and

blood tests before the research nurse was finally able to administer a shot of the yellow vaccine into my arm.'Are you really sure you want to go through with this?', my husband asked as we sat in the kitchen the evening before the visit. 'What about the side effects. I mean, just how risky is this?' His apprehension was understandable, given the adverse publicity for the catastrophic Northwick Park trial in London, when six young men nearly died after receiving a previously untested compound.