I'm on the 'should get' list ... there is no flu shots avail and the H1N1 vaccine are very limited till next month but I'm not going to take it..

In our area, nobody has had a chance to get it. The few that were available went to those in health care. It's said that the schools are next in line and then the Health Departments will offer it to those in the high risks groups and then everyone else will be able to get it if they choose to do so. I'm still on the fence about whether or not to allow my two-year-old daughter to get it. It's a scary situation. One tries not to buy into all the hype about it being new and all but when you're thinking of your child, everything goes through your mind! What if I get it and it harms her? What if I don't get it and she gets swine flu? Is anyone else having a dilemma about whether or not to vaccinate their child?

I got one at the hospital I work at Monday. Pregnant workers, nurses that care for pregnant women &/or newborns, ER, critical care, respiratory therapy all were encouraged but not mandated. No problems with it. My arm didn't even get sore, like the flu shot did that I got in September. It actually will be part of next year's seasonal shot. The health department here has had several clinics for the community, but they run out quickly and can't keep up with demand for it. We have had several new moms on my unit with it, but no one too terribly ill with it.

I work at a hospital where we are not mandated, but highly encouraged. I will get it..

I got it yesterday. My arm got a little sore but its fine now. I still got to get the seasonal flu shot.

I am not particularly high risk (though I am in my 20's, which is dangerous-ish), so while I have no objections to the vaccines safety or etc, I'm not going to get one to save supplies for those who are at higher risk than I am (pregnant women, healthcare workers, teachers, etc). If supplies pick up, I'll definitely get one.

yes. my son is about to turn one on the 2nd of november and he just got the first half of his regualr flu shot last week. we have to wait 1 month before he can get the second half, and then 1 month from there he can get the H1N1 vaccine. that puts it about middle december and i am still very much on the fence about it so i am hoping that maybe by then there might be a little more information out there about whether or not it's safe, but i am also hoping that he does not contract it by then... they say that most cases of the H1N1 are just as mild if not more so than the regualr flu, but i'm not sure if i want to take that chance with him...

as for me, the vaccines here are being administered to children and pregnant women only right now so i will wait until everyone who needs one has gotten one, but i do plan to get it.

I am definitely not going to get it. All flu shots do is encourage the birth of a "Super Virus' (doesn't this scare anyone else?? Hello 28 days later?!?!?)

Everyone around here has already been coming down with the flu,and since most can't get the shot in till sometime next month,we're not bothering.Not only that,but to me...there wasn't enough testing done to make me feel safe enough to subject my kids to the shot.My youngest has already had the flu anyways,and it was real mild.

We don't do any vaccines here.

This is not really scientifically feasible. There's some concern with creating a "superbug" with bacteria, for which our antibiotics are general (ie they work against some basic characteristic of a bacterium, like a cell wall or etc). The problem with general treatments is that, as you stated, they can lead to "superbugs" that are resistant...an antibiotic that targets the cell wall, for example, will kill all of the bacteria except those that have a stronger cell wall, which will then be the only bacteria that reproduce, creating a stronger group of bacteria that will resist cell wall treatments. Bacteria are susceptible to this because our treatments for them are based pretty solely on outside chemicals (ie, you introduce a drug, that drug kills the bacteria). A group of bacteria might have undergone 100 different mutations, but only the mutation that resists the drug is passed on.

Vaccines are not general OR outside treatments. They are specific to a single virus strain (well, in the case of a flu shot, 3 or 4 virus strains, but still, very specific). To not respond to the flu shot, the flu virus just needs to evolve enough (not much) that our immune systems don't recognize it anymore as something we've encountered before, so that it won't respond to a vaccine created targeted to that flu virus...any of the 100 mutations it might undergo will make it "immune", not just the one making it's cell wall stronger, so you get no ONE type of mutation that survives. So it's a completely different situation. Also, they don't use a chemical that the virus can in any way become resistant to - they use your own immune system and attack the virus using your natural defenses.

Now, we DO have antivirals to which a virus might become resistant, but antivirals and vaccines are different beasts. Antivirals are much more like antibiotics - you add a chemical to your body, that chemical disables the virus in some way. Vaccines are a completely different approach - something resembling the virus (but that can't infect you with the virus...either dead copies of the virus or a live copy that is mutated such that it can't enter your cells) is introduced into your system, allowing your own immune system to mount a response to it.

With a virus, once your immune system has seen it once, it can respond to it much, MUCH more effectively the last time (did you know, for example, that it's nearly impossible to catch the exact same strain of a cold twice? Your immune system mounts a response once you catch it, and if you encounter that EXACT SAME virus again, your body will fight it off effectively without you getting sick...of course, there are literally hundreds of different cold viruses out there, so this doesn't help much! This is also why most people only get the chicken pox once - only one virus, and once you've had it, you're done), so vaccines essentially trick your body into thinking you've already had the virus by introducing something close to that virus and allowing your immune system to attack it. When you encounter the actual, infectious virus in real life, you then fight it off so effectively that you never get sick (of course, sometimes you have "vaccine failure" - when you are vaccinated but, for some reason, your body doesn't fight off like it should, and you DO catch it...this is akin to how, rarely, some folks will get chicken pox twice, which isn't supposed to happen).

There are reasons that people might be concerned about vaccines, but it's not scientifically supported that they'd create a "superbug" of any kind.

I was joking BTW - I just won't get one because I never have.

Yes exactly! I don't like the idea of having genetically engineered viruses injected in to me. Even if they are deemed "safe."

I've never had a flu shot in my life and I don't plan on getting the H1N1 shot as well. I do work in a public place and am exposed to hundreds of germy people everyday but i'm not afraid of a flu bug.
I'm not high risk...ie i'm not pregnant, nor work (or live) around children or people with low immunity nor do I have a low immune system.

Also, does anyone else find it strange that they pumped out a vaccine so fast? Why can't they do that for other diseases?

This is because H1N1 is really just another strain of flu...like we've been making for years and years. There's an established protocol and method for making and testing a flu vaccine, so this was just "more of the same" (and the only reason it was a separate vaccine from the seasonal shot at all was because this strain became active AFTER the strains were picked for the seasonal flu vaccine...otherwise, it would just be included in the single flu shot, like it likely will be next year).

There was also some money opened up to expedite the manufacture of the vaccine due to the novelty of the virus, which let the vaccine be made faster than it would be in typical years....but it wasn't a new scientific or technological challenge to make it (like there would be for creating an HIV vaccine or etc for which we don't have an established method or testing protocol).