Worth a Shot

The swine flu (H1N1) vaccine is finally here, health officials announced. Immediately, the rush to inoculate caused vaccine shortages across the country. Still, others are afraid of getting shots. These are fears that even a Scooby-Doo Band-Aid can’t cure.

“if u get a swine flu shot ur an idiot,” HBO pundit Bill Maher tweeted. Fox News icon Glenn Beck suggested the vaccine might turn out to be “deadly.”

And in the age of the Internet, fear is only a keystroke or two away. Google “vaccines.” Of the 10 results on the first page, three are vaccine scare sites.

Surely, if conservative icon Glenn Beck and liberal icon Bill Maher both fear something, that something’s pretty scary, right?
Nope.

At least, not according to Washington Health Promotion Manager Michele Roberts and Spokane Health Officer Joel McCullough. They argue against several flu vaccine myths:

Myth: The Swine Flu Vaccine Can Give You Swine Flu
If vaccines are weakened viruses, people figure, there’s a chance they could still make someone sick.

Maher cites a (probably apocryphal) quote from Dr. Jonas Salk, creator of the polio vaccine. “Live virus vaccines against influenza and paralytic polio, for example, may in each instance cause the disease it’s intended to prevent.”

But today’s vaccines are more advanced. The viruses in the shots are completely dead. There’s no chance of infection. The virus in the nasal spray is live, but modified. It can’t survive in the hot temperatures of the human body.

Granted, the very process of the vaccine working may feel a bit like slight sickness. You may feel sore, or get a slight fever. But that’s not the flu.

“Your body’s making antibodies,” Roberts says. “Your body’s like, ‘Ooh, I’ve got to fight things off.’”

Eight to 10 days after the seasonal or H1N1 flu shot, you should be 90 percent protected from getting the flu. Until then you could get the flu — but that’s not the vaccine’s fault.

Myth: The Vaccine Was Rushed Into Production
“Some people are thinking this is a new vaccine,” says Roberts. “It’s not.”

Because the swine flu was similar to seasonal flu, scientists already had a head start. In total, the swine flu vaccination took about as long as a typical seasonal flu vaccine to develop.

Myth: Vaccinations Have Been Linked to Autism
For a lot of parents, it just makes sense. The age kids are diagnosed with autism is soon after their vaccinations. The mercury tracings in thimerosal — a vaccine preservative — are to blame for rising autism rates, they conclude.

“Every study that has looked at the association between vaccines and mercury and the development of autism finds no association,” says infectious disease specialist Mark Crislip on his anti-quackery podcast. “Not that data changes beliefs.”

According to research, thimerosal and autism not only aren’t linked, but 1) the vaccinations use ethyl mercury, not methyl mercury. Ethyl mercury becomes inert faster and accumulates in the gut, not the bloodstream; 2) the amount of mercury is infinitesimal — far too small to cause problems; 3) to alleviate baseless fears of mercury vaccines, most vaccinations no longer contain mercury. And autism rates have kept rising.

Myth: You Don’t Need a Flu Vaccine
You’re tough. You’re healthy. You’re a strapping young man. Can you just skip out on the flu shot? Depends.

According to the CDC, 45 percent of swine-flu dead were perfectly healthy before the illness. “If you are a strapping young man who has a baby that is 6 months old or younger, then YES, you should get the vaccine to protect your baby who is too young to receive it,” McCullough writes.

For the seasonal flu, the elderly are most susceptible. But they, oddly enough, seem to be the most resistant to H1N1. Instead, the swine flu tends to attack pregnant women and young children the hardest. According to the New England Journal of Medicine, pregnant women are nine times more likely to die from swine flu.

In areas where there are shortages, pregnant women, health care workers and children between 6 months and 4 years old take priority. Those with severe asthma are also in danger of flu complications.

The vaccine is grown in eggs, however, so if you’re allergic, you should talk to your doctor before shooting up.

Myth: There’s a Vaccine Controversy
In TV punditry and “pls fwd this” chain e-mails, sure, there’s debate.

But to the guys with lab coats and microscopes — the Centers for Disease Control, the World Health Organization, the American Medical Association — vaccinations are not only safe, they’re life-saving. To shout otherwise, they say, could kill people.

“The flu kills over 36,000 Americans each year, and without vaccinations, that number would be much higher,” McCullough says. “The verdict is in: Vaccines save lives.”