Family Medicine

Is the swine flu vaccine really safe for everyone?

By Christopher Zipp, DO

The H1N1 influenza virus – commonly called the swine flu – may be the most talked about illness in recent memory and that makes it a classic ‘good news/bad news’ story. The good news is there’s a lot of information available. The bad news is that there might be too much information. Here’s what you need to know:

H1N1 is not the same as the seasonal flu virus. Each year, seasonal flu arrives in the fall and usually circulates among the population until essentially disappearing early in the spring. H1N1 arrived last spring and continued to infect small numbers of people throughout the summer. Widespread outbreaks began again in late summer as children and college students returned to campus. The vaccine for seasonal flu will not protect you against the H1N1 virus.
Each year, seasonal flu causes more than 36,000 deaths and 200,000 hospitalizations in this country alone. Older individuals and those who have other chronic health conditions are more likely to suffer serious complications from seasonal flu. Some recent reports have characterized H1N1 as a “mild to moderate” form of influenza, but any type of flu can be a dangerous condition. Even more troubling is that the H1N1 virus seems to be more dangerous for younger individuals. That’s why the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) have put children in the group to get first priority for the H1N1 vaccine. In fact, research just published in the New England Journal of Medicine showed that more than 45 percent of people hospitalized with H1N1 in the United States last spring were under the age of 18.
The H1N1 vaccination was in short supply initially, but by now millions of doses have been shipped throughout the country and more will become available each week. So, you still may encounter some delays as health care providers work to get the vaccine to those who are the most vulnerable to complications from H1N1. The CDC has recommended that the following groups be given priority for the H1N1 vaccine: pregnant women, people who live with or care for children younger than six months of age, health care workers, individuals between six months and 24 years of age, and people 25 to 64 years old who have chronic medical conditions. Although studies have indicated that people 65 and older have a lower risk from complications of H1N1, older individuals should still make the H1N1 vaccine a priority as soon as it becomes available for their age group.
A lot of people have expressed concern about the safety of the H1N1 vaccine, citing the rush to produce it. The reality is that we have little reason to be concerned about the vaccine’s safety beyond that of the annual influenza vaccination. Today’s H1N1 vaccine has nothing to do with the vaccine used for the 1976 swine flu outbreak that may have caused some individuals to become seriously ill. The current H1N1 vaccine is made with the same process used to make hundreds of millions of seasonal flu vaccines each year. It has been tested on thousands of volunteers of all ages and is being monitored closely by the federal government. So far, the only side effects from the H1N1 vaccine have been rare and those reactions are the same as from the seasonal flu shot. A few individuals have experienced soreness at the site of the injection, mild headache or a slight fever.

And, if you are wondering, I plan to get my H1N1 vaccine, and administer it to my wife and young child, as soon as it is available.

Originally published in The University Doctor's MedicaLink- 10/09