I'm sorry to everyone who is sick of talking about this. My parents are trying to pressure me into getting the H1N1 vaccine, but I'm so out of the loop, I don't know what to think.

Basically, my parents are telling me "Get the shot, teenagers and young adults are the most susceptible. If you get sick, the whole family will get sick too" etc. But I'm a little weary of getting a shot for a brand new vaccine that hasn't been tested long term.

Does anyone have any links to studies or research on the vaccine? Stuff like side effects, overall effectiveness, and things like that? I did a quick Google search but I didn't come up with much.

Thanks!

Get it. There are essentially zero risks associated with it. The only reason you should not get it is if you are allergic to it (you would know), or if you (or your family) are not high risk. You do not want to be taking shots away from people who are in real danger. Even though Canada has ordered 50 million odd vaccinations they will not all be delivered for a while.

This vaccine is so trusted that doctors are required by the medical association to recommend it.

Side effects I'm not sure; though nothing dangerous.

Heres a recent CBC story:

http://www.cbc.ca/health/story/2009/...reactions.html

"Out of 6.6 million H1N1 vaccinations, there have been 36 reported serious adverse reactions to the vaccine in Canada and one suspected death as of Nov. 7, says the chief public health officer."

"The vast majority of reactions to the vaccine are minor, he emphasized, such as a sore arm, a mild fever and malaise."

"National and international data is showing that the vaccine is producing an immune response of about 94 per cent in people who receive it"

PS. Your arm will be very very sore for a few days after! I got it almost two weeks ago.

Originally Posted by 158701

Get it. There are essentially zero risks associated with it. The only reason you should not get it is if you are allergic to it (you would know), or if you (or your family) are not high risk. You do not want to be taking shots away from people who are in real danger. Even though Canada has ordered 50 million odd vaccinations they will not all be delivered for a while.

This vaccine is so trusted that doctors are required by the medical association to recommend it.

Side effects I'm not sure; though nothing dangerous.

Whoa... Canada ordered 50 million vaccines? That's like 15 million more than the population...

I would assume the possible side effects are the same of that of the normal flu shot.

I read that typically something like 34% of the population gets the seasonal flu shot. I'm one of those people who doesn't get it on an annual basis.

I won't be getting this shot either. There's zero evidence that this flu is more dangerous than any other flu, and in fact so far it's been less dangerous.

This whole thing has been so overhyped that it's turning people off, and if it happened to actually be a very serious illness turning so many people off by overhyping it would be a very, very bad thing.

With that all said, it's up to you... do you want to protect yourself from potentially getting the flu? The risks here in my opinion don't outweigh the inconvenience of waiting in line for hours and hours, when there's already a slim chance that I'll even get sick in the first place.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...s-America.html

This website has some good info too. http://www.globalresearch.ca /

Do some research before you decide.

Originally Posted by 158701

Get it. There are essentially zero risks associated with it. The only reason you should not get it is if you are allergic to it (you would know), or if you (or your family) are not high risk. You do not want to be taking shots away from people who are in real danger. Even though Canada has ordered 50 million odd vaccinations they will not all be delivered for a while.

This vaccine is so trusted that doctors are required by the medical association to recommend it.

Side effects I'm not sure; though nothing dangerous.

LOL are you working for a pharmaceutical company?

I'm not getting the vaccine....the media hypes up the aH1N1 virus way too much, doesn't help that they put stats in to scare people more. :| I think it's a matter of taking care of yourself more that will help prevent you from getting the virus.

The more people who get vaccinated, the better off you are anyways (They can't transmit the flu to you because they are immune). The way it's looking, so many people are getting the vaccine that eventually it won't even be worth it for you to get it. So don't worry.

I'm a little more worried about the long term. How do I know what kind of side effects this shot will have in 25 years? Has that even been tested?

If there are any long term side effects to this, they would be the exact same as those of the normal flu shot. And to the best of my knowledge, we haven't seen any long term effects from the normal flu shot. Everyone is all "omg, they haven't tested this enough!" because they don't realize that this is pretty much the exact same as the regular flu shot. (Not you specifically, its just something I've been hearing a lot of)

Each year when they are giving out the flu shot, they give you a cocktail of 3-4 different strains of the flu, the ones that are predicted to be the most prevalent that year. This is the same thing, just with H1N1 as the only strain. Nothing new to be tested really.

The odds of something bad happening to you from H1N1 is much higher than the odds of something bad happening to you from the vaccine. That said, the odds of either happening are pretty darn low.

There is actually a preliminary research published in the New England Journal of Medicine: http://nejm.highwire.org/cgi/reprint/NEJMoa0907413.pdf about the initial clinical trials of 240 people.

As for the long term effects, no one knows, but that's the same with seasonal influenza vaccine. I can't see how this vaccine could hurt (except if you're allergic to eggs) despite the ingredients are a guarded secret.

As for the highly controversial things like mercury or adjuvant. Those things are common, especially in influenza vaccines. Mercury are used in small amount (~ 0.01 or 0.001 %), besides they have been proven to be insignificant enough to be passed by the FDA and similar government agencies.

I'm not impressed with how fast it came out (ie. less testing!) and the fact that mercury was used when other chemicals could have been.

I also don't have any pre-existing medical conditions that would make me have serious consequences to the shot, so the risks outweigh the benefits with the shot for me.

With other people they may not... depends what your situation is! I'm not going to put anything into me that I don't need to. Plus needles suck

The mercury-containing molecule that is used in vaccines (Thiomersal) breaks down almost immediately to ethymercury which over the course of hundreds of studies since the 1950's has shown to be nontoxic in the small amounts used in vaccines.

The other adjuvant that people are concerned about is squalene. Again, the people who are worried about squalene are people who don't know anything about it (and won't do research on it). Squalene is a substance that is produced naturally in the bodies of higher mammals, including humans, and is nothing to worry about.

my way of fighting the H1N1 flu? well I got the damn virus last week and enjoyed sitting through my immune system fighting that bad boy, now i can continue my annual avoidance of the flu shot ..but i completely agree with Taunton...dont belive the media (everything is distorted from them)...go read primary scientific articles, or scientific reviews of such articles and make an educated/logical choice based on your OWN interpretation of the facts...the MEDIA should never dictate your life, especially when it comes to your valuble health...

Whether you decide to take the shot or not..always follow proper sneeze and cough etiquete(useyour sleeves)..eat healthy and dont stress out over this bug thats the biggest thing

to follow up on micadjems comment about lack of testing and use of mercury..well the use of mercury or Thiomersal is something pharmocology has been using in vaccines since the 1930's as a preservative and as a preventative against bacterial/fungal contamination of the actual vaccine, and as Taunton says it degrades in the human system super fast...and finally about the lack of testing...the government/drug agencies spent a large portion of the summer testing the drugs on animals and humans, trials that were well documented..and the release of the vaccine publically is not "rushed" it was a well documented and tested drug that was approved unanimously for distribution due to the qualified tests/....phew that was a lot to say..hope i made some sense...take home message, media hypage sucks...and im out