Since I’m still searching for some H1N1 flu vaccine for my pregnant daughter, I thought I’d pass on some information I’ve researched.

Even the U.S. Senate is voicing dismay at the shortage of swine flu vaccine while swine flu begins to peak in the U.S. I can’t find any in Oregon. The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) site had a “Flu Vaccine Locator” section on the site yesterday, but I couldn’t find it on the site today. I had checked all the Oregon locations listed anyway, but none of them had the vaccine so the locator was not accurate.

According to a study conducted by Purdue University, the vaccine will arrive too late for most people.

Here’s a statement of advice from the CDC site:

What can I do to protect myself, my baby and my family?

The seasonal flu shot has been given to millions of pregnant women over many years. Flu shots have not been shown to cause harm to pregnant women or their babies.  The 2009 H1N1 flu shot is made in the same way and in the same places as the seasonal flu shot.  It is very important for pregnant women to get both the seasonal flu shot and the 2009 H1N1 flu shot.  Please see http://www.cdc.gov/h1n1flu/vaccination/ to learn more.

Here’s an important study underway for pregnant women and the swine flu vaccine: http://www3.niaid.nih.gov/news/QA/H1N1pregnanttrials.htm.

The religious character of the debate

Like many things in society, the swine flu vaccine debate has taken on an atmosphere resembling a religious dispute: Some people are vehemently against any type of vaccine, including this one, for a variety of reasons: It supposedly causes autism and other problems in kids, it’s a government plot to kill people, etc. The internet is full of “supposed” evidence backing up these claims, but I find the evidence is typically anecdotal, therefore faulty. It simply does not hold up to scientific scrutiny.

Those people who insist the H1N1 epidemic is nothing to worry about, and that the swine flu vaccine is more dangerous than the flu it is intended to prevent, have a good chance of being able to brag about being correct when this swine flu scare is all over. That is because few diseases ever reach their full potential to be truly lethal to mankind, especially in this modern age of health prevention and care. The same is true for swine flu: Chances are it will pass, illnesses will continue to be mild, and the anti-vaccine crowd will say, “See, I told you so!.”

The problem is that this is like running stop lights all over town. Chances are you’ll get away with running stop lights for quite a while, but one day you’ll run a stop light and get hit broadside by a big truck. Then you’ll wish you had stopped at all the stop lights to make sure it’s safe to cross.

The history of humanity is the history of diseases ravaging human populations, often displacing entire populations. It happened in this country with “old world” diseases killing off 95% of native populations in the 100 years after the arrival of Columbus in 1492. And it happened repeatedly in Europe and Asia and Africa before that time. This is where a study of history is so valuable, but most people do not read history. Only a couple of hundred years ago, George Washington saved the Continental Army by vaccinating his troops (an early crude method) against smallpox at Valley Forge so they could come out of their winter quarters and be an effective force against the British. As recently as 1918 a flu killed millions of Americans because we had no protection against it.

Now we have a method — vaccination — of preventing diseases from killing us. It’s not perfect, we are often wrong about which disease poses a significant risk, and sometimes various vaccines have side effects, but it’s a method I bet the Indians wished they had when Columbus arrived. But there are so many people in our society who have no idea of what has happened in the past, and who have little understanding what constitutes reasonable scientific evidence, that they willingly believe the dubious anti-vaccine literature that pollutes the internet.

I’m merely trying to find a way to keep my pregnant daughter and my other children and grandkids safe, but I have to wade through piles of intellectual rubbish as I search the internet.

Whether or not we get a swine flu vaccine shot in Oregon may become a moot point real soon. Swine flu is overrunning my area of southern Oregon, yet local health officials say they think the swine flu vaccine shots are still several weeks off. In about a week, county health officials will begin administering the nasal spray for kids.

Much of the local youth population has already begun building antibodies to the swine flu by having contracted the mild version of it. I believe all my kids and grandkids may have already had it, since all have had flu-like symptoms and doctors here say at least 99% of the flu locally is swine flu. About a quarter of the local grammar school population was home sick just a few days ago. Swine flu has come on much more rapidly than anyone expected. We’re fortunate most cases have been mild so far.

My pregnant daughter, Annie, the managing editor of BHM, has still not gotten swine flu, and she is in the highest risk category for complications from it. So that is still a worry. Yesterday she and I got our regular flu shots. Regular flu season is still about a month away.

There is some confusion on two points regarding swine flu shots: Is the swine flu vaccine alive or dead, and how many doses will you need. The following, from Foxnews.com, clarifies things:

Q: Why is the nasal-spray vaccine arriving before the shots, and can I use either one?

A: They’re considered equally effective, but FluMist finished brewing sooner. There is an important difference, though. Flu shots, made of killed flu virus, are for anyone without an egg allergy. FluMist, besides the egg issue, is only for use in healthy people ages 2 to 49 — no pregnancy or underlying conditions. It’s made of live but weakened flu virus. So some people on the first-in-line list for the new H1N1 vaccine aren’t eligible for FluMist.

Q: Who’s first in line?

A: Pregnant women; the young, ages 6 months through 24 years; people younger than 64 who have conditions such as asthma or diabetes that increase the risk of complications from flu; health workers and caregivers of newborns.

Q: I thought flu was most dangerous to people 65 and older.

A: Regular winter flu is most dangerous to older adults, but the new H1N1 is predominantly striking the young.

Q: How many shots, or squirts, will I need?

A: Most people will need one dose each of the swine flu vaccine and the regular winter flu vaccine. But health authorities believe children under 10 will need two doses of the swine flu vaccine, about three weeks apart. And some very young children getting their first regular flu vaccination will need two doses of it, too, for a total a four inoculations.

Unless I discover other evidence to the contrary, my research so far says my children should get the H1N1 (swine flu) vaccine. There are risks with the H1N1 vaccine, as there are with any vaccine, but the risks of getting swine flu appear to be greater. Here are a few pieces of information weighing on my decision:

-Swine flu attacks pregnant women and people born after 1976 far more often than it attacks older people, and it is more severe for that younger crowd. About 28 pregnant American women have died of swine flu.
-Swine flu vaccine is a killed vaccine so you can’t get the flu from it.
-You apparently only need one shot, which protects you in a week to 10 days.
-There may be a remote chance of a very severe side effect called Guillain-Barre Syndrome, which is an attack on the nervous system. The rate may be about 1 in one hundred thousand people, and it can lead to death.
-Some people could have a severe allergic reaction, including Bell’s (facial) palsy, fainting, and fever, but this is likely to be rare.
-Swine flu has been relatively mild for most people, but has required hospitalization in intensive care for others. Four thousand have died worldwide in the last six months.
-Tamiflu and Relenza are effective at curbing the symptoms and severity of swine flu. (I have three doses of Tamiflu in my medicine cabinet).
-Here’s the one that worries me: Swine flu may be able to swap its genes with bird flu (H5N1 flu A strain), which still infects some people in Asia due to their contact with chickens. Bird flu has a fatality rate that is fairly high, although I doubt it’s as high as the 60 percent many internet articles report. (Other articles say the method of calculating deaths is flawed). Bird flu doesn’t seem to spread easily from person to person (you need to have direct contact with poultry), but if it swaps genes with swine flu it may become very infectious. I don’t know how remote this possibility is.

Here are the main online tips to keep from spreading or getting swine flu:

-Cover your nose and mouth with a tissue when you cough or sneeze. Throw the tissue away after using it.
-Wash your hands often with soap and water, especially after you cough or sneeze. You may also use alcohol-based hand cleaners.
-Avoid touching your eyes, nose, or mouth, to avoid getting infected by germs.
-Avoid close contact with sick people.

This is all casual research on my part. I have yet to put Silveira on the task. The internet is loaded with claims and counterclaims about the severity of swine flu, bird flu, and regular flu. I could be off-base on some of this stuff. If so, someone please correct me.

Interestingly, I’m doing my research while reading Jared Diamond’s book, “Guns, Germs, and Steel,” which is, in part, an account of the way various human populations have been replaced over the millennia by means of infectious germs. With the help of modern vaccines, we have a chance to stop this brutal historical process of Nature.

A year from now, we may look back on this flu season and say it was much ado about nothing. But that will be Monday Morning Quarterbacking. Right now there is a decision to be made: Do I run the risk of my kids getting swine flu that could develop into something serious at a time when the country’s health system is liable to overburdened due to an H1N1 pandemic, or do I protect them with a vaccine that could have some rare but serious side effects?

I’m opting for the vaccine, and I’m grateful the U.S. is apparently going to have enough of it. Some third world countries will not. I just hope the vaccine gets here before the swine flu does.