Should I Get a Swine Flu Shot?

I should get a swine flu shot when one becomes available. It is a lot easier to get a shot and maybe get minor symptoms, than it is to have the full-blown flu. I am willing to go out of my way to get a shot to avoid over a week of possible agony. Also the FDA approved four H1N1 vaccines this past Tuesday (Skinner, 2009). I am not really that concerned with the possibility of a bad side effect after all of that FDA testing. The side-effects in the preliminary clinical trials have be close to those of the regular seasonal flu vaccine anyway, such as muscle aches, sensitivity at the injection site, and fever according to the New England Journal of Medicine (Clark, 2009). I get the regular flu vaccine, why shouldn't I get the H1N1 vaccine when it is available in a month (Skinner, 2009). I do not care that I am not part of the most likely group to die from swine flu, but the symptoms of the swine flu are enough for me to go to a doctor's office and get the shot. From a public health perspective, college students should definitely get the shot. Once one person is sick chances are within a week or two most of the campus will be sick moving from the floor the sick person live on to the building to the classes and so on.

Clark et al. (2009). Trial of influenza A (H1N1) 2009 monovalent MF59-adjuvanted Vaccine-- preliminary report. New England Journal of Medicine. Retrieved from PubMed database.

Skinner, T. (2009). FDA approves 4 swine flu vaccines. Medline Plus. Retrieved from http://nlm.nih.gov/medlineplus/print/news/fullstory_89386.html



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