Swine Flu
By now, swine flu is rarely mentioned on the six o’clock news and is nearly never seen in the newspapers. The long lines to get an H1N1 vaccine are nonexistent, and most pharmacies now have a stockpile of supplies that are going unused. At one point, pharmacies were contacting families to come in for a flu and H1N1 vaccine – now even those calls have stopped. The fatalities from H1N1 have dropped precipitously and are much lower than deaths from seasonal flu. While there is a threat that a second or third phase of H1N1 may transpire, it is hard to imagine that this virus represents a level 6 pandemic. Admittedly, any family who has lost a child or young adult due to this infection worries that we are still vulnerable to H1N1 and strongly supports public health measures to vaccinate. Yet a large group of Americans opted not to vaccinate during the period of time when media reporting of swine flu deaths created massive fear and hysteria. Many of those individuals questioned the safety of the H1N1 vaccine and its effectiveness.









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