Didn't get it. Limited supplies in my area, and I rarely get the flu anyway without the vaccines.

Didn't get it. Got H1N1 before the vaccine was available in my area, so now I don't need it.

Won't get it. I do not belong to any high-risk-group and never had a flu shot in my life so far.
Nevertheless I hope that all people insite those risk-groups take their shot! Even if they themself would not suffer seriously from H1N1, they might spread the virus to other persons that are not as lucky. Same as having unprotected sex when you are HIV+.

My two year old son just got his today

I didn't get it cause it wasn't available to me.

I was asking because just yesterday my 9 month old son got his 1st shot (babies need 2 shots, half dose each time) and this was one of the toughest decisions we had to make as parents so far.

Why was it a tough decision, BoG75?

There has been so many pros vs cons discussion that it is very hard to get real information to make educated dicision.

From conspiracy theoriest who are convinced this is a way of population control to WHO who are saying this is a must for all population. I know the truth is somewhere in the middle.

Personally I never took regular flu shot but not that I have a young baby I have to think more than just about myself.

I didn't find in a hard decision at all, honestly. While the death rate for H1N1 appears to be no greater than standard influenza, it is disproportionately targeting the young. I'm less than thrilled with reports that the full battery of tests weren't run, but realistically it's not like they can whip this crap up over the weekend.

The odds of an 'adverse effect', from most of the reports I've seen, were *far* lower than the potential downsides of the illness, so it was a no brainer. Is there a chance something bad will happen? Yes - but the odds appear to be better than just hoping he doesn't get sick or hoping if he *does* get sick he doesn't get really sick

As for the standard flu shot, I got mine a few weeks ago before they were available for my son, so I would be able to provide a little herd immunity.

Haven't gotten either of them, and I don't plan on it. I think my immune system is strong enough by now, or at least I hope so (if my swim season gets split over illness, oh boy am I in trouble).

Get it if you're high risk. I'm around enough medical professionals who are extremely exasperated that people don't (often because they listen to conspiracy theorists). It's not absolutely necessary, but it's definitely worth the very small risks. Listen to medical professionals. It's their job.

don't... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J2YlTVg_7Ko

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RhZesZe33cw

it hasn't been clinically tested. this is what we in the IT industry refer to as early beta version :-)

Ok, the latter video seems to say "I'm not signing contracts until I negotiate them, beotch", not "it's gonna kill you"

Yeah, all these bleeding edge early adapters of this untested vaccine will be very unhappy once they all start BSODing from god knows what side effects... Virus vaccines aren't something that ought to be unleashed on the public without adequate testing. The whole swine flu thing is just hype, anyway. More people are dying from the regular flu. A few years ago they were saying we were all going to die from Avian flu. Never happened. And a few decades ago, they were all saying humanity was going to be wiped out from AIDS. The medical research industry needs to keep us all afraid to make sure they get the grants they need to live as they do.

As for "medical professionals", well, two hundred years ago these people were blathering on about having good bowel movements and purging bad humors to cure diseases... how we can we be sure they have it right *this* time? :-P

Nobody says they have it right. They just have it much better than you do.

Anyone who is in a high risk group should get it. Everyone else probably needn't bother. If you have a young child or are pregnant and you think Jenny McCarthy is better qualified to decide your child's medical needs than your doctor, then you are a moron and should have your children taken away from you.

Also anyone who puts the words "medical professionals" in inverted commas needs to sit down and have a think about why the life expectancy in the US has risen from 47 to 75 in the last century.

If I'm not going to die, then I can handle it. Quarantine me if I get sick, and that's the end of that, no harm done.

@ alamothe, and Tolstoy The H1N1 vaccine has been tested inspite what you may read. This is not really a new vaccine. H1N1 is the same as the regular flu just with a slightly different protein coat, so the vaccine is also basicly the same. Each new season's vaccine also is not treated as a new vaccine for the same reason. There is also no practical way to do the full battery of test. The mutation rate in the flu virius is so high that by the time you got done it would be obsolete. Now if they come up with a vaccine for say the Rino Virius that would be a new vaccine and would require the full battery of testing.

@ottovanbis
and no one has any objection to. What people object to is parents who don't vaccinate their children, when they are in danger of death.

@Tolstoy The medical professionls did not say we all would die from avion flu. That was your typical doomsayers who did. The pros did say that if it every mutated so it could be transmited person to person, we could see a pandemic with death rates as bad as in 1918, and it may still happen.

I ended up not getting the vaccine because I got actual H1N1 before the vaccine could be arranged

I didn't because I'm 15, andcan't control those things.

Zoro sucks.

@Don
Feeding kids sweets and drowning them in pop is just as detrimental to their health as not getting the swine flu.

It doesn't matter what the Tele-Faces or the Political Personas think good parenting ought to be, in any country where 'getting or not getting the h1n1 vaccine' is an issue, parenting will never be regulated.

@OP
I'd rather take my chances with the 'swine flu' than get a vaccine that new onto the scene. And to the person that said "Same as having unprotected sex when you are HIV+": You're fucking stupid.

I didn't get it, I think it's a bit to risky. There was a pharmesutical company in Poland I believe that began creating a vaccine but they put strands of bird flu in it, which would have created a REAL epidemic of the flu and they would have made a ton of money.

I honestly do not think that H1N1 is a significant a risk as the media makes it look, of course I am typically the person who doesn't believe anything that they say on tv (except for the history channel).

You believe the history channel?!

"I do not belong to any high-risk-group and never had a flu shot in my life so far."

"Quarantine me if I get sick, and that's the end of that, no harm done."

no, no, no, no, no.

There are those who have to take immuno suppressants, or have their immune system supressed, they are at high risk of dying if they catch it. Even if you're going to survive catching it, unless everyone gets the vaccine (~75%) there's no point, as you said the healthy people will survive.

"this is a way of population control to WHO who are saying this is a must for all population." - yes it is population control, they are specificallytrying to keep as many people alive and healthy as posisble by stopping this virus from spreading. If they were trying to cull the herd (those wea in our over-populated world) then they would just not deploy the vaccine.

I don't know what testing has been done. The media tends to get all hyped up because historical medical evidence indicates a large flu outbreak every ~80 years, and given that the last one was 1918 this one is overdue. (that is a mutation which causes the flu virus to spread and kill more people) Ask any statitician and they may tell you that there is the same chance of a flu epidemic this year as there have been any other year...

of course i imagine that flu pandemic in 1918 would have dramatically increased flu immunity in the population (those who survived) and thus decreased the chances of flu finding carriers to spread it in the next year. (and this immuniy has been dropping off ever since) However the travel habits, and exposure to other people has changed greatly in the past century, so you would expect virus mutation and spreading rates to be greatly altered - i imagine more humans to incubate the virus, and more of them travelling around the world to spread it would increase the chances of a particularily dangerous version(but i'm no expert) - that said regular vacination of the population may have the effect of decreasing the number of humans who are incubating the virus, and who are carriers.

i don't know anyhting about vaccine creation and testing (other than the fact that they use eggs to grow the virus, possibly chicken eggs, and to create the vaccine)

I'm dumbfounded by how many people are more afraid of the medicine than they are of the virus. I had H1N1, and I will say outright, get the freaking vaccine if it is available to you. I think Sinon will probably agree since he had it to. It sucks.

I will say that I think the media is making it out to be more of a killer than it actually may be. What is troublesome is that the death rate is higher among younger, healthier people than it is among the elderly, when compared to the standard flu. I think that should be cause for concern for the people who say they aren't getting the shot because they don't get sick that often.

As for the claims that the vaccine is a means of "Population Control" (as in meant to make people sick instead of prevent sickness)... seriously? Are there really that few free thinkers left in the world? Can so many people really be just mindlessly believing everything they hear? Unfortunately, I know the answers to both of those questions.

I already had it, and I have no breathing or other health problems, so I made it through okay. If you don't have breathing problems, then all it does is clog up your lungs for a few days. No big deal. We should definitely make sure high-risk groups get the shot first, though. Healthy people won't have complications.

@jman77
The problem with pandemics is that by the time you can be sure that the disease is definitely a concern it's usually too late to do anything about it.

I am Swedish, and the government is providing the vaccine to every citizien above 12mths of age. Have taken it.

@macrado
Unfortunately those people would argue that saying the opposite thing to what they view as the prevailing orthodoxy (in other words the view held by people who look at facts and evidence) counts as free-thinking. Actual "thought" I don't think ever occurs to them.

@zckls04: yeah, so you've two options, listen to your doctor (and possibly quiz them) or listen to some member of the media who is trying to sell newspapers - or whatever.

either way you can be accused of mindlessly following someone else's view without thinking about it. Your only alternative is to actually do some study and research into the available information - i however trust the WHO.

@orathaic - Well, there are very few people who can REALLY say that they came up with their viewpoint entirely on their own. Everyone else believes what they've been told. The difference is who they are listening to. Do you read the information provided by the WHO and CDC? Or do you simply read some blog somewhere, from someone who heard from some guy that heard from a "doctor", that the vaccine is meant to make people sicker? What is sad is that too many people fall into some variation of the latter category.

i talked to a doctor, who happens to be a relative, recently - who was more concerned that she has patients in her community who will likely die if they catch it (given the underlying conditions they suffer mean their immune systems are suppressed)

Thus wants all members of her community to take the (what she considers small) risk of an averse reaction, for the benifit of others. And those people who can't be given the vaccine because their immune system wouldn't be able to adapt to it anyway...

That's something I didn't think of, Orathaic. People with suppressed immune systems probably shouldn't get it. I don't know what standard protocol is for that situation with other vaccines. If it's definitely a no-no, then hopefully, they don't try to get it, or would be refused the vaccine for their own safety.