WHO?

Thought you might like to know:

"About three months ago, World Health Organization* officials agreed to drop their use of the word "swine" and only refer to the flu as H1N1. Their reasoning: No swine, pigs, or hogs in any country in the world have been diagnosed with the illness. H1N1 does have elements of swine flu, but it also has elements of human and avian strains.

H1N1 is not very catchy. H1N1 has also been found to transmit poorly between ferrets. This is significant because flu viruses happen to affect ferrets in ways similar to humans. When ferrets were separated, airborne respiratory droplets were not effective in spreading H1N1. But the virus spread more easily when ferrets were in close contact. And this has been the case so far with H1N1 in humans: high risk of transmission in a close family unit, low risk of transmission in public places.

But while H1N1 is hard to get, an H1N1 vaccine should be pretty easy to come by a couple of months from now.

According to the Associated Press, the U.S. government is planning to purchase millions of H1N1 vaccines, which will be distributed free to states. And it appears that public schools will provide the launch pad. Never mind that safety and side effects are still a big question mark. Never mind that the seasonal flu vaccine is known to be less effective among younger children.

Never mind ANY of that. Kids will probably get the first big wave of H1N1 shots. But today, parents are more aware than ever that new vaccines often produce surprising adverse side effects – some of them quite dangerous. So it's going to be very interesting to see if large numbers of parents opt out of the H1N1 vaccine offer."

*received in a newsletter on health issues