That's insane. The risks are unknown, that's why it's a test. Right now the swine flu is no more dangerous than any other flu. The swine flu vaccine of the 1970s killed a lot of people. The best thing would be for your kids to get the flu as early as possible and then they will have lifetime immunity.

Proceed to stone me now.

If you give your child a shot in September or October, you might just be giving them the experimental shot.

The National Biodefense Science Board has decided to recommend that HHS NOT wait for safety testing to be finished before producing vaccines.

They will make the first few tens of millions of doses from the untested formula for distribution in September and October. Then they will go back and reformulate the shots according to data from the clinical trials.

Those getting the vaccine in the first two months will be getting a completely untested vaccine.

No way! Especially with the adjuvant they are using in that vaccine...squalene...autoimmune disease in a vial.

In April 1954, 1,829,916 children in first, second, and third grade in the U.S., Canada, and Finland participated in the largest vaccine trial in the history of the world. They called us "polio pioneers." I was one of the children who participated in the trial. Sadly, the vaccine had come five months too late for a polio epidemic that struck my suburb of DeWitt, NY. 8 out of 24 children in my first grade classroom contracted the disease. Three children in our suburb died from polio and its complications, including my twin brother Frankie. I suffered paralytic polio, but eventually made a full recovery... I am proud that so many children were allowed to participate in the trial that led to the 1955 licensing of the polio vaccine. According to a 2007 Harvard School of Public Health study, the polio vaccine has prevented over 1.1 million cases of polio and over 160,000 deaths in the U.S. betweeen 1955 and 2005. I hope that the young parents reading this blog receive their medical information from medical experts rather than from the misinformation that permeates much of the media today... Flu is a killer as well as polio... I felt that a little dose of "ancient history" might be valuable for your readers.

flu ≠ polio

The most interesting thing about the 1918 flu pandemic that killed more people than WWI was the mortality demographics. Deaths were most prevalent in the 20-40 age group, more so for men. That is exactly the opposite of what you would expect. You would expect the very young or the elderly to have the highest mortality rates for any infectious disease.

I'm doing this from memory based upon a book I read about ten years ago. This paradox was a mystery for decades. In the end it turned out to be a cohort effect. That is, there was a generation that had not been exposed to this type of flu when they were very young and hadn't developed any immunity. The younger generation tends to have immune systems that are on fire all the time, picking up new germs and batting them down and getting immunity. The older generations had been exposed to this type of virus and had lifelong immunity.

Interesting, huh?

Remember, I'm not a doctor, but I play one on TV

Kate -
If you are sending your kids to the pool, without fear of polio, you can thank my parents for risking their child. They volunteered me - and I was already a known shot-hater - to be one of the experimental polio vaccine testers.

If the H1N1 shot testing were offered in Arizona, I'd volunteer. It's one way to get to the front of the line :)

Will the swine flu vaccine be mandatory for all elementary school children or is that an optional?

I don't think, anyone will be agree on that. Though swine flue doesn't seem to be that much of dangerous, as it has been seen in its first step, but how can some one will agree to take risk and that even with children?