Majority of Adult Americans Don’t Want H1N1 Shot

By Paul Steinhauser & Elizabeth Cohen

http://www.bozkurtihsan.co.uk/2009/HEALTH/11/18/poll.h1n1.vaccine/index.html

A CNN national poll taken in mid November (13th to 15th) indicated that 55% of adults don’t want to get the H1N1 vaccine 20% of say they want to get inoculated but haven’t taken any steps to do so. Another 14 % want a shot and tried to get the vaccine but have been unsuccessful, in part because they don’t know where to go (4%) or were turned away (5%) or a shortage of vaccine (3%). Only 7% have been vaccinated for H1N1 influenza.

The perception that the vaccine has dangerous side effects is the top reason,” according to CNN polling director Keating Holland. “Roughly half of those who don’t want a swine flu shot say that the possibility of side effects is one reason why they don’t plan to get the vaccine. That works out to 28 percent of the adult population who don’t plan to get inoculated due to the risk of dangerous side effects. Finally 25% of adults say they don’t plan on getting a shot because they are not in a high-risk group, which include pregnant women, caregivers and household contacts of children younger than 6 months and everyone between the ages of 6 months and 24 years or people ages 25 to 64 with existing health problems.

Although this new item appeared on the CNN web site on November 18th, 2009 and may be a little dated for the December blog, given that the second wave of the pandemic that occurred in October/November is waning these statistics will likely hold true for current vaccination rates and represent are a troubling set of statistics by showing such poor compliance rates or ability to get the vaccine out to the population at a time before the real virus spread.

We should consider ourselves very lucky that this current pandemic strain of influenza is considered mild and genetically stable and modest virulence.