The H1N1 vaccine is being slowly distributed around the country. We talk to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute on Allergy and Infectious Disease, about when the vaccine will hit doctors' offices nationwide. Then, we turn to two practitioners who are also parents: Dr. Sandra Arnold, a pediatric specialist in infectious diseases at the University of Tennessee in Memphis, who was one of the first in the nation to get the vaccine. We also talk with Dr. Matthew Davis, a pediatrician and internal medicine doctor at the University of Michigan Medical Center, who just conducted a poll on whether parents will be vaccinating their kids. It turns out that less than half of parents polled are convinced that the vaccine is necessary for their kids.
Researchers in the United States and Australia have some good news for the fight against the potential pandemic of H1N1, or "swine flu." Turns out that the vaccine will protect adults with only one dose (and one shot, yay!). This means that the vaccines already in production will go twice as far as previously expected, allowing more people to be inoculated against the flu. Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, gives us the details.
The U.S. government is seeking thousands of volunteers, from babies to the elderly, to roll up their sleeves for the first clinical trials of an H1N1 flu vaccine. The race is on to test whether a new vaccine really will protect against this virus before its expected rebound in the fall. Will the vaccines work? Will there be enough vaccines for everyone? What are the dangers of the vaccine itself? The Takeaway talks to Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, which will oversee the trials.
"We think the risk is extremely small because we give tens of millions of doses of seasonal flu vaccine every year to adults, the elderly and children, and there's not a significant, at all, degree of adverse effects."
—Dr. Anthony Fauci on the H1N1 vaccine
The swine flu has been out of the headlines lately, but the H1N1 virus has already infected over one million people in the United States. Federal health officials are very concerned about a pandemic when flu season ramps up in the fall. The heads of several federal agencies including Kathleen Sebelius, the head of Health and Human Services, Arne Duncan, the Secretary of Education, and Dr. Anthony Fauci, Director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, are all working to try and prevent an epidemic. Dr. Fauci joins The Takeaway with his thoughts on beating the virus.
"It is not an overwhelmingly virulent virus at this time. The concern that we have is that influenza viruses can change, can mutate; you have to watch it very carefully that it doesn't become more fierce or more virulent as it evolves in humans. The good news is that we've been tracking this intensively since the beginning of April. And now, in mid-July, it hasn't changed at all. It's virtually identical."
—Dr. Anthony Fauci on the nature of the H1N1 virus
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