[Grumpybutt]

Am I just too stupid to understand why giving a “live virus” as a vaccine is a good thing???? Seems to me that that will only cause a bigger outbreak - Especially with this swine flu business of rushed vaccines.

[freedomfiter2]

Am I just too stupid to understand why giving a “live virus” as a vaccine is a good thing???? Seems to me that that will only cause a bigger outbreak - Especially with this swine flu business of rushed vaccines.

Could it be that the swine flu is a fluke with help?

[Caesar Soze]

Live viruses have been used in inocculation for hundreds of years. Modern live virus vaccines use either a less virulent related virus (e.g. vaccinia providing immunity for smallpox) or an attenuated (weakened) virus. FluMist uses an attenuated virus which cannot survive in the lungs. The CDC page on FluMist says the probability of transmission is low and unlikely to result in illness.

If you get FluMist, you don't get the real flu, so you won't be coughing and spreading the virus everywhere. Even if I catch the FluMist strain from you, it can't get in my lungs so I won't get the real flu either. We will, however, get immunity against the wild strain.

Other live virus vaccines include MMR, yellow fever, the oral polio vaccine, varicella, and both rotavirus vaccines (1, 2).