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It gets very complicated because our immune system is very complex. It is not as simple as forgetting antibodies. The strength and duration of the immune response varies depending on which pathway is used. The are multiple types of cells and antibodies in our immune system. I will forward you a few good links later, if you would like some more background.
Also, there are common reinfections of chickenpox. It is called shingles, which is caused by the same virus. The disease presents itself differently once a person gets chickenpox. A person can also get shingles without having chickenpox if they have had the chickenpox vaccine!

First of all, I am a virologist (who studies viruses in a lab) with a PhD and NOT an MD that works with patients. I also have a BS in Biochemical Pharmacology. Therefore I am not qualified to make medical decisions for you and your family. I am still more than happy to share my experiences and opinions with you.
I know exactly what you are going through. I also have 4 kids (ages 2-12) and have argued with my husband on this issue. I did not end up having to make the decision for my kids because H1N1 is widespread in my kids’ schools and they ended up catching it. Everyone recovered and the vaccine is still not available in our area anyway.
I do not get my children vaccinated against the “seasonal” flu and I did not plan on doing it for H1N1 either. All of my kids are healthy and have strong immune systems. I think pharmaceuticals are so overused in our society and every drug has side effects. Of course there are many examples of drugs that truly save and improve the quality of lives. I just have not seen any solid scientific evidence that flu vaccines deliver the protection that they are hyped to give.
However, if my child had a medical condition that put them at risk, then I probably would get them vaccinated. If I did, then I would make sure that it was the inactivated shot in the single dose form, which does not contain thimerosal. There are conflicting reports on its safety, so better to be safe than sorry. Also, none of the H1N1 vaccines approved for use in the US (at this time) contain adjuvants, so you don’t have to worry about those.
I would not give them the live nasal mist, no matter what. It has only been out for a few years and the safety has not been tested enough. I have personally reviewed the clinical data and have identified many potential problems that have not been tested for yet.
Hope that helps!

I appreciate your response and I could tell by some of your other posts that you are an educated person. I am a doctor, but not the medical kind. I am a biochemist and molecular virologist. The recent public outcries about vaccine safety has inspired me to do some research of my own on flu vaccines. There is so much confusion, misinterpretation and junk science on the web that it is no surprise that so many are scared.

What I was referring to in my post to you was the difference between vaccine acquired immunity versus natural immunity from infection. It is well known in the field that while natural immunity is lifelong, this is not necessarily the case with vaccination. For some reason, the immune system tends to “forget” vaccine acquired immunity over time. This is why booster shots are required. It seems that the body does actually know the difference between a vaccine and an infection.

I have a question about flu vaccines that I have have never heard asked by anyone else.
I know that immunity obtained from nature (infection) lasts a lifetime whereas immunity from vaccines tend to “wear off” over time. This is why booster shoots are recommended for some diseases.
So if a younger, healthy person gets regular flu shots to avoid getting sick, then this immunity should diminish over the years. By the time this person is “old” they will have lost immunity to many of the epitopes on the strains that they were vaccinated against over the years. This would mean that they would be much more likely to catch the flu when they are old (and in a higher risk group) than someone of the same age that has acquired natural immunity to these flu strains.
So, in the long run, isn’t it better for a healthy person to skip the vaccines and develop natural immunity? That way they will be more likely to survive an influenza infection when they are old.

Sorry for the typo! The 10%was calculated using 31 million doses, not 31,000.

As of today, only 100 doses total of the H1N1 vaccine have been received in the Buffalo, NY area (Erie County).
Considering that over 31 million doses have been released in the US, this seems a bit odd to me.
If you do the math, 31,000 doses is enough for about 10% of the US population. There are at least one million people in Erie County, so 100 doses is enough for 0.01% of the people here.

This is really bad. I have never heard of 3 flu strains hitting one place at the same time! Reassortment of the these strains with each other could result in a pathogen that even those who have had 2009 H1N1 will not be immune too.

You are welcome!

I am a virologist and I have concerns with the live flumist as well. It is made from a genetically modified form of the virus that is adapted to replicate at temps a few degrees cooler that the wild-type virus. The cold adapted form is predicted to infect only the cells in the nose (where its a few degrees cooler than inside the body).
The vaccine is predicted to work by causing an infection that is localized in the nose. This infection triggers the immune system to produce antibodies against that strain of the virus and (in theory) protects that person from the wild-type virus.
The printed material for this vaccine is misleading. They claim that you can’t get the flu from this vaccine but infection by the virus is exactly how it is supposed to work. In the clinical trial, the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine was reported but their methods are also misleading. They tested vaccinated people by nasal swab to see if they caught the wild-type form of the virus. In other words, if someone had flu-like symptoms and the swab was positive for the vaccine strain, they did NOT consider those patients as positive for flu.
Further, the clinical work that was reported was from another strain and not the pandemic H1N1 vaccine strain. The growth of the cold adapted strain in those reports was inhibited at 36 deg C while the strain used in the H1N1 vaccine is inhibited at 39 deg C. This suggests that the live vaccine strain for H1N1 should be able to infect deeper in the body (where it is warmer) than the strains used in the clinical trials. Unbelievably, testing has not been reported for this.
You are right to question the safety of this vaccine. I have other issues with it, but I don’t want to write a book here!

When they add adjuvant to a vaccine it allows them to use less antigen per dose. These adjuvants have also been linked to many bad side effects.

The amount of vaccine that can be made is limited by the amount of antigen (virus) that is available. The virus (antigen) is grown in eggs and it takes time to grow and purify it for use in the vaccine. A company can make more vaccine, using less antigen, when adjuvant is added.

To put it another way, it is cheaper and faster for them to mass produce a vaccine with adjuvant than without. The peons get the cheap stuff.

Very good question!
If you get infected by the flu virus while waiting in line, then the vaccine will offer you no protection.
The incubation time for the flu is about 2 days and it takes a person a few weeks to build up immunity to the virus from a vaccine.

The mist is actually a cold-adapted live virus. This is a genetically modified virus that grows better at the lower temperature in the nose than it does in other parts of the body (which are slightly warmer).

The virus most certainly DOES infect the person getting the mist. That is how the person develops an immune response which leads to immunity. In theory, the virus will only infect the nose because of the cooler temperature there.

However, if you read the package insert for the vaccine, it states that some people do get sick from the vaccine.
It also states that live is shed and that they have NOT done studies to see if this can infect others.

But I thought that Obama promised us transparency...

You might get a good laugh out of this. It is a link from the white house site on transparency and open government.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the_press_office/TransparencyandOpenGovernment/

If people are really trying to protect themselves from the flu then it is pretty stupid to stand around in line for hours with thousands of people. Especially since it takes a few weeks for the vaccine to take full effect.

If they catch while waiting in line, the vaccine is worthless.

If people are really trying to protect themselves from the flu then it is pretty stupid to stand around in line for hours with thousands of people. Especially since it takes a few weeks for the vaccine to take full effect.

If they catch while waiting in line, the vaccine is worthless.

This seasonal vs H1N1 thing is unclear. It seems to me that if 99% of flu cases are the H1N1 strain, than doesn’t that mean IT is the “seasonal flu” this year?

When they make the seasonal flu vaccines each year, they have to “guess” ahead of time what they think the predominant strains of flu will be. They do this so that the vaccine is ready to go before flu season. Sometimes the predictions are correct, but not always. There are 2 different flu vaccines this year because the “seasonal” vaccine was already in production when H1N1 hit.

But I’m sure that if everyone started calling H1N1 the seasonal flu, then no one would get the other flu vaccine and the companies that made it would lose profits.

That is exactly what I was wondering. I found some (vague) info on the HHS website.
http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/hipaa/faq/providers/hipaa-1068.html

“What provisions may be waived:

If the President declares an emergency or disaster and the Secretary declares a public health emergency, the Secretary may waive sanctions and penalties against a covered hospital that does not comply with certain provisions of the HIPAA Privacy Rule:

the requirements to obtain a patient’s agreement to speak with family members or friends involved in the patient’s care (45 CFR 164.510(b))
the requirement to honor a request to opt out of the facility directory (45 CFR 164.510(a))
the requirement to distribute a notice of privacy practices (45 CFR 164.520)
the patient’s right to request privacy restrictions (45 CFR 164.522(a))
the patient’s right to request confidential communications (45 CFR 164.522(b))”

I agree, this is a sick joke.

It seems like there are a lot of drug companies raking in huge profits over this “emergency.”

At first, people were afraid that the government was going to force vaccination. Now that there are widespread reports of vaccine shortages, people are freaking out. Now they will line up for the vaccines.
Seems like a brilliant marketing scam for these companies. It is the same thing that toy companies do around Christmas time.

Scarcity increases demand.

I had the same question as you about the testing.
After doing some research, I found the CDC is “sampling” certain areas to follow the spread of the virus. They report that 99% of the circulating virus is H1N1. Testing is also done when a person is hospitalized and/or dies from flu-like illness.
They way that doctors are diagnosing the flu for most people is the same way that they have for years (before they even could test). They diagnose it as H1N1 because (based on CDC reports) odds are that is is that strain.

It’s not not the same story, just the same topic. This story mentions waiving HIPAA privacy.