H1N1 is the celebrity of viruses.

From the time of the most recent emergence in North America in April of this year, its evolution has been played out on the front pages and internet chat rooms across the country. There have been name changes, rumors and gossip, tragedy, public reaction, even scandal.

And like the celebrity gossip which captivates so many Americans, much of the conjecture has been based on misinformation and promoted by those with the least reliable knowledge.

Those claiming that the 2009 outbreak of H1N1, known earlier as swine flu, is no different from every flu that does the rounds each season are in some ways correct.

Each year regular influenza kills many more people than H1N1 did, or is likely to do, in 2009.

But one key difference is the kind of people most at risk – pregnant women, children, young people with other health issues.

With health agencies this week receiving limited supplies of the H1N1 vaccine, some health officials are concerned that many residents are being frightened away from getting the shot by a campaign of fear and misinformation.

The vaccine is being accused of many things, from causing harmful side effects to being the product of a government conspiracy to implant citizens with tracking devices.

In recent months, rumors have circulated claiming the H1N1 vaccine isn’t safe – that it contains levels of mercury that promote autism.

The source of this fear was a now discredited study that suggested a link between Thimerosal, a preservative containing ethyl mercury, and autism in children.

While most of the H1N1 vaccine supplies do contain Thimerosal (there are a limited number of Thimerosal-free shots available, mostly for pregnant women), more recent studies have found that infants could safely receive eight times as much mercury as the H1N1 vaccine contains.

Large sections of the population continue to believe that this preservative, or something else in the vaccine, can lead to autism, despite no evidence from the most rigorous scientific studies.

As a result, a recent AP poll found that more than a third of parents were unlikely to give permission for their children to be vaccinated at school.

“We’re talking about putting an unknown into him. I can’t do that,” one parent was quoted as saying in a story on USA Today. This is a fear that is taking root across the country.

But public health officials in King County told The Reporter this week that often a simple dose of accurate information was the best way to alleviate fears about the vaccine.

Dr. Kristin Graham is an obstetrics and gynecology (ob-gyn) physician and chairperson of the ob-gyn department at Overlake Medical Center.

Graham and Overlake will soon be rolling out a program to offer free H1N1 vaccinations to all pregnant women who are pre-registered to deliver at their hospital.

She said she held no doubts as to the safety and effectiveness of the vaccine.

“I typically see between 25 to 45 pregnant women every day, and I talk to each and every one of them about the vaccine,” Graham said. “Once they have the information, once they understand that the H1N1 vaccine is produced in exactly the same way as the regular seasonal flu vaccine, they’re not worried.”

The absence of this crucial piece of information from the writings of anti-vaccine conspiracists is building an opposition to the vaccine based on discredited, if any, science.

“There have been millions of women vaccinated over the last 45 years, and the last 5 or 6 years more regularly,” Graham said.

Matias Valenzuela of the King County Department of Public Health said many of the concerns about the vaccine were based on reports of a connection between the 1976 swine flu vaccine and Guillian-Barre syndrome (GBS), a rare disorder in which a personÕs own immune system damages nerve cells.

Because of an increase in the number of reports of GBS following 1976 influenza vaccinations in some states, the immunization program was suspended.

Epidemiologic evidence found the estimated attributable risk of vaccine-related GBS in the adult population was just under one case per 100,000 vaccinations.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), numerous studies have since evaluated if flu vaccines were associated with GBS.

“In most studies, no association was found, but two studies suggested that approximately 1 additional person out of 1 million vaccinated people may be at risk for GBS associated with the seasonal influenza vaccine,” the CDC report states.

Valenzuela said it was possible any problems with the vaccine 33 years ago could be attributed to the chicken eggs which are used to develop vaccinations.

Since the 1930s, scientists have used fertilized chicken eggs to grow viruses. The eggs’ amniotic cavity is able to provide sterile and nutrient rich environment for the influenza virus to replicate.

Valenzuela said that the production of vaccines was heavily studied and recorded, and trusted groups such as the American Academy of Pediatrics and the CDC had thoroughly reviewed flu vaccines and deemed them to be safe.

“Since 1976, we have developed a very good safety record, and there are no links between influenza vaccines and Guillian-Barre or autism,” he said.

Valenzuela stressed that the H1N1 vaccine is made using exactly the same processes as the seasonal flu shot.

“In fact, the H1N1 strain would have been included in the regular seasonal flu shot, had it happened just a month or so earlier,” he said. “But that vaccine had already been made. The only reason (H1N1) requires its own shot is because of the timing.”

Another of the myths currently spurring anti-vaccine hysteria is that it contains an adjuvant, Squalene, a chemical that occurs naturally in the human body and in many animals and fish.

An adjuvant is something added to a vaccine to stimulate the immune system and increase the response to a vaccine. This often allows a limited amount of vaccine to treat more patients.

To date, squalene has not been approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for use as an adjuvant.

However the World Heath Organization notes that squalene has been present in over 22 million flu vaccines given in Europe since 1997, with no reported adverse reactions.

Both the WHO and the US Department of Defense have concluded that squalene is completely safe.

Regardless, none of the H1N1 vaccines currently distributed by the U.S. government contain adjuvants.

“Folks often are making their opinions based on anecdotes,” Valenzeula said. “They hear a story about someone’s child who got vaccinated and then a few months later they were diagnosed with autism. But the sheer weight of numbers is always going to mean there are situations like this. It is in childhood that autism appears, and that is also the period in life when people first get vaccinated.”

So, how important is it to get vaccinated for H1N1?

“Well, for folks in the priority groups, it’s very important,” Valenzuela said.

Those groups are:

• Pregnant women

• Caregivers for children younger than 6 months of age, because younger infants are at higher risk of influenza-related complications and cannot be vaccinated.

• Healthcare and emergency medical services personnel.

• All people from 6 months through 24 years of age

• Persons aged 25 through 64 years who have health conditions associated with higher risk of medical complications from influenza.

People in these groups are most susceptible to complications resulting from H1N1, the primary cause of the fatalities and cases of severe illness that have occurred thus far.

“For healthy individuals, for them it becomes an unpleasant illness. Not a good thing to go through but not necessarily a big deal,” Valenzuela said. “But for a child who has asthma, for example, or a pregnant woman, we have seen that complications can arise.”

For that reason, the above mentioned groups will be the first to receive the vaccine when it becomes widely available in King County.

People in these priority groups are urged to contact their health providers.

As for everyone else, it is a matter of waiting on more supplies to arrive.

There have been some delays in the production of the vaccination, a common occurrence due to the biological complexity of the process.

The CDC has confirmed that “laboratory tests on blood samples indicate that older people likely have some pre-existing immunity to the 2009 H1N1 flu virus.”

People 65 and older are the least likely to be infected with 2009 H1N1 flu, but, if they become infected, are more likely to develop serious complications from their illness.

The U.S. government has purchased 250 million doses of 2009 H1N1 vaccine.

When general supplies arrive, all residents are encouraged to get the shot.

“We do think there will be enough for everyone who wants it, but we are not at that stage yet,” Valenzuela said. “The vaccine that is coming in now, we need to ensure that it gets to those most at risk.”