Pregnant women worry over vaccine

The new injection against swine flu "is scary," says one mom-to-be.

By KIM ARCHER World Staff Writer
Published: 8/17/2009  2:25 AM

At five months pregnant, Erin Brown isn't sure yet whether she will be vaccinated against the swine flu this fall.

"I'm still a little bit on the fence about it," said the 23-year-old Tulsan. "Just the idea of having a vaccine I don't know exactly how it was cultivated and what's in it is scary. I'm a little iffy about getting something that hasn't been tested very long when I'm growing a child."

Pregnant women across Tulsa and the state are echoing Brown's concerns, particularly since the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently put pregnant women among the five priority groups for swine flu immunizations.

Pregnant women are at higher risk of complications and death, and are four times as likely to be hospitalized with the disease, the CDC said.

"It's kind of one of those things where there is no clear answer," said Tiffany Bjorlie, owner of ECO baby + kids, 3516 S. Peoria Ave.

She said many of her pregnant customers have expressed concern about the vaccine.

"As long as you educate yourself on all sides of the issue, then you can make your decision," Bjorlie said.

Dr. Louise Thurman, medical director of IPS Research in Oklahoma City, says the vaccine is nearly identical to the typical flu vaccine that has been proven safe for years.

IPS Research is preparing to perform clinical trials on the swine flu vaccine later this month.

"The only difference is the type of virus used. In this case, it's H1N1. It's not a live vaccine, so you're not going to get the flu," she said.  Thurman said pregnant women have to weigh the risks themselves.

"In my view, if you got the H1N1 flu and died, that's a bad outcome," she said. "But if you get the shot, odds are high that you'll have no problems. Maybe you would have mild flu symptoms."

She said pregnant women who get the shot will pass on that immunity to their unborn child, just as it is passed on with the seasonal flu shot.

And through so-called "herd immunity," pregnant women will help reduce the flu in their own families and communities, Thurman said.

Pregnant women experience physiological changes that appear to make them more susceptible to complications and death from swine flu, said Dr. Stanley Grogg, co-chairman of the Oklahoma Immunization Advisory Committee and interim director of the Oklahoma State University Center for Health Sciences in Tulsa.

"You now have a baby inside and it's requiring more blood supply. So there are changes in the heart and the respiratory system," he said. "The baby is pushing up on your diaphragm. That makes it harder to take a big breath and harder to get particles of the virus out of your system."

Grogg believes the safety of vaccines has improved immensely since the 1976 debacle when public health officials urged all Americans to get vaccinated against a swine flu epidemic that never materialized. Instead, dozens of people became ill with a rare condition linked to the vaccine, and some people died.

"People got sicker from the vaccine than the disease itself," he said.

The seasonal flu shot varies each year and is based on guesswork as to which strains of the virus are expected to circulate, Grogg said. The novel swine flu vaccine will be built in a similar way, based upon a template already proven safe, he said.

"We have safety standards now that we didn't have back then," he said. "I am confident the Food and Drug Administration is not going to release the vaccine unless it's safe."