I hear the H1N1 swine flu vaccine is included in the seasonal vaccine. Doesn that make the seasonal vaccine much less safe?
The CDC and the FDA did an enormous amount of monitoring of the 2009 H1N1 swine flu vaccine. After tens of millions of doses, we have no evidence that vaccine was any less safe than any of the vaccines we have used for years. Our monitoring showed the side effects of the H1N1 vaccine were pretty much the same as you’d see from regular seasonal vaccines. There was no indication the pandemic vaccine was any less safe than any vaccine we’ve ever produced. So including that vaccine as one of the three in this year’s seasonal vaccine will not change the safety pattern. Even so, we will monitor the safety of this year’s seasonal vaccine closely– as we always do.
