Most parents won't have kids get H1N1 flu shots, study finds

They're "confused", you see. There must be too much disinformation out there, scaring them about the supposed risks of this totally benign, safe, and thoroughly tested vaccine. Or, for some reason, like, perhaps the fact that the swine flu really isn't killing anyone, except a select few with prior breathing complications, or compromised immune systems, or, in all cases, vitamin D deficiencies, they just don't believe the government when they tell them this is the deadliest disease to come around since the last swine flu outbreak, which was also engineered and released by the government, and killed several thousand less than the actual vaccine itself. Somebody stop me...

Los Angeles Times -

Germ-spreading schoolchildren are expected to be the focus of a massive U.S. vaccination campaign against the novel H1N1 flu.

But if their parents are hearing the rallying cry to have their kids vaccinated, they're not buying it, says a new national survey.

In a poll of 1,678 U.S. parents conducted by the University of Michigan's C.S. Mott Children's Hospital, 40% said they would get their children immunized against the H1N1 virus -- even as 54% indicated they would get their kids vaccinated against regular seasonal flu.

Among those who said they do not intend to have their kids vaccinated against H1N1, almost half -- 46% -- indicated they're not worried about their children becoming ill with the pandemic virus. Twenty percent said they do not believe the H1N1 flu is a serious disease.

There were differences along racial and ethnic lines in parents' responses, which were collected Aug. 13 to Aug. 31. More than half of Latino parents said they would bring their kids to get vaccinated against H1N1. Among white parents, 38% said they would do so. African American parents were the least inclined to vaccinate: 30% said they planned to do so.

About half of the parents who said they'd pass on the H1N1 flu shot for their kids expressed concern about possible side effects of the vaccine.

The chatter about seasonal flu and novel H1N1 flu, and the differences in their relative virulence, has certainly confused parents, the survey suggests. Half of respondents said they believe that, for children, seasonal and H1N1 flu pose roughly equivalent risks.

Yeah, okay, I can see how parents are confused here. There is not a roughly equvalent risk. The swine flu has only killed a few thousand people worldwide, as opposed to the roughly half a million people seasonal flu kills annually.