Dear Editor,
I could not help but notice that my opinion piece on H1N1 vaccinations, published in the Sentinel’s October 2009 issue, received a bit of backlash from some of the student community here at Selkirk College.

I think that is a good sign; it shows that people are taking this H1N1 vaccine issue seriously and are thinking about both sides of the issue (getting vaccinated versus not getting vaccinated).  I must add that everyone, of course, is entitled to their own opinion, especially since the subject of H1N1 is so controversial these days.

Every week I see something new in the local and provincial newspapers, and if anyone wants to read something interesting about vaccinations they should read J.L. Craig’s (Ph. D) Dear Editor letter to the West Kootenay Weekender (November 13 issue) and Dr. Richard Fleet’s letter arguing against Dr. Craig’s information.

Something else that has come to my attention about my piece is that there have been claims made by some students at Selkirk that my vaccine ingredient information was incorrect, such as that the virus culture in the vaccine is dead not alive and that there are no chicken embryos in it. The information that I wrote was something that I discovered during my research. Egg ingredients are used in the manufacturing process of flu vaccines and that is why people who have egg allergies cannot be vaccinated against the seasonal influenza and H1N1. As for the virus in the vaccine being dead or alive, I will leave that up to H1N1 conspiracy theorists to ponder.

At this point, I do not know what is true and what is untrue about the ingredients in the vaccine. That is the problem that we have with the information available: on one hand we have our federal health care system and the World Health Organization telling us one thing to believe, and then independent parties telling us another. Who are we to believe?

My piece was discussing the argument against getting vaccinated because we are constantly being bombarded by information that the vaccine is safe. However, the point of my article was to get students to start thinking more about their health and to start thinking for themselves by doing their own research into whether they should get the vaccine or not.

Sincerely,
Chelsea Sweeney

Sentinel Correspondent