Stu­dents re­ceive free H1N1 vac­ci­na­tions

Bethel held its first H1N1 vac­ci­na­tion clinic on Tues­day, Nov. 10. Since then, three more clin­ics have been held. Ac­cord­ing to Well­ness Cen­ter Di­rec­tor Mary Ful­ton, over 200 stu­dents re­ceived their vac­ci­na­tion dur­ing the clin­ics on Nov. 10 and 11, and more were ex­pected to get the shot this past week.

Ac­cord­ing to se­nior nurs­ing stu­dent, Crys­tal Lane, the school re­ceived 500 doses of the vac­cine to dis­trib­ute among stu­dents, fac­ulty and staff.

“They ex­pect all 500 of the doses to be used be­cause the vac­cine is free and peo­ple are con­cerned about get­ting the flu,” Lane said.

Se­nior Laura Miller de­cided to get the vac­cine.

“It did­n’t hurt at all, just makes your arm a lit­tle sore,” she said. “I got it be­cause it was free.”

Fresh­man Katie Schlem­mer shared Miller’s sen­ti­ment.

“If some­one gives you free cook­ies, you take them,” said Schlem­mer.

Ju­nior Ko­rey Hostet­ter de­cided to get the vac­cine be­cause she is an el­e­men­tary ed­u­ca­tion ma­jor and works in the schools.

“I am also a fresh­men RA, and fresh­men are un­clean,” she said.

Many stu­dents still chose not to re­ceive the free vac­cine.

“I am not very big on med­ica­tions,” said fresh­man Nolan Dodge. “Some­times you need them, but most of the time you don’t. There is­n’t a big chance of you dy­ing from it (H1N1), so I don’t find the need to get the vac­cine.”

Oth­ers were un­sure of the new­ness of the vac­cine.

“I don’t think enough test­ing was done,” said sopho­more nurs­ing stu­dent Megan Cobler. “Most vac­cines take a long time to per­fect. I feel this shot was made to give peo­ple a peace of mind, be­cause peo­ple were so wor­ried about it (swine flu).”

Ful­ton says that the H1N1 vac­ci­na­tion is not much dif­fer­ent than the sea­sonal flu vac­cine.

“The vac­cine was made the same way we’ve made the flu vac­cine for the past 30 years,” Ful­ton said. “Had the pan­demic started a few months ear­lier, H1N1 would’ve been in­cluded with the sea­sonal flu shot and prob­a­bly will be in the sea­sonal flu vac­cine next year.”

Ac­cord­ing to Ful­ton, there is, as with any vac­cine, the risk of mild re­ac­tions.

“With H1N1, some may ex­pe­ri­ence mild symp­toms of headache, mus­cle aches, fever or nau­sea,” Ful­ton said. “The symp­toms may be­gin soon af­ter the shot and are usu­ally mild, last­ing only a day or two.”

Ful­ton re­as­sures that se­vere re­ac­tions are pos­si­ble, but are usu­ally rare.

“I would en­cour­age the stu­dents to get vac­ci­nated,” said Ful­ton.

Ful­ton ex­plained that it is “eas­ier and more cost ef­fec­tive to pre­vent the dis­ease than treat it.”

Lane also en­cour­aged stu­dents to get the vac­cine.

“It is im­por­tant for peo­ple to get the vac­cine es­pe­cially while liv­ing on cam­pus,” Lane said. “If one per­son gets it and it spreads like fire.”

Ful­ton said that the school is of­fer­ing the H1N1 shots so that the vac­cine is more ac­ces­si­ble to stu­dents and staff.

“It also helps re­lieve the lo­cal health de­part­ment from the bur­den of hav­ing more peo­ple at their clin­ics,’ Ful­ton said.

Stu­dents who missed the clin­ics, can still get the shot by call­ing the Well­ness Cen­ter at 807-7370 and mak­ing an ap­point­ment.