Experts argue that the swine flu vaccine is actually the result of a 60-year-old tried-and-true process of making  flu vaccine  that was tested on thousands of people, including some volunteer researchers, before being scheduled for distribution.

The first testing of both the arm-shot and nasal-spray vaccines was performed on 3,000 volunteers in eight laboratories at Baylor University, Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, Emory University, Seattle Group Heath Cooperative, St. Louis University, University of Iowa, University of Maryland and Vanderbilt University.

It’s also being tested by the five firms licensed to make up to 250 million doses of the vaccine by next spring for the U.S. market. William Schaffner, an infectious disease specialist at Vanderbilt, was one of the volunteers and says that the vaccine is tested for safety and to see if it produces the level of anti-body production in the blood that reaches FDA standards.

Kenneth Alexander, an infectious disease expert at the University of Chicago, says there is no reason to believe this flu vaccine will be any less safe than the seasonal flu shots because the only difference between the two is the virus it’s made from.

The FDA’s acting deputy commissioner for public health, Jesse Goodman, says that there’s a lot of misinformation being spread around and added that it’s important to have all the facts before making up your mind about whether or not to get the vaccine.

The Tribune article goes on to detail how the vaccine is made:

Last April, when the H1N1 virus was first identified by federal health officials in Mexico and California, they sent it to the pharmaceutical companies  they contract so that each of them could formulate their version of the vaccine for field testing before mass production. That process took a month.

The only FDA-approved method for making flu vaccines dates back to the 1940′s.  This involves injecting the virus into chicken eggs to be grown into larger quantities. Like many everyday foods and medicines, the ingredients contain a number of vital chemical substances that could be toxic in large doses but are included in the vaccine in harmless, trace amounts.

For instance, the active ingredient in aspirin is acetylsalicylic acid which, taken in proper doses, is effective in reducing fever and relieving headaches. However, if aspirin where to be swallowed in large doses, there would be serious consequences.

A preservative added in trace amounts, thirmerosal, which contains ethyl mercury, is the ingredient that anti-vaccine activists question the most. Critics allege that it can cause autism and other neurological disorders but researches insist that it is present in such a small amount that it poses no harm. Still, single-shot doses can be ordered without thimerosal and there is none of this ingredient in the nasal spray. The U.S. does not add “adjuvants,” another compound raising concerns and sometimes added to vaccines to stimulate the immune response in recipients.

Here’s a list from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) of groups who have been prioritized to receive the 2009 H1N1 vaccine first:

• Pregnant women
• People who live with or care for children younger than 6 months of age
• Health care and emergency medical services personnel
• People between the ages of 25 and 64 years old who are at high risk for H1N1 because of chronic health disorders or compromised immune systems

The CDC reports that, of the 27 states reporting hospitalizations from September 1st to October 10th this year, more than half were people age 24 and younger and about 23 percent of deaths reported from 28 states during this time were in this age bracket.

About 90 percent of hospitalizations and deaths from the swine flu are in people age 64 and younger. This is the reverse of what we see with the seasonal flu, where 60 percent of hospitalizations and 90 percent of deaths are in people age 65 and up.

Another group that is at high risk for the swine flu includes people with immune systems compromised by diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis. These folks are at risk for complications from both types of flu, that is, seasonal and H1N1, and should get both vaccinations as soon as they become available to them. For more information about inflammatory arthritis and the flu shot, visit the CDC website.

Even healthy pregnant women can have medical complications from both the seasonal and swine flu. It is recommended that you get both of these shots as soon as possible. However, you should not be given the nasal spray flu vaccine.

It seems that the flu poses added risks to pregnant women because pregnancy weakens a woman’s immune system and makes her more likely to suffer pneumonia when she catches the flu. The CDC says that, in earlier flu pandemics, infection also raised the risk of premature birth.

It’s a double dilema for pregnant women with asthma and some other health conditions. These women are particularly at risk for complications. The CDC recommends that pregnant women take prescription flu medicines if they are diagnosed with the swine flu. It is believed that the virus poses a greater risk to the unborn baby than the unknown risks of the drugs Tamiflu and Relenza. These anti-viral drugs can help lessen or avert complications, according to Dr. Anne Schuchat of the CDC.

The website Flu.gov has more information for pregnant and nursing moms.