I may make fifty copies of this article to carry around with me:

The first major fear is that flu shots might actually give people the flu. In the case of H1N1, the concern is primarily with the nasal spray variation, which is made with live virus. (The injected vaccine uses dead virus.)

Even health care workers are falling for the pseudoscience behind this myth. A group of doctors and nurses in New York recently filed a federal restraining order to block administration of the vaccine — citing a fear that it could cause an H1N1 outbreak.

Though “live virus” sounds alarming, the fact is that the viruses are weakened to such an extent that they cannot grow or propagate at normal body temperature. Once these “cold-adapted” viruses leave the nose and are subjected to the higher temperatures inside the body, they’re goners. The track record speaks for itself: Live-virus nasal sprays have been widely used for flu vaccination in the US since 2003 — without incident.