Alarming side effects would include fever in adults and a high number of allergic reactions, Jackson said.
Dinges, who is familiar with clinical trials, said he was not the slightest bit concerned about being the first in line for the shot.
"I feel quite confident there won't be any significant side effects," he said.
SHOOT: I'm not sure how effective a vaccine will be. If it slows down the virus, great, but could it also not give a virus the bullets to become even more deadly? It's a mild virus at present, perhaps we need to give ourselves a chance to develop natural immunity [which, by the way costs nothing, just a few days from work]. A vaccine is very costly, especially in terms of the fantasy of literally billions of doses. A vaccine against flu - even seasonal flu - is also something of a myth, since flu is so variable.
SEATTLE - As an infectious disease specialist, Dr. Warren Dinges is only too aware of looming worries about swine flu this fall.
"It's clearly a threat and a problem," he said.
So on Friday, the 41-year-old Seattle internist stripped off his shirt and bared his left arm to become one of the first people in the nation immunized against the novel HIN1 influenza virus.
As many as 2,800 people are expected to participate in five initial trials of vaccines produced by two manufacturers, Sanofi Pasteur and CSL Biotherapies. Tests on healthy adults ages 18 to 64 will be followed by shots for volunteers older than 65 and children ages 6 months to 17 years.
The main aim of the trials is to to see how much vaccine it takes to elicit a strong immune system response to beat back the new virus, said Dr. Lisa Jackson, the principal researcher who's heading the trials at Group Health Cooperative in Seattle.
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