In the exam room, with 11-year-old Ethan waiting for his shot, Houley said even though the H1N1 vaccine is technically experimental, she doesn't see it that way. "It's not like if you have cancer or something and you're going through an experimental drug trial - that's experimental," she said. "This is a flu vaccine. I didn't think about it ... as a huge risk. If I did, I wouldn't be here with my kids."
Hunter Sears was there because of his grandmother, Gladys Sears, who has worked at Annapolis Pediatrics for 46 years. In 1976, when there was a different swine flu outbreak, she got vaccinated. The next day, the government canceled the vaccination campaign, in part because it appeared to be making some people sick. That didn't color her opinion of whether her grandson should enroll in the study.
"After years of working here, I don't worry about things like that," she said. "Some people have to be guinea pigs."
