Illustration by Mike Padilla

Now that midterms are finished, finals have begun to creep up on us, causing an inordinate fear among the student body as many of us begin to wonder if we will be able to bring home a pretty transcript filled with As and Bs.

But the one thing we fear most, besides the loss of our scholarships and low car insurance premiums, is getting sick right before the big exam that will forever determine the path our future will take. And with the current flu vaccine shortage, the threat of sickness looms even more menacingly than ever before.

In the years past, Campus Health has offered $10 flu shots for students, regardless of insurance. But now that the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has requested that the vaccine go solely to those most in need, students at the University of Arizona might be feeling the crunch, especially considering that Campus Health does not have any vaccines available.

With the way the media, government, and even our professors have been hyping the current situation, it seems as though the flu vaccine shortage will cause major hardships among both high-risk groups like the elderly as well as young healthy people, like UA students. So, if everything the talking heads are saying is true, then even students living in the residence halls or stressing over their finals will be at risk of catching the flu.

Laura Keslar columnist

But didn't your mother tell not to believe everything you hear? While the flu is dangerous to certain groups no matter what its virility, it is nothing to worry about for most students at the university.

During this flu season, the vaccine supply was drastically cut in half to approximately 52 million doses. While this might seem like a vastly smaller number, according to the CDC, it actually is equal to the number of doses given on hand back in 1993.

But back in 1993, we did not hear of any flu vaccine shortages.

And blaming it on the differences in population size is not going to work, though, considering that there has been only a 10 percent change in population size and a significant portion of that is among the young. In other words, there might have been a population increase, but the increase of those at risk was negligible.

Besides the fact that precedent has proven that this level of vaccine will not inversely affect the general population, Australia's flu season has been relatively mild. Since the flu season down under is typically indicative of what ours will be like, it does not appear as though the shortage will be compounded by a particularly virulent bug.

And, if it will make you feel any better, typically 90 percent of the deaths attributed to influenza are of the elderly. So, unless you are a cute old man, you have very little to worry about. Even so, more vaccines will be shipped in January.

Now, if you are worrying that you will die in a pandemic like that of 1917 (which killed more than 20 million people worldwide, young and old alike) if you don't get your shot, don't be so silly. Our current flu vaccine will do barely anything against it, so there is no need to worry.

The reason for this is the way the vaccines are made. At the beginning of each year, scientists across the world study the different strains of influenza from the past year. Three of those strains are picked, incubated and used in the vaccine.

But if anything like the Spanish flu of 1917 ever happens again, it will be because the flu strain differs from the strains that were picked in the laboratory. Currently, this can occur if the avian flu virus of Thailand and Asia picks up genes from the human influenza virus, making it transmittable from fowls to humans.

In this case, we lack the appropriate vaccine to combat the disease. And because the virus uses RNA, it mutates quickly, which prevents humans from using their immunity from last year's virus.

The vaccine, as it is, is typically effective for only three years. And even vaccines targeting a virus with similar surface proteins will be ineffective at protecting the individual. Therefore, even if people survived the pandemic of 1917, if presented with a virus very similar to it, they would not be immune to it.

With the way the shot shortage has been hyped up, you would think that we had something to worry about. We do not. Moreover, even if we did, the current vaccine would not do all that much for us.

So, for this Thanksgiving, be thankful for something different. Be thankful that you do not have to get a shot in the arm.

Laura Keslar is a pre-pharmacy junior. She can be reached at letters@wildcat.arizona.edu.