To folks freaking out about the vaccine, I give you the
swine flu timeline.
For anybody who doesn't want to scroll, the first instance of swine flu in humans was recognized on
April 17, 2009. A vaccine was first distributed in the US on
October 5, 2009.
Less than six months from initial recognition to vaccine distribution. To my knowledge,
nobody died.
There are safety regulations, yes, but a
lot of the lead time on drug manufacturing is also bureaucratic red tape. Whether you plan on getting the vaccine is up to you (I hope-- it's very likely going to be a requirement in certain health care fields), but this isn't exactly unprecedented.