We are now seeing some vaccines for H1N1 hitting the market. Older folks might not need it, for the 1957 flu outbreak was a variant of H1N1, so people over 52 might have seen this bad-boy before. However, the vaccines are relatively inexpensive and many states are picking up the tab for vaccinations, so most people should consider getting the vaccine, especially if you are working with larger numbers of people. Vaccines are a common method of heading off deadly diseases. The trick in developing a vaccine is finding a weaker form of the disease that can trigger an immune response, so that when the real disease shows up, the immune system is locked and loaded for it. The word vaccine flows from the Latin vacca for cow. The original vaccine was for smallpox; when a British scientist found that milk maid weren’t getting smallpox, he found that cowpox, a ...