Volunteers swarm for shot at swine flu vaccine

t’s been just a week since Monica Hankins first heard scientists were looking for volunteers to test an experimental vaccine to prevent the H1N1 swine flu, but the Festus, Mo., mom and her family already are signed up.

She wants her two young daughters, Isabella, 3, and Maya, 19 months, to be among the first to be protected against the previously unknown virus that has launched a global pandemic and claimed more than 800 lives worldwide, including more than 300 in the United States.

“I kind of jumped at the chance,” said Hankins, 28, a home health care worker. “The way that it’s sounding, it’s something that I’ve never experienced before. It’s really scary to me.”

From Seattle to St. Louis, at least 3,000 people so far have told scientists they’re eager to be part of fast-track clinical trials to assess the early safety of a shot aimed at preventing widespread infection, serious illness or death in a huge swath of the U.S. population.

That’s already more than the estimated 2,800 volunteers needed at the eight trial sites across the nation.

“We don’t generally ever get a response like this,” said Dr. Lisa Jackson, the principal researcher who’s heading the trials at Group Health Cooperative in Seattle, where nearly 1,100 people flooded phone lines within the first two days.

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