Forget about Bill Maher and Glenn Beck. Go get a flu shot - especially if you belong to a group most at risk for the disease. The vaccinations are safe, they are effective and they build a wall of protection for you and your community.

Maher, a left-wing comedian, wrote on Twitter recently: "If u get a swine flu shot ur an idiot."

Beck, a conservative talk show host for Fox News, raised the possibility that the neurological disease Guillain-Barre Syndrome would break out. "How much do you trust your government?" Beck asked. "I think that's the main question."

Think about it for a moment. Glenn Beck? Bill Maher? Or the best scientists in the country?

We'll go with the scientists. They believe the swine flu vaccine is safe. They believe Americans who are most at risk should receive it.

The swine flu — H1N1 — has spread to 191 countries and infected millions of people, killing more than 4,500. Because the outbreak of disease last spring seemed so mild, a false sense of security seems to have fallen over Milwaukee and the rest of the country. It would be a mistake to underestimate the killing power of H1N1.

A recent study by the New England Journal of Medicine found that most people who get H1N1 are sick for several days and recover on their own. But for those who require hospitalization, the outlook is much worse: One in four ended up in intensive care, and 7 percent died. The swine flu is most prevalent in children, young adults and pregnant women. At the moment, about 99 percent of all flu diagnosed in Wisconsin is H1N1.

The government hopes to vaccinate pregnant women, health care workers, children with underlying health conditions between the ages of 6 months and 24 years and older Americans with underlying health conditions. Ideally, about half the population would receive the vaccine.

However, a contagion of misinformation is causing needless hesitation. Sixty percent of those surveyed in a recent University of Michigan poll said they either wouldn't vaccinate their children against the swine flu or weren't sure if they would. A Consumer Reports survey found similar sentiments.

So much skepticism about such a common-sense act of public health is astonishing. Vaccination is a front-line defense against disease. Children have been vaccinated for years against deadly diseases such as diphtheria and whooping cough with few side effects and have been spared suffering and death. If large numbers of people forgo vaccination and the disease becomes more virulent, hospitals could be overwhelmed.

And it's not just funny guys and TV gabbers peddling bad advice. Smart people who should know better are using the Internet's echo chamber to do the same. The popular medical Web site Mercola.com recently listed nine reasons you shouldn't vaccinate your kids against swine flu. Among them is the implication, without a shred of evidence, that vaccinations cause autism. The science is rock solid on this:

No study has ever found such a link.

"We're fighting two wars — a virus that can mutate — but we're also fighting something that is bigger than that. And that is fear," Milwaukee Health Commissioner Bevan Baker said.

The myth makers are working hard, so we'll have to work harder:

Myth: The vaccine was rushed into production; it wasn't properly tested.

Reality: In clinical trials, the National Institutes of Health and makers of the vaccine have proved that it is safe. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration has licensed it. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius says the vaccine "has been made exactly the same way seasonal flu vaccine has been made, year in and year out."

Myth: Flu shots cause serious side effects including death.

Reality: Every year, tragedy strikes people around the time they get their flu shots — a person gets a flu shot and suffers a heart attack or other life-threatening ailment. This is coincidence. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has received no reports of serious side effects from the swine flu vaccine. The same people who got the vaccination and became ill probably used their cell phones the day they were stricken. It would be just as logical to blame their ring tones.

Myth: The federal government is requiring everyone to get the vaccination.

Reality: Wrong. It's voluntary.

Myth: A lot of people came down with Guillain-Barre Syndrome in 1976 after President Gerald Ford ordered everyone to get a swine flu vaccination.

Reality: A scientific review by the federal Institute of Medicine in 2003 concluded that people who received the swine flu vaccine in 1976 had a slightly increased risk for developing the neurological ailment, Guillain-Barre. Since then, numerous studies have found no association between later flu vaccines and the disease, although two studies suggested that about one additional person for every million receiving the seasonal flu vaccine may be at some increased risk for the syndrome.

Guillain-Barre causes the body to attack its own nerve cells, resulting in weakness, occasionally paralysis and, rarely, death. Each week in the United States, about 140 new cases are diagnosed, leading some to speculate that coincidence may have played a role 33 years ago.

But the odds of dying from the flu are far worse than the odds of contracting Guillain-Barre. Each year, 1 in 8,400 Americans die from seasonal influenza.

The vast majority of people who get flu shots tolerate them well and have few, if any, side effects. The swine flu vaccine has been thoroughly tested; the government says it is safe.

The community benefit is just as important as the individual protection the vaccine provides. If you are vaccinated, you will not spread the disease to other people. One person at a time, a wall of protection can be built in the community to prevent needless deaths.

"There is nothing scarier than seeing a 10-year-old on a respirator," Baker said. "Seventeen kids died in the last 10 days in the United States. There is nothing scarier than that."

Get that vaccination.

REPRINTED FROM THE MILWAUKEE JOURNAL SENTINEL.