Depending on who you talk to, the H1N1 “swine flu” virus is either the scariest, deadliest scourge since the Black Plague, or it’s just another nasty, but ultimately forgettable microbe, like“bird flu,”West Nile and countless other “coming plagues” that came—and went—before it.

Some leading health authorities insist that every living, breathing mammal ought to be vaccinated against H1N1, and that the glaring shortage of vaccine available for mass immunization is a public health travesty. The vaccines, advocates say, are very safe, and if there is a tiny risk of side effects, then this is vastly outweighed by the benefits of preventing an awful and potentially lethal flu.

Other equally authoritative and intelligent people say the safety of the vaccines—even the so-called “mercury-free” ones—are still unproven at best, their efficacy questionable and their long-term consequences totally unknown. The travesty, they say, is not that there’s a shortage of vaccine, but that millions of citizens are being frightened into accepting a largely untested, potentially risky injection to protect themselves against what is for the most part a non-problem.

Some folks say that if your immune system is healthy and well-primed, the swine flu virus can easily be fended off, and that people would be wise to amp up their intake of vitamin D, B vitamins, fish oils, iodine, magnesium and other immune-system boosters. Others say this is…ahem…hogwash, pointing out that unlike other flu strains that seem to prey on the elderly, the very young and the otherwise weak, this particular flu seems to hit people who are relatively strong and healthy.

Over recent weeks, I’ve met physicians who say that people will do just as well with homeopathic flu preparations as with the conventional vaccines, but without any risk of neurologic side effects. Others, of course, think that’s pure fantasy.

Some people, including many in government, say we must prepare for the worst with contingency plans for public quarantines, emergency treatment protocols and massive stockpiles of that precious antidote: Tamiflu. Others say this is irrational hysteria. At best, Tamiflu will merely shorten the duration of flu symptoms by a day or two.

I recently attended the American Holistic Medical Association’s annual meeting, and had the opportunity to speak with many holistically-minded, integrative doctors about their practices and perspectives on H1N1. While I’d say most of those I talked to have not taken the vaccine themselves, some are erring on the side of caution and recommending it to “high-risk” patients. Some do not advocate the shot but will give it if patients strongly request it. Some insist that all pregnant women should have it, as the risk of swine flu death is particularly high during pregnancy; others consider vaccinating pregnant women to be akin to malpractice, putting both mother and fetus at risk for severe adverse reactions.

From doctor friends who have actually had H1N1 or have seen a lot of patients with it, I’ve heard everything from “this thing really kicks your ass,” to “no big deal.” One physician friend says that the risk-to-benefit ratio will seem to favor erring on the side of“caution” and giving the vaccine—until you see your first case of Guillain Barre Syndrome, a severe vaccine-related paralysis that is sometimes fatal but always very scary.

On a global level, governmental recommendations about whom to vaccinate and how to control H1N1 vary widely from country to country.

What gives? How is it that highly-intelligent, well-educated and health-conscious people can come to such extremely divergent opinions about what, on face value, seems to be a relatively simple phenomenon? Aren’t medical practice and public health policy guided by hard, objective science?

The truth is, medical practice is shaped as much or more by gut reaction, public opinion, political expediency, cultural habit and commercial imperative as it is by science. H1N1 creates a great lens for seeing these various influences.

In a way, H1N1 is a great big mirror in which people see what they fear most and trust least. A person’s ideas and attitudes about H1N1 can tell you a lot about where he or she puts faith, and what he or she distrusts.

If you’re mistrustful of the federal government, for example, then the fed’s response to swine flu is simply more evidence of its agenda for total social control, a further step toward socialist centralization of power and curtailment of individual freedoms. Or if not that, then perhaps you figure the liberals are just conjuring the crisis as a pretext for ramming“universal healthcare” through Congress. And let’s not even get into the World Health Organization’s declaration of an official global epidemic: a clear sign that American sovereignty is about to be usurped by the coming“World Government.”One need not search too hard through the right wing blogosphere to find opinions of this sort.

If you distrust big corporations, particularly of the pharmaceutical variety, then you’re likely to see the H1N1 “crisis” as more evidence of the drug industry’s merciless pursuit of profit, its “medicalization” of everything, its willful ignorance of potential risks and its willingness to whip up hysteria in order to move product.

The recent regulatory moves against natural product companies promoting supplements or homeopathics for prevention or treatment of swine flu will probably strike you as clear signs that the government agencies are merely puppets on strings being pulled by pharmaceutical puppet-masters. It’s a view that’s widely prevalent in natural product and holistic medical circles.

If you’re of the mind that the natural world is a fundamentally hostile and ruthless place full of all sorts of visible and invisible threats that can only be neutralized by high-tech human ingenuity, then you’ve probably gotten the shot, identified a doctor with an ample supply of Tamiflu, and you’re spending a goodly portion of your monthly budget on Purell.

On the other hand, if your faith is firmly rooted in “the healing power of nature,”then you’re probably staying as far away as possible from vaccines, antivirals and medical doctors, but upping your intake of antioxidants and immune-system builders, while thinking positive thoughts and telling your friends“not to drink the Kool-Aid.”

If you don’t like immigrants, then H1N1 gives you yet another reason why we should seal the borders, hunker down and do our best to keep “them” away from “us.” Need we be reminded just where those first cases of swine flu showed up last year? On the other hand, if you’re internationally minded, then the H1N1 epidemic only underscores the need for greater international cooperation and public health efforts. Viruses, after all, are color-blind, creedless and don’t acknowledge borders.

Personally, I don’t know enough to say that any one of these views is categorically, absolutely right or wrong (well, maybe the “seal the borders against the immigrants” thing is just plain wrong). My only point is that our reactions and responses to this bug are more a reflection of our human nature than the actual virus or its potential health consequences.

H1N1 makes for a really, really good Boogie Man. It is real enough, common enough and harmful enough to warrant concern, but ambiguous enough and unpredictable enough to invite all sorts of projections. Add in the commercial imperatives from various industries and you’ve got a situation where heated opinions will quickly fill the data-voids, and our natural human discomfort with uncertainty will be soothed by easily grasped absolutes.

What worries me is that important and complex questions are being simplified into really dumb, black and white, either-or formulas. Others are being drowned out by all the bloviation, or worse, not even being asked seriously.

Instead of blanket policies for or against the vaccines, let’s have an honest reckoning with all the data—published and unpublished—about what these vaccines do and don’t do in as wide a variety of people as possible. Instead of opinionating about whether vaccines are absolutely safe or absolutely dangerous, maybe it would make more sense to start looking at what are the common characteristics of people who have bad reactions to vaccines, swine flu or otherwise.

If this disease is really the threat that governments around the world are saying it is—if it warrants extension of“special powers”to agencies like the Centers for Disease Control—then doesn’t it make sense to actually study whether common and relatively inexpensive things like vitamins, minerals, omega 3s, probiotics, homeopathic remedies, botanicals and plant-derived essential oils could improve immune system function and attenuate or even eradicate H1N1?

For every reproach of a natural product company’s swine flu claim, shouldn’t there be some research to see if there might actually be something to that claim? Wouldn’t we want to have access to the broadest possible range of potentially helpful remedies? Wouldn’t that make more sense than making our entire national swine flu response dependent on a single drug—and one that’s in short supply?

Swine flu is so-named because it originally came from pigs. As several environmental groups have pointed out, this fairly begs for a serious examination of industrial agriculture, its CAFOs (“Concentrated Animal Feeding Operations” aka “feedlots”) and the possible role they may play in generating virulent pathogens. Or is it more comfortable to just write it off as another attempt by the “enviros” to forward their anti-capitalist agenda.

Pure science is very rare, and I seriously doubt whether we’ll ever have entirely rational and scientific debates about an issue as complex and emotionally charged as a potentially devastating flu epidemic. But because the stakes are high, we need to be as vigilant about overly simplistic agendas, entrenched positions, industrial influences and knee-jerk policies as we are about the virus itself. They can be just as dangerous.

‘Heal Thy Practice’ 2010 Conference: Holistic Primary Care is holding its next “Heal Thy Practice: Transforming Primary Care” conference June 10-13, 2010 at the Ballantyne Hotel, Charlotte, NC. Audio recordings, powerpoint presentations and support materials from the 2009 “Heal Thy Practice” conference are available for purchase on www.holisticprimarycare.net. Click on the “Heal Thy Practice” conference banner at the top of the homepage to access this information.