NO-SHOT FLU VACCINE GETS TOTS' APPROVAL.

Byline: Leigh Hopper Cox News Service

When Brandon Belch, 2, got his flu vaccine, he was upset. But it wasn't the pull-out-the-stops, screaming meemies fit he usually throws when he gets a shot, said his father, Kirk Belch.

That's because there were no needles involved - just a squirt of liquid up each nostril.

Researchers at Baylor College of Medicine are testing a needle-free flu vaccine on children age 15 months to 5 years. While the nasal-spray vaccine's effectiveness hasn't been established, lead investigator Dr. Pedro Piedra reports fewer tears from his pint-size subjects.

``It's like you jump in the pool and get water up your nose. It's enough to irritate your eyes,'' Piedra said. ``You see their eyes fill. Then very rapidly it's all over. They're happy they didn't get a shot.''

From now until the end of flu season in late March or early April researchers will keep tabs on about 1,400 children across the country who got the vaccine or a placebo. Parents will keep health diaries, and researchers will collect throat swabs from children who get the bug. Baylor is one of 10 sites in the United States and will enroll the last of its 200 participants this week. There are no openings in the study.

The study is a collaboration between a California-based drug company, Aviron, and the National Institutes of Health. Pending results of the study, the vaccine could be available to needle-phobics within three years, Piedra said.

``I think it will be better accepted in (the child) population than shots,'' he said. ``At least the children we have seen, the mothers and dads, they seem to be happier.''

Like oral polio vaccines, the nose-spray flu vaccine is made of live but weakened flu viruses, Piedra said. Sprayed into the nose by a syringe, the viruses stimulate production of flu-fighting antibodies in the nose and throat, where the flu virus settles first.

While the current flu shot, made from a killed virus, is about 70 percent effective, researchers hope the live-virus vaccine will provide a more ``well- rounded, robust immunological response and afford better protection,'' said Dr. Dominick Iacuzio of the National Institutes of Health.

Iacuzio said the nose-spray vaccine won't completely replace the injected flu vaccine, because it would not be wise to intentionally expose a person with a weak immune system to a live virus.

Health professionals want to prevent flu outbreaks because the illness is potentially life-threatening. Most people think of flu as nothing more than a week or so of feeling rotten, but combined with pneumonia, it's the sixth-leading cause of death among Americans, according to the American Lung Association.