It looks as though President Bush and I will be walking around naked this winter. No need to cover your eyes in alarm, however – the only thing the two of us will really be exposing to the public is our immune systems, since he and I will probably not be getting a flu vaccine this year. That’s because the national shortage of influenza vaccine has led to recommendations that the vaccines available be given only to patients at the highest risk of influenza complications. The rest of us will have to suck it up, but we should not whine or worry about it.

In fact, if you are flu-shy, don’t bother me – unless you are a high-risk candidate (age over 65 or having a serious health problem, pregnant, or being a child 6 to 23 months old) for the vaccination and cannot get your shot. Then you have my sympathy, and one of you will get my vaccination.

There are several reasons those of us with our immunological heinies hanging out in the influenza breeze this winter should relax a bit, then step gracefully and quietly aside while those with high-risk status get what would have been our shots with our blessing.

First, while the majority of us will get a winter cold or two, in any given year most of us will not get true influenza even if we are not vaccinated. We all get colds, but those are not the real “flu,” and are usually not anywhere near as bad as influenza. Our young children have the highest rates of infection, and healthy adults have the lowest rate.

We could reduce our individual risk of getting influenza even more if we were a little less prone to sharing our mucous and saliva in this country. We cough without covering up, we go to public places when we are hacking up virus-filled stuff, and we wash our hands as though time with soap in them is taken directly off the end of our lives. If we spent more time washing and covering, and less time worrying about getting our flu vaccines, we would be healthier and less harried.

Second, even if we get influenza, for most of us the experience is a muscle-aching, mucous-making, fever-inducing, cough-up-a-lung hacking, work-missing misery lasting about six days, but it is not dangerous. In fact, the main reason influenza vaccinations are recommended for most Americans is to protect high-risk patients from getting our influenza, and to protect the economy.

Workers with the flu are at risk to miss some punches at work; the average worker with influenza misses at least three days on the job. Children with the flu also miss school, which causes working parents to stay home. Influenza vaccinations help prevent the economic misery wrought by the disease on the work force and workplace.

High-risk patients, on the other hand, can have their tickets permanently punched by influenza. Complications of the disease kill about 35,000 Americans each year, most of them elderly patients with other serious health problems. That’s the third reason for most of us to be pleased to give up our vaccines this year; high-risk patients need our vaccines much more than the rest of us. Anyone getting a vaccine needs to be able to look a cancer patient on immune system-suppressing drugs in the eye and say, “I need one as much as you do.” Most of us cannot do that without blinking.

While we are all wondering about when our influenza turn will come we should look for other boogie men out there waiting to drag us down life’s rat hole. Some of them are a lot more dangerous than influenza and should give us greater cause for concern. Cigarette smoking will suck another 400,000 Americans lives down the drain this year, as will diseases caused by obesity. Car crashes kill a 747’s worth of Americans about every five days. Anyone worrying about the flu who is isn’t buckled up, slimmed down and tobacco-free is fiddling with the flu while life’s candle burns.

For low-risk Americans there is peace of mind to be found this flu season, even if we cannot get your vaccination. Our flu risk is low to begin with and we can lower it even more by taking simple preventive steps, and we can lower our total risk for ill health by addressing other health issues.

Finally, when we give our vaccination to someone else who needs it more we are standing up for them in the line of infectious fire. Our soldiers in the real line of fire would be proud of us.

Erik Steele, D.O. is a physician in Bangor, an administrator at Eastern Maine Medical Center, and is on the staff of several hospital emergency rooms in the region.