People fearful of the H1N1 flu vaccine should know the benefit is greater than the risk, said Maui District Health Officer Dr. Lorrin Pang.

Health officials have been speaking out in support of the statewide immunization effort since a Hawaii County Council committee voted earlier this month to support a resolution expressing concern about the safety of the vaccine.

Pang said he was asked for his opinion by the Hawaii council and another group opposed to the vaccine. Both groups were dissatisfied with health officials who had endorsed the vaccine, and turned to Pang for a different opinion. But he told them: "Go with the vaccine."

"Nothing is perfectly safe," he said Wednesday. But he added, "we have studied it, and know it's safe enough to know the benefits outweigh the risks."

The H1N1 flu vaccine was tested on a group of 2,400 people. None experienced severe side effects, he said.

Pang acknowledged the sample size was small. With a group that size, the chance that there will be side effects that didn't show up in the study - the margin of error - is between zero and 0.15 percent.

That rate of uncertainty is lower than the probability that a person will be infected with H1N1 and die, he said.

Current projections are that 50 percent of people will contract H1N1, and that the virus will be fatal in 0.5 percent of those cases.

"If you do the math, it's better to take the vaccine," Pang said.

High-risk groups like pregnant women and people with underlying medical conditions such as asthma will have an even higher death rate than the general population, he noted.

And the death rate for the virus is climbing, he added.

"It seems to be rising faster than we thought," Pang said.

He said he understood questions and concerns about the long-term effects of a vaccine that was only tested for a few months, as part of the CDC's rapid response to the new strain of flu.

But he said scientists couldn't wait years to roll out a vaccine against the virus that is expected to hospitalize or kill a significant number of people in the next several months.

"This thing is coming," he said.

* Ilima Loomis can be reached at iloomis@mauinews.com.