H1N1 scam making rounds in Homer

By Naomi Klouda
Homer Tribune
State health officials put out a warning this week about an Internet scam that preys on people concerned about catching the H1N1 flu.
Homer Fire Chief Bob Painter received notice of the scam, which pretends to be from the Centers for Disease Control. The subject line reads: “Instructions on creation of your personal Vaccination Profile.”
The false e-mail alert reads: “You have received this e-mail because of the launching of the state vaccination H1N1 program. You need to create your own personal H1N1 vaccination profile on the cdc.gov Web site. This vaccination is not obligatory, but every person that has reached the age of 18 has to have his personal vaccination profile on the cdc.gov site. This profile has to be used for the registering system of vaccinated and not vaccinated people.”
If you receive such a notice, ignore it, health officials say.
“It seems to be fishing for personal information. It looks like a reasonable notice, but once they get you to link on to it they can access your personal information,” Painter said. “Unfortunately it can harm people”
The Homer H1N1 task force is circulating the notice throughout the clinic stating the e-mail is not correct. The CDC is not asking people to register a vaccination profile.
The task force is planning on receiving about 1,400 vaccinations prior to the holidays to do a mass vaccination clinic. “We haven’t had enough to even finish the schools yet,” Painter said. “We’ll be working with the middle school on Thursday and one at the Homer High after that. Then, then we will have mass immunization clinics within the next few weeks.”

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