Billions of tax dollars have been paid to giant pharmaceutical companies. Millions of doses of vaccine are on their way to huge warehouses across the country. Thousands of health workers are poised to start injecting into arms and squirting up noses.

The question is: When the swine flu vaccine finally arrives this week, will Americans line up to get it?

As the federal government launches the most ambitious inoculation campaign in U.S. history, several surveys indicate the public is decidedly ambivalent. A nationally representative poll of 1,042 adults released Friday by the Harvard School of Public Health found that only 40 percent were sure they would receive the vaccine and that about half were certain their children would. Recent research by the University of Michigan and by Consumer Reports yielded similar results.

Although the proportion of Americans who are immunized against the flu in a typical year tends to be even lower than those numbers, health authorities expected and hoped demand would surge for this vaccine, especially for those most at risk.

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