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I have a feeling that some people make it sound as if a flu was the end of the world. (Get the shot! Triple check it's a four flu shot! Never go without!) I ne
by _0ffh 9y ago
I have a feeling that some people make it sound as if a flu was the end of the world. (Get the shot! Triple check it's a four flu shot! Never go without!)
I never vaccinate and sometimes I get a flu. That means I'm mildly uncomfortable for a few days, and that's it.
For an otherwise healthy person, the benefit of a flu shot is about as high as the risks. Unless you're unhealthy, or in some other special risk group, flu shots are not necessary. The risk of contracting a super-evil new mega-deadly version of the flu is practically negligible, unless you live in a special risk area.
- cmrdporcupine 9y ago4 local (west of Toronto) children have died this winter just this past week from symptoms from the flu, including a healthy 10 year old boy in my daughter's school. In fact 3/4 of the children who've passed away this year had no immune compromising complications.
- ekianjo 9y ago4 from the same strain of flu or were these separate cases?
- cmrdporcupine 9y agoIt's not clear. And it's also not clear if this was a strain the (fairly ineffective) vaccine this year would have helped with. But this is just to say -- flu might not be a big deal to some, and I've always treated it that way -- until you see a perfectly health kid die.
- ekianjo 9y agoYes, I know what you mean. This being said, even the best flu vaccine (depending on each year) is only about 50-60% effective, so the push to "get your vaccine and you'll be safe" is largely moot. Nobody tells such figures to the public.
- dpark 9y ago> get your vaccine and you'll be safe I’ve never seen it messaged that way. Most of the ads I’ve seen have focused on protection others, especially at-risk family members.
- mikeash 9y agoI don’t understand why a ~50% effectiveness is so often held up as a reason that the vaccine is worthless. Getting the flu sucks, and occasionally kills people. Getting the vaccine is cheap/free and takes five minutes. It would be worthwhile even if it was only 10% effective.
- CodeWriter23 9y agoYou say that as if the shot is risk free. The cases adjudicated by The Court of Federal Claims proves this is not the case. (PDF, skip to page 7) http://www.uscfc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/FY16-Report-to-Congress.pdf http://www.uscfc.uscourts.gov/sites/default/files/FY16-Repor... All reports for recent years: http://www.uscfc.uscourts.gov/reports-statistics http://www.uscfc.uscourts.gov/reports-statistics To win a case in this court, you not only have to be aware the court and the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program https://www.hrsa.gov/vaccine-compensation/index.html https://www.hrsa.gov/vaccine-compensation/index.html you can only make a claim if the interaction of the vaccine with your particular combination of DNA results in a limited set of symptoms within specific time frames. (PDF) https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/appendices/d/injury-table.pdf https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/appendi... I wash my hands. A lot. Yes, that doesn’t cover all the transmission vectors but it covers a lot. I limit my exposure. For example, I’ll go home if someone is sick at work and refuses to do so. I supplement 8,000 IU vitamin D as recent studies have found this is what is necessary to achieve nominal serum vitamin D levels for someone at my BMI. Some 40-60% of people are vitamin D deficient in the US, btw.
- mikeash 9y agoNothing is risk free, but the flu vaccine comes pretty close. There’s a reason the CDC recommends it for nearly everyone: the benefits greatly outweigh the small risk. I’ll trust them over a court adjudicating a program whose main purpose is to calm people’s irrational fears of vaccines. From some quick searching, the only serious side effect from the flu vaccine I could find was a 1-2 per million incidence of Guillain-Barré syndrome. The link is still highly uncertain, and in any case that’s still quite a bit safer than something like ibuprofen.
- _0ffh 9y agoChildren and old people are risk groups. Sorry I didn't make that clear.
- stan_rogers 9y ago...and healthy young adults were "the risk group" for the 1918 pandemic.
- mikeash 9y agoIf you’re “mildly uncomfortable for a few days” then you don’t have the flu. And by not vaccinating, you’re putting others at risk who could die from it.
- _0ffh 9y agoRespectfully, I don't think it's helpful for you to tell me what I did or did not suffer from. Maybe we just have different standards of how uncomfortable different things are to us. (Yeah, it's different from a common cold.) Also, when I'm ill I naturally stay at home, and don't go out to sneeze or cough on people.
- mikeash 9y agoThe period when you’re contagious doesn’t necessarily line up with the period when you feel bad.
- _0ffh 9y agoI don't think you're supposed to be infectious for more than a week plus a couple of days at most. Admittedly, there is a short time window where you might be shedding while still asymptomatic. Still, as long as you keep your hands clean (which you should do anyways) and don't cough on people (which you won't if you're asymptomatic) and maybe refrain from shaking hands for a few extra days after having been ill the remaining risks are negligible. We're already entering regions of unlikelihood here where we're bordering on picking nits. You could just as well stand next to a road and yell at the drivers for gassing civilians.
- mikeash 9y agoConsidering that deaths from the flu are of similar magnitude to traffic fatalities, I’d say it’s more like yelling at drivers for running red lights, failing to yield to pedestrians, or changing lanes without looking, and justifying it on the basis that they’d rather deal with the occasional fender bender than take basic precautions.