Get your flu shot

FDA approval process takes 12 to 15 years for everyone else.

Why are you leaving?

mtn said:

Curtis said:

SnowMongoose said:

As someone missing a chunk of his immune system, big thanks to those of you willing to go to a ridiculously small and probably free inconvenience to help yourself and everyone around you.     
Some of the rest of y'all would get along great with my sasquatch hunting sandy hook denying boss.  

(The possibility that some of you fall into both camps is equal parts amusing and terrifying)

In the case of the flu virus, it does nothing for herd immunity because of its ineffectiveness.  If you (with a poopy autoimmune system) get the flu vaccine, it will protect you from the few strains out of the 150 that exist.  For the sake of this discussion I'll name those strains 1, 2, and 3.  So let's say I get the shot, and I still contract flu #4.  You can get it from me because it's #4 and you're not inoculated to that strain.  Now let's say I don't get the shot and I get flu #2.  You likely won't get it from me because you're inoculated to that strain.  Whether or not I get the flu shot has zero impact on your likelihood of getting the flu from me.

 

But what about those that can't get the flu shot? Babies, folks who have serious adverse reactions, GBS? They can get flu #2 from you. How does you getting the flu shot not help? And how is it hurting you to get it? This is where you lose me with your argument. You deal with the public as a theater director, right? What if you're one of the 20-30% who don't show any symptoms? 

 

You mention risk-reward here. The realistic risk for Curtis of getting the flu shot is that you're out some money, and... well, based on what you said earlier, not much of anything else. The reward is that you're innoculated against those strains, and no one else can catch the strains from you. A very small reward overall, but it could be a lifesaving reward for little to no risk. 

The risk of you not getting the flu shot is similarly very low - you get the flu. And probably nothing happens. But it could be catastrophic. 

 

Your reasoning to not get it, while well thought out and not ignoring facts, still falls short for me. 

 

My flu shot would be covered by my insurance at no cost to me.

I know you said you're out of the thread but I'll respond anyway.  I'll miss you here... we've had a great debate

regarding people who can't get the shot, that number is incredibly low, and of those who can't get the shot the number who would be at high risk of death from contracting the flu is next to zero.  That sounds like I'm choosing to not get the shot at the expense of people having a really miserable flu, but that isn't the case.  Approaching it from the math/ethics/science/medicine perspective you are asking me to engage in a low-risk activity to prevent a disease I've never had so that 2.5 people don't get a flu... which I've never had... I would venture to say that no one has ever gotten the flu from me.  If I have a headache, a sniffle, or a cough, I have the luxury (and the moral obligation in my mind) to sequester myself.

I'm one of the left-est, tree-hugging, save the planet guys I know, but I have personal boundaries that I set for my own health.  Taking a drug I don't need (regardless of how little risk) is not something I am willing to do.  If it actually had any real effect on public health or had any hope of establishing herd immunity, I would wait in line and pay $100 every year to get it.  The math doesn't support it.

I appreciate your viewpoint, but it's not like I'm sentencing millions of babies to a painful death.  It's more like there is a .04% chance I might give a few people in my entire life an inconvenience for a week.

Justjim75 said:

Most of you keep saying it is safe, but noone can show me a long term study because there arent any.  Christ, "we" used to use all kinds of poisens as medicine that were thought to be safe, thats why ALL medicines go through rigorous testing before the FDA allows it to be sold, EXCEPT the flu shot.  Thats all i am saying, you dont know its safe, you dont have any idea what the long term effects of getting an annual flu shot are, and i have not told a yone to not get it, but most of you are telling us we should, based solely on the CDC numbers which, according to a different large government agency are a padded estimate at best.

There are dozens of studies that say it's safe.  There are none that have confirmed they aren't.  Period.

I'm not saying they ARE or ARE NOT safe, I'm simply saying that the current data set says they are safe.  Your argument is indefensible with the current data set.

One time I went to buckle my seatbelt and the buckle was hot from sitting in the sun, so I no longer use one.  I'm still alive.

When this is no longer a free country, we will be herded like cattle to get our shots in the name of the public good.  Until that day comes, I will choose whether or not to get one.

In reply to ProDarwin :

One time I went to the store and caught (A) from SuperCurtis and that led to contracting (B) and then I had a slow painful death. If only there had been a simple, safe way to not catch (A).

In reply to 1988RedT2 :

Well every day I’m exposed to about 562 walking Petri dishes on my bus.  Some from all over the world.  

My company has 220 bus drivers like myself  plus another 90 paras.  The suburb I work in isn’t particularly big  and the Twin Cities  has hundreds more like it in the metro area.   We’re only about the 10th largest in America. 

In short there are 320+ million people here in America,  lots of exposure to the flu. If only you could somehow be protected. Not just for yourself but to also protect your family from the exposure you bring home with you.  

In reply to Curtis :

My argument is not with you, but i still haven't found this study, a long term study of any one formula of flu shot.  I am not arguing with you, i am asking you for a link.

PS, i have actually enjoyed your comments, both for and against my own.

llysgennad said:

In reply to ProDarwin :

One time I went to the store and caught (A) from SuperCurtis and that led to contracting (B) and then I had a slow painful death. If only there had been a simple, safe way to not catch (A).

My plan is almost complete

But seriously.  You are inoculated against flus number 1, 2, and 3.  You can't get 1, 2, or 3 from me.  You can get any of 4 - 150 from me or anyone regardless of whether or not they have the shot.

Back to the seatbelt analogy.  You wear yours so you're protected in 75% of accidents.  If I don't wear my seatbelt, it has zero effect on the types of injuries you might sustain if we're involved in an accident.

This is what gets me.  I think people generally have a completely inaccurate view of how the vaccine works.  You can get frustrated with someone who doesn't get a Measles vaccine because they are potentiall damaging the herd immunity.  In the case of the flu virus, if you get one and I don't, it CANNOT AFFECT YOU.

Justjim75 said:

In reply to Curtis :

My argument is not with you, but i still haven't found this study, a long term study of any one formula of flu shot.  I am not arguing with you, i am asking you for a link.

PS, i have actually enjoyed your comments, both for and against my own.

There are a dozen links in this thread.  I won't repost them.  Or google Journal Of American Medicine.  Flu shot came out in 1945.  It has been clinically and medically tested for almost 75 years with terabytes of data on how no one has died from them.

frenchyd said:

In reply to 1988RedT2 :

Well every day I’m exposed to about 562 walking Petri dishes on my bus.  Some from all over the world.  

My company has 220 bus drivers like myself  plus another 90 paras.  The suburb I work in isn’t particularly big  and the Twin Cities  has hundreds more like it in the metro area.   We’re only about the 10th largest in America. 

In short there are 320+ million people here in America,  lots of exposure to the flu. If only you could somehow be protected. Not just for yourself but to also protect your family from the exposure you bring home with you.  

 

I can dig it, and I totally respect your choice to get it.  It adds a bit of protection for you, but someone without the flu shot can't infect you with anything you could get anyway.

I'm not militant about NOT getting one, its more like, "meh, I'm close to the fence."

Curtis said:

Justjim75 said:

In reply to Curtis :

"I didnt die" hardly means its safe.  Im still waiting on someone to show me a single long term study on any one of the numerous flu shots that have been injected into people.

They might be safe like water, or they might be safe like mercury amalgam fillings in your teeth and we'll figure it out later... but for now, the data says they are safe.

From this article in the US National Library of Medicine: " Mercury is found in the earth's crust and is ubiquitous in the environment, so even without amalgam restorations everyone is exposed to small but measurable amount of mercury in blood and urine. Dental amalgam restorations may raise these levels slightly, but this has no practical or clinical significance. The main exposure to mercury from dental amalgam occurs during placement or removal of restoration in the tooth. Once the reaction is complete less amount of mercury is released, and that is far below the current health standard. "

Justjim75 said:

In reply to Curtis :

"I didnt die" hardly means its safe.  Im still waiting on someone to show me a single long term study on any one of the numerous flu shots that have been injected into people.

I believe this is what you're looking for.

Influenza vaccines: Evaluation of the safety profile

As for the short approval time for a specific flu vaccine, this is because they've pinned down a general formula for how to make the vaccine that is established as safe - the only thing that differs is which particular virus is used as an input.

That said, I find Curtis's argument fairly reasonable - this is a fairly low-effectivity vaccine, so the herd immunity is going to be less of an effect, and if you're not in a role where you're likely to spread the flu, it ought to be your choice. Especially if you have a bad reaction to the shots. Me, I've got two small kids and I haven't had any bad reactions to it, so I'll be getting my vaccine soon.

I'm with TJ on this one, the years that I was forced to get the flu shot in the military all had periods of 3-10 days of feeling miserable following the shots.  During all the other years of my life I only experienced that kind of misery a handful of times.  If, like Curtis has indicated, me getting the shot has very little impact on your potential for catching the flu from me than my only reason for taking the vaccine is to reduce the odds of misery and death for myself.  My internal risk analysis has weighed the small chance of misery not getting the shot but potentially huge ramifications catching the flue vs the empirically proven large chance of potentially smaller quantity of misery due directly to the shot itself and skipping the shot won out.

To the seatbelt analogy: if buckling the seatbelt requires you to dislocate your shoulder for a week is the certain pain for buckling worth avoiding the potential for broken bones if you don't and you get in an accident?

In reply to Curtis :

The formula changes from year to year and just because noone has died from the injection does not make it safe.  I know ill get flamed for this but there has been a significant rise in certain medical problems that maybe coincidentally equals the rise in flushot recipients 

MadScientistMatt said:

As for the short approval time for a specific flu vaccine, this is because they've pinned down a general formula for how to make the vaccine that is established as safe - the only thing that differs is which particular virus is used as an input.

THIS.  Seriously, they don't reinvent the damn flu vaccine from scratch every year.  The only thing that changes is which denatured strains they choose to include.

Sheesh.

Curtis said:

llysgennad said:

In reply to ProDarwin :

One time I went to the store and caught (A) from SuperCurtis and that led to contracting (B) and then I had a slow painful death. If only there had been a simple, safe way to not catch (A).

My plan is almost complete

But seriously.  You are inoculated against flus number 1, 2, and 3.  You can't get 1, 2, or 3 from me.  You can get any of 4 - 150 from me or anyone regardless of whether or not they have the shot.

Back to the seatbelt analogy.  You wear yours so you're protected in 75% of accidents.  If I don't wear my seatbelt, it has zero effect on the types of injuries you might sustain if we're involved in an accident.

This is what gets me.  I think people generally have a completely inaccurate view of how the vaccine works.  You can get frustrated with someone who doesn't get a Measles vaccine because they are potentiall damaging the herd immunity.  In the case of the flu virus, if you get one and I don't, it CANNOT AFFECT YOU.

It’s a numbers game. People a whole lot smarter than I am who’s only stake in this is  other people’s well being. Figure out that strain 1, 2, &3  are most likely to occur.  So that’s what comes out.  Yes strain 133 might come out of nowhere  and then they’ll rush to get that variety out as soon as possible. 

Its just a shot, my diabetic wife takes 4 a day. With the new tiny needles it’s less than a mosquito bite. 

Justjim75 said:

In reply to Curtis :

...there has been a significant rise in certain medical problems that maybe coincidentally equals the rise in flushot recipients 

I am with you on this one brother!  Another thing we really need to look into is:

This is a big deal people!  We need to make sure Noway does not export more oil, people lives are at stake!!

A correlation is the relationship between two sets of variables used to describe or predict information. ... Sometimes when there is a correlation, you may think that you have found a causation. Causation, also known as cause and effect, is when an observed event or action appears to have caused a second event or action

In reply to NinjaEditCurtis :

That's not how this works. That's not how any of this works.

They include the 2 most common Type A  strains, and 1 or 2 of Type B. This is the most effective way to limit the spread. It's not about you, or me, or Sally or Bob. It's about preventable or reduced-severity illness for the 40-60 million people (just in the US) who will get the flu every year, of which a significant number will die, from it or from complications.

The goal is not herd immunity, because we'd have to kill all the birds first. It's about prevention.

I'm out, gotta go.

frenchyd said:

Curtis said:

llysgennad said:

In reply to ProDarwin :

One time I went to the store and caught (A) from SuperCurtis and that led to contracting (B) and then I had a slow painful death. If only there had been a simple, safe way to not catch (A).

My plan is almost complete

But seriously.  You are inoculated against flus number 1, 2, and 3.  You can't get 1, 2, or 3 from me.  You can get any of 4 - 150 from me or anyone regardless of whether or not they have the shot.

Back to the seatbelt analogy.  You wear yours so you're protected in 75% of accidents.  If I don't wear my seatbelt, it has zero effect on the types of injuries you might sustain if we're involved in an accident.

This is what gets me.  I think people generally have a completely inaccurate view of how the vaccine works.  You can get frustrated with someone who doesn't get a Measles vaccine because they are potentiall damaging the herd immunity.  In the case of the flu virus, if you get one and I don't, it CANNOT AFFECT YOU.

It’s a numbers game. People a whole lot smarter than I am who’s apparent stake in this is  other people’s well being, the pressure to deliver favorable numbers to investors, paying CEOs 8-figure salaries, and paying 125 lawyers to navigate the legal aspects of getting their profitable product to market.  Figure out that strain 1, 2, &3  are most likely to occur.  So that’s what comes out.  Yes strain 133 might come out of nowhere  and then they’ll rush to get that variety out as soon as possible. 

Its just a shot, my diabetic wife takes 4 a day. With the new tiny needles it’s less than a mosquito bite. 

I added my thoughts in bold.  Not arguing, nor do I have inside knowledge on this, I'm just adding counterpoint.  The American medical system is run by money just like any other business.  I'm sure that there are millions of pharmaceutical employees and executives who truly have the best interest of healthcare in mind.  I'm not saying they're lying to us to sell a product, I just don't have faith in the fact that someone is selling me something based on fear.. especially when the numbers don't support it.

It may be true that it's perfectly safe, and it is a risk I would be more than willing to take... if the science supported it.  But listening to a pharmaceutical company tell me I need to buy their drug is about as credible as a VW exec telling me that their new diesel is actually clean this time.

Important to note here that I'm not on any side.  As I said before, I don't care if you get the flu shot or not, nor do I care if you are completely against it or pushing hard for advocating it.  I have done my own research. My sister and I started this conversation 19 years ago when I was fresh out of college with a Bio degree and she was pregnant with my first nephew.  Since then I've kept up with a lot of it.  I'm a nerd.  I read medical journals and engineering textbooks instead of novels and biographies.

My skepticism comes from the fact that the flu vaccine (by the numbers) has no more credibility to me than a vaccine for toenail fungus.  Worldwide every year there are 6 million cases of Tuberculosis and 1.5 million deaths from TB.  That works out to one case every 5 seconds and one death every 20 seconds.  There is a vaccine for it.  But I guess people are more afraid of a fever and runny nose than they are of a one in four chance of death if they get TB?  I just can't stand the marketing aspect of it when the numbers just don't add up.  (except in someone's wallet, which is why I have done my own research and chosen the way I have)

llysgennad said:

In reply to NinjaEditCurtis :

 

The goal is not herd immunity, because we'd have to kill all the birds first. It's about prevention.

Which is exactly my point.  If you want to prevent yourself from getting the flu, get the shot.  Done.  Congrats.  You are now mostly inoculated from 3 of the 145 strains of the flu.  If a non-vaccinated person gets one of the strains you're vaccinated against, you likely won't get it from them.  If a non-vaccinated person gets one of the 142 other strains, you're both berkeleyed.  This is truly one of the few cases where making your own choice has next to zero chance of affecting anyone else.

It's the welding helmet of the medical world.  If I choose to wear a helmet and you don't, one of us will have more eye damage than the other when looking at an arc.  

P.S.  Love the "ninja edit" part :)

This seems to come up every year when the flu shot is being promoted.  Someone decides to do their community service and "remind" people to get the flu shot.  The flu shot has dubious efficacy from everything I have read.  They guess which strain will be dominant in a few years, because it requires lead time to manufacture.  They guess wrong, a lot.  Even if they guess right, the virus can mutate and make the correct choice wrong anyway.

frenchyd said:

It’s a numbers game. People a whole lot smarter than I am who’s only stake in this is  other people’s well being. 

You think that they are solely motivated by altruism, seriously?

mtn said:

In any case, between 1980 and 1995, approximately 383.6 million flu shots were administered. For flu shots administered prior to 1995, there have been 384 total events reported that had an onset of over 120 days (or unknown time). 0.0001%. Those 384 events include everything from agitation to abnormal dreams, weight loss to gingivitis. . The most common complaints were injection site hypersensitivity, injection site pain, injection site edema, fever, pain, and itching. 

I am dubious about the accuracy of this assertion.  During this time period, I went through basic training in Great Lakes.  They give EVERYONE the flu shot.  Of the 90 or so guys in my company, 80-85 got sick, varied from a day to a week.  I realize that this is anecdotal, but it casts a bit of doubt on the claim.  The claim is there were only 384 adverse reactions, but I am personally aware of at least 80 during that time frame from one group of healthy young men.  0.0001% overall adverse reactions, yet there is an 89% rate in a given population.  I would hope that numbers such as this would give anyone pause, but I am quite confident it will not.

It does say an onset of over 120 days.  Does that mean that it only looked at people that did not get sick until after 4 months had passed?  That certainly seems to be the case.

I have been very sick for a week every single time I have gotten the flu shot.  Well enough to get out of bed after 3-4 days, but more ill than when I actually had Hong Kong flu as a lad.  Last time I was really sick was after getting the flu shot in 1992.

If you think you should get the flu shot, go ahead and get it.  If not, don't.  Simple fact of the matter is that no matter what you decide for yourself, it is not likely to impact anyone else

Ok, I'm back for one comment: 
I see a LOT of ex-military who say it made them sick, and made everyone sick. How long ago? Looks like Toebra was almost 30 years ago. 

Almost everyone I know gets the flu shot. Almost no one I know gets any adverse reactions from it. I'm thinking that the flu shots that are around today aren't the same as what was available 30 years ago.

EDIT: Toebra, see the next part of my comment that you didn't include: 

If we include ALL adverse effects (onset at any time), we get 5,822. 0.0015%.

I must say that the thing I find most fascinating about all this is that some people, with no apparent pecuniary motives, will ignore the apparent lack of efficacy of these inoculations and go about foaming at the mouth and ranting that all other people absolutely must get one.

Pooh!

I think I'm more impressed that this is a totally passionate discussion that's hasn't devolved (yet) into posturing and name calling. Civility.

Nice job, everyone.