Flu vaccines
Here is something that everyone makes a huge deal about. Around this time of year, or into the coming weeks/month, everyone will start freaking out about getting a flu vaccine. There will be news reports upon news reports about shortages in the supply for a certain area, just to miraculously have some appear at the end of the season because someone had misplaced them. Or, for there to never have been a shortage at all, it was just a story for the news to report on.
But what is all the hype really about?
I have never had a flu vaccine (other than the ones that are required when you are born and for the first few years of your life). But get this-I have never had the fly in my entire life. That includes the 24 hour flu.
Prime example that you don't always need what they tell you you do. Whether or not you pay to get vaccinated, the government drug companies are still making money off of you getting the shot. It is all a gimick, made for the government drug companies to get money.
I do believe that young children need the flu vaccine (talking-toddler and under), as well as the eldery. Why? Because their immune systems are not as strong of someone between those ages.
What does everyone else think about it? Have you had a flu vaccine? Have you had the flu? Do you think it is worth the hype?
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I just went in for a sports physical the other day and encountered this. The doctor actually tried to argue me into getting it however I don't need it. I can't remember a time I've ever had the flu and if I get it so what? The vaccine isn't always the correct strain and it only decreased the chance of you getting it, it doesn't altogether erase it. For me I'd rather just get sick if that's what happens.
The best way to a man's heart is really through his stomach, that way you don't have to deal with that pesky rib cage!
~Anomous
Smart to not get one. As far as young children, pregnant women, and the elderly....No Way! Unless you get the thimerosal -free/no mercury, each shot has 25mcg of mercury! They tell you watch mercury in your diet (fish) yet don't take it out of all the flu vaccines. Also see this article that basically says the flu shot is ineffective and has never been tested for SAFETY.
http://tinyurl.com/ylz34hl
Study Questions Value of Flu Shots
10.26.06, 12:00 AM ET THURSDAY, Oct. 26 (HealthDay News) -- The flu vaccine is much ado about nothing, according to a new study that contends the annual shots aren't as effective as billed.
"We've got an exaggerated expectation of what vaccines can actually do," said study author Dr. Tom Jefferson, coordinator of the Cochrane Vaccines Field in Rome, Italy. "I'm hoping American and European taxpayers will be alerted and will start asking questions."
He published the findings in the Oct. 28 issue of the British Medical Journal.
Most developed nations and many rapidly developing countries have influenza vaccination programs in place. The programs are believed to reduce the number of cases of flu as well as related hospital admissions and deaths.
In the United States, health authorities recommend that the flu vaccine be given to children aged 6 to 23 months; anyone 50 or older; people with chronic health conditions such as asthma, diabetes, heart disease or HIV; and health-care professionals, caregivers and people who have household contact with individuals at high risk. And for the first time, U.S. health authorities this year are recommending that children aged 23 months to 5 years old also be vaccinated against the flu.
"Recently there's been a real increase in recommendations to prevent what they call influenza with the use of inactivated [dead virus] vaccines," Jefferson said.
For Jefferson, the question is whether such policies are justified.
Previous papers published by Jefferson found that the flu vaccine is only mildly effective in the population for which it is supposedly most critical, the elderly. He also concluded that there is no good science to back new American and Canadian policies of vaccinating children under the age of 2.
For the latest study, Jefferson looked at all the systematic reviews in the world that he could find on the effects of inactivated vaccines. In other words, he looked at published papers that did not generate new data but analyzed existing studies.
"These are reviews of studies, not single studies," he explained. "Systematic reviews are the gold standard for evaluating effectiveness."
Overall, Jefferson concluded, influenza vaccines have little or no effect on many influenza campaign objectives, such as hospital stay, time off work, or death from influenza and its complications.
"I looked at the evidence described by systematic reviews and confronted it with policy and I found that there is a massive gap," Jefferson said. "Almost none of the benefits that these policy documents list are actually given by inactivated vaccines or, if they are, they are given in slighter measure."
Why? He's not sure.
It could be confusion between influenza and influenza-like respiratory illnesses, or inadequate surveillance systems.
"In most surveillance systems, you actually have an almost year-round epidemic which, in fact, is not influenza," Jefferson stated. "It's caused by other agents."
Jefferson also found that many of the existing studies are weak.
But another health expert disagreed with Jefferson's findings.
"The flu vaccine works about 70 to 90 percent of the time in preventing infection in children and young adults and about 40 or 50 percent to 70 percent in the elderly," said Dr. Peter Gross, an influenza expert and chairman of medicine at Hackensack University Medical Center in Hackensack, N.J.
Gross was referring to the body's immune response to the vaccine or whether the vaccine produces enough antibodies to confer protection. "To say that the influenza vaccine is worthless is misleading," he said.
Gross said the evidence is more compelling in favor of flu shots.
"My message is definitely go out there and get the flu vaccine if you're an older individual," Gross advised. "If you're elderly and feel as though you're getting a flu-like illness, speak to a physician to consider an anti-influenza drug because the vaccine is not 100 percent effective in this group."
Ok..i'm hoping the site will post my comment now. Hopefully I remember it all.
..There are different kinds of vaccines now--but most people don't know that. I didn't know that the mercury numbers were so high though..that is scary!
And that was really interesting-learned some new things, thanks! :D
I'm glad you didn't get it. And your right-it isn't a complete gurantee that it will stop it, just a decreased chance.
mmm chicken soup and daytime television I do so enjoy the flu
<3 Tina
haha-yeah-why take something to stop from getting sick, when getting sick can be fun? lol
I work with the elderly, have a weak immune system myself and have a 17 month old in the home with chronic lung disease, so the flu shot around here is a necessity. The flu shot is not a live virus so cannot give one the flu and in the years I've been getting the flu shot, I've been lucky to never have gotten the flu even when others around me have gotten it. That is huge for me, because 9 times out of 10, if I'm around someone sick, I get whatever they had.
For us, the benefits of the shot far outweight any perceived risks.
Someone above mentioned the mecurcy in the shot... Mercury is everywhere.... the water, the air, trace amounts in food. The FDA estimates that a 24 pound child takes in more mercury in a day (via the foods they eat, the air they breathe, the water they drink) than is found in the no added mercury flu shot.
http://www.drgreene.com/21_1834.html
"We don't receive wisdom; we must discover it for ourselves after a journey that no one can take for us or spare us." -Marcel Proust
I knew there were different versions of the shot.
You are right though-mercury is everywhere. I didn't know that about the children though.
I have to get the flu shot because I got a transplant this summer and they MAKE you get one after that. It sucks, cause I have only gotten one three times in my life, and all three times those were the years I ended up catching the flu anyways. It was stupid...
ha..that makes a ton of sense! I mean-I understand having to get it in this case this year-but how strange that you got it the years that you did get the shot..lol.
You know what, if you take care of yourself, it may not prevent you from getting sick, but your immune system will take care of the rest. Its common sense. Your body is a fighting machine if you let it be one.