Get your damn Flu shot - A horror story

[hajario]

@jtur88

*"Influenza vaccines have a very modest effect in reducing influenza symptoms and working days lost in the general population, including pregnant women. No evidence of association between influenza vaccination and serious adverse events was found in the comparative studies considered in the review. This review includes 90 studies, 24 of which (26.7%) were funded totally or partially by industry. Out of the 48 RCTs, 17 were industry-funded (35.4%).

The preventive effect of parenteral inactivated influenza vaccine on healthy adults is small: at least 40 people would need vaccination to avoid one ILI case (95% confidence interval (CI) 26 to 128) and 71 people would need vaccination to prevent one case of influenza (95% CI 64 to 80)."*

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/14651858.CD001269.pub5/abstract;jsessionid=2A9C42C91B5F6B03FC26E18855F98F4C.f01t04

It’s so cute how you say that as an argument against vaccination.

[armedmonkey]

@hajario

It’s so cute how you say that as an argument against vaccination.

Ain’t it? There’s a sentence in his link that amuses me.

The only evidence available comes from observational studies with modest methodological quality.

What that basically means is “We are basing our conclusions on data even we admit may be wrong”.

[Guinastasia]

Well, what kind of cite did you expect from a guy who thinks nothing of eating food from garbage cans?

[hajario]

@Guinastasia

Well, what kind of cite did you expect from a guy who thinks nothing of eating food from garbage cans?

I’m not sure how that’s relevant but the CDC says that getting the vaccine significantly decreases your odds of getting the flu.

Shingles Vaccine: Should I Get It?

[RivkahChaya]

@Guinastasia

Well, what kind of cite did you expect from a guy who thinks nothing of eating food from garbage cans?

Garbage cites?

[cochrane]

@RivkahChaya

Garbage cites?

I’m sure he knows all the garbage sites, too.

[j666]

@Jackmannii

Worth mentioning for the near-inevitable post re “I don’t have to worry about flu because I have a really powerful immune system”.

Both during the 1918-19 pandemic and to some extent when H1N1 flu hit, young healthy people suffered when their strong immune systems went haywire (“cytokine storm”).

Essentially, they drown in their own immune response.

[AmanoJ]

@elfkin477

My mom got the flu shot every year… until her doctor’s office stopped offering it last year and her insurance wouldn’t pay for it at a drug store (I offered to pay for it, but she turned me down). She got influenza A and died of pneumonia stemming from it on March 9th.

Get your flu shot.

I was genuinely saddened to read this. Sorry for your loss.

[california_jobcase]

I’ll throw in a pro-vaccine story here. I had the measles when I was fifteen. Anyone who thinks measles is always just a mild disease one gets over quickly is seriously misinformed. I have never felt sicker in my life as I felt that week. I consider anyone who would let a child get measles when there is an effective vaccine available to be a child abuser.

[cmyk]

@jtur88

j666, you have made a reasoned argument, quite unlike the OP who shouted at me like my mother to do something because she heard a scary anecdote. If you tell me that a person was actually and verifiably killed by an assailant hiding under her bed, that is not by itself a good reason for everyone to look under their bed every night, no matter how small the cost of getting down on your knees with a flashlight and “look under your damn bed”, supported with a single anecdotal horror story.

As for benefit to community, I think it is debatable whether the public health expenditure on flu shots (they are not “free”) has a commensurate impact on the incidence of the disease. In some years, the shots have been found to be of negligible value, having no effect on the prevailing strain of the flu. The mere fact that we have not had a repetition of 1918 is not by itself proof of the efficacy of the shots, and even with shots, such an epidemic remains a risk.

If. as you say, anecdotes are as useful as detailed statistics, nobody would quit smoking, because it is easy to find people who smoked all their lives and lived to be 90. There are plenty of anecdotes about people who drive drunk and never crash. They have anecdotes to support their contention, selected to fit their prior frame of mind.

Yes, I got a shot for shingles, because I am a high-risk demographic. Yes, I got my polio booster, because I travel to countries where it is still prevalent. Yes, I keep up with my tetanus shots. But no, I do not wash my hands habitually, I drink only tapwater everywhere in the world, I eat discarded food, even from dumpsters. I’m a reasonably intelligence adult with access to information, and I do not need to be commanded by my mother shouting at me, damn it.

Dude. You eat garbage?! I wouldn’t call that a “reasonably intelligent adult” thing to do.

You might have more pressing health issues than the flu.

[Kamino_Neko]

Sorry for your loss, elfkin.

To add another anecdote and voice - I spent half of February in hospital due to flu-induced pneumonia - I was rushed in after passing out. Most of that was just trying to get my lung function back to normal after signs of the infection had passed. (I haven’t bothered getting the flu shot up to now because…well…I don’t really…leave the house. But someone brought the virus in and I caught it, and…well, I’ll be getting the shot next year.)

[Dewey_Finn]

@jtur88

You tell me, I haven’t looked into it. I bet they’re not free, and I’d have to walk to a clinic every year, exposing myself to a waiting room full of people with many contagious conditions, some more dangerous than flu, and then wait in line ,and maybe there are side effects. Aside from my being a medical minimalist, and I refuse to unnecessarily feed the voracious and out-of-control 4-trillion-dollar American health care racket.

I travel to the third world every year, exposed to things much more dangerous than flu as well as other strains of flu. I never get sick, presumably I have developed a high resistance to those kinds of things, which comes from exposure. I haven’t had a cold in more than ten years. I’m not going to cower in terror every time I glance at a scare monger cover on a supermarket tabloid, nor a message board posting about a single anecdotal instance of one person getting seriously ill. I treasure and retain my lifestyle choices, and I make them of my own accord.

Is it just me or is there an inconsistency between the first and second paragraphs?

“I don’t want to go to the doctor for fear of being exposed to something.”

“I travel to the third world and am therefore exposed to all sorts of things.”

[Fool_in_the_Rain]

@armedmonkey

The flu shot IS always a crapshoot, but here’s the thing. Even the targeted variant is only some percentage protected against. Flu vaccines will only slow the fucker down so you immune system can kill it. (It’s more complicated than that, but go with me)

The thing is, it’s not a binary thing. A flu vaccine is only partial immunity. Even if you are vaccinated against the targeted strain, it still might get through, but it’s symptoms are going to be much less. What that also means is the symptoms are going to be less for the un-targeted strain, too, just not as much. But hey, it’s better than nothing.

<SNIP>

Anecdotal, but I can vouch for this. I got the flu shot last October. Went through the winter without issue, until early March. Started feeling run down mid-week, then by the weekend I knew I had the flu. Outside of the low-grade fever never over 100, stuffed head, and sore throat I had no overwhelming crushing symptoms typical of full-blown-flu. I ate chicken soup and toast, crackers, grilled cheese, thankfully without any of the vomiting or diarrhea. I took my three sick days (Mon-Tue-Wed) to rest like a good boy and returned to work Thursday. I could feel the lingering tiredness for another week, but I knew without the flu shot I could have been laid out a lot longer.

[stillownedbysetters]

I started getting flu shots in 1987. I have had one every year with the exception of two years. During those two years, I got the flu. Both times it was a bad bout that kept me out of work for 2 weeks and forced me to use vacation time on something that involved neither rest nor recreation. I have never had a case of the flu during any of the years I’ve gotten the shot.

Even a blind squirrel can figure out that math. I’m a lifer - flu shot every year for the duration of my existence.

[Drunky_Smurf]

@jtur88

I eat discarded food, even from dumpsters.

In all your time of eating from dumpsters have you ever come across a “dumpster baby”. I am inclined to believe they are just a myth such as your unicorns and your four-toed sloths.

[gigi]

@RivkahChaya

Not everyone is flat on their back; some people can function with the flu. And if that was true in my case, I was still contagious, and someone who caught it from me could get a serious illness, from me.

Not that this negates the value of the flu shot, but couldn’t someone be carrying the virus around and be contagious even having had the flu shot?

[armedmonkey]

@gigi

Not that this negates the value of the flu shot, but couldn’t someone be carrying the virus around and be contagious even having had the flu shot?

Yes and no. Remember that the flu shot isn’t a binary thing. The best we can hope for given our current medical science is only partial immunity. In other words, vaccines only slow it down.

However, what that means is that not only are there less copies of the virus inside an infected person’s body, they shed less copies of it too - making it less contagious.

[gigi]

@armedmonkey

Yes and no. Remember that the flu shot isn’t a binary thing. The best we can hope for given our current medical science is only partial immunity. In other words, vaccines only slow it down.

However, what that means is that not only are there less copies of the virus inside an infected person’s body, they shed less copies of it too - making it less contagious.

Thanks!