The rule of thumb I’ve always heard is that if there were a $100 bill lying just out of reach on the floor, and you would get out of bed to pick it up, you don’t have the flu.
Lot of ignorance that needs fighting in this thread.
For the majority of us that are healthy, you don’t get the flu shot for yourself. Many of you are right…you’ve never got it and even if you did, you would probably get through it.
Over 15,000 people die a year in the US from the flu. Most of those that die are really young or much older or whose health is already on the lower side of things…their bodies just can’t fight off the flu, and they die! Guess who these people catch the flu from? The healthy people that catch it and spread it.
The reason for mass vaccination for the flu is to slow down the spread of it. So even if you think that you can handle the flu if you were to get it…the chances are that you may spread it to someone that may die from it.
Get the shot!
I can’t really imagine a cold or flu feeling worse than like your skin is coming off, your muscles have run a marathon, your head is exploding, your chest is too heavy to breathe, and your vision is going dim while you simultaneously freeze and burn and stew in your own sweat. If it’s worse than that, you got me.
If not, I’ll take that once every 20 years than the reaction from a shot every year. Hmm, 100 days of feeling moderately shitty compared to max 10 days of feeling really bad? Yeah, I’ll just get it all over with at once.
Also, again, the flu shot is only a guess as to the main strains for the year. Not foolproof and not for all of them. I might get the flu anyway even with the shot. Nope.
Lessee…Risk getting the autism* from a vaccination, or risk getting a few days off from work so’s I can get some quality Skyrim time in with the kids sequestered at their mom’s house. Tough choice.
- Oh shut up, I know.
I got mine already!
I was going to make a lengthy post about this argument but since you were kind enough to post this, it makes my life a lot easier.
No.
I herd what you did there. 
I hear statistics like this a lot, and yet I have never ever known anyone, or anyone who knows anyone, that died from influenza. It was a worldwide panic when only five or ten people died from Swine or Bird Flu, and yet apparently tens of thousands die of regular flu? Really? Can we back this up with some solid evidence?
CDC reports at least hundred and fifty thousand deaths from H1N1 in 2009.
I have never thankfully known anyone who died from smallpox but I’m pretty sure the disease killed hundreds of millions. I get people who state they’ve had a medical reaction in the past and don’t want it. But otherwise I don’t get it. The flu is horrible. The shot is cheap and offers at least some serious protection against it. Even if you get the flu, the shot will likely help reduce your symptoms. What’s so wrong with getting it? My eldest daughter and I got one about two weeks ago. After having the flu in my teens I’m so happy I can do anything to reduce my odds of getting it again.
The US population is 313.9 million. If 15,000 die each year from the flu, that would be 15,000 / 313,900,000, or .0048 %. This means you would have to be intimately connected, on the average, with at least 200 people, 200 each of which would phone you if they were sick, for you to know about just one suffering in bed with the flu.
How large is your circle? Do they call you every time they sneeze? Vomit? Or just when they die?
My circle is not that large. But I am occasionally made aware if they’re severely ill. So far none of the people I knew who have died called to tell me while it was happening.
I had a look around, and it seems that when someone dies of the flu, it is sometimes of some other illness where the flu’s contribution was to weaken their immune system. So cause of death might be listed as pneumonia, exacerbated by the flu, so they still count the statistics as a flu death. I’m not sure if I can rely on that claim either, though, it sounds a bit too skeptical.
I have just inserted on my calendar a note to email GuanoLad if I croak from the flu. Posthumorously, of course.
However, it’s not likely, since I have a flu shot in my schedule next week. Guess you’ll have to get along without me dying so easily. Sorry. Please wait for a more serious malady. 
Khadaji died from the flu. So there’s one person you knew.
Aha. And I see that he in fact died of a heart attack, brought on by the flu. Now the statistics start to make sense, there’s a kind of doubling-up going on.
One of the problems with the flu, especially strains like H1N1, is that even relatively common medical conditions like pregnancy, asthma, and diabetes increase the risk for hospitalization due to flu complications.
Plus H1N1 was different from standard flu in that it wasn’t the very old and very young that were most frequently killed by it. The vast majority of flu-related deaths, 41%, were in the 25-49 age group. (see above link)
There are, in very general terms, two ways the flu kills.
Most commonly, it weakens the person so they die of something else - pneumonia, heart attack, whatever.
The other way is by prompting an auto-immune response such that the body essentially kills itself. This is most likely what’s happening when the flu kills the otherwise healthy, the 25-49% age group (those with weakened immune systems are less likely to have their systems turn on them). It accounted for the spike in H1N1 recently, and is believed to be what caused so many deaths in the Great Flu Pandemic last century.
So, those of you bragging of how healthy you are, how you never get sick - you are more likely to die than the sickly if the second type of flu strain is prevalent in a given year. Fortunately, such years are rare, but when they come around that’s when YOU need a flu shot.
So, the choice is yours - you can do without the shot under the assumption it will be an ordinary year, which bet you will “win” most of the time, or get the shot so you have some protection when the “kills the healthy” variations come around.
Meanwhile, wash your hands, cover your mouth and nose when you cough and sneeze, and if you’re sick stay home. That’s just courtesy, to not share germs with other people regardless if they’re flu or not.
Just so I’m understanding you, you believe he would have died without the flu?
The flu shots always leave me a bit run down for a day or two, but I always get one to minimize the chance I will spread the disease to someone else. It’s such an easy way to be socially responsible.
I’ve had the flu a couple of times, and I don’t think most “first world” people appreciate how dangerous and unpleasant influenza is.
I don’t like needles
The influenza vaccine is available in the form of a nasal spray if you want to avoid the injection.