Every flu season, millions of people worldwide get the flu, flu shot or not. Did it ever occur to you, that as far as I can remember, a President (who by the way travels all over the place, making him very susceptible to illness) never succumbed to the flu? I think there is a special flu shot out there reserved just for the President or some members of the Cabinet. Yes/No/Maybe?
No.
[/thread]
Nah, it’s because they are all disguised lizard people, and lizards don’t get the flu. Scale itch is irritating as hell though I understand.
I’ve never had the flu even though I wasn’t eligible for any special flu shots, and I’ve traveled all over too, including to Parsippany, New Jersey.
I’ve never had a flu shot and only had the flu once (maybe twice) in my life.
Also, why do you think you would know it if the president had the flu? It knocks you out for, what, a couple of days. You don’t think he could lay low for a few days and suck it up for an hour here or there if he had to be in the public eye?
The answer is no but;
Don’t they use models to basically guess what kinds of flu will be most prevalent that year and base the shots on that?
Theoretically couldn’t you develop a shot with more varieties of flu, or use shots from multiple years to gain an extra measure of safety?
Wash Bush Sr.'s vomiting all over the entire country of Japan the flu or food poisoning?
One year there was a shortage of the flu vaccine, and President Dubya announced in a news conference that he wouldn’t be getting the shot so that there would be enough for the elderly and babies. It was one of the stupidest damn things I’d ever heard, even from Dubya.
Maybe that was his excuse because perhaps he is afraid of flu shots, or feels crappy for a few days afterwards and wanted to avoid it.
Really? A president makes a small gesture of goodwill and it is the stupidest thing you ever heard of? I guess Jimmy Carter wearing a sweater in the White House and turning down the heat was a brilliant idea? No hate like liberal hate.
Turning the heat down to 68 and wearing a sweater doesn’t really pose a serious risk to health, does it? Rather the opposite. Influenza, however, can kill.
Influenza kills geezers and babies, and people with otherwise compromised immune systems. Deaths from flu are extremely rare among healthy adults, even during pandemics like the 1918 flu.
There’s no particular reason for a president to avoid getting a flu shot, but not getting one is hardly a risk to national security.
I’ve travelled a ton without flu vaccinations and have never had the flu.
Does this mean I am the President?
/confused, but willing to step up to the plate if called.
Plenty of healthy young adults died from H1N1, including one of my cousins, who was in intensive care with a correct diagnosis and a good prognosis when it turned bad on her and left two 11 and 12 year old girls without a mother.
The mortality rate for the 2009 H1N1 outbreak was less than 0.03%. That’s actually a significantly lower mortality rate than average seasonal flu.
Sorry to hear about your cousin, though.
Yes, but it included a somewhat different population than the usual seasonal flu. People shrug when the elderly and immune-compromised die of the flu. They freak when otherwise healthy older children, teens, and young-ish adults die of the flu.
Incorrect. The reason (well, one of the reasons) why the 1918 pandemic was so terrifying was because it killed a much higher proportion of infected, otherwise healthy adults than other flu strains.
It was much higher, yes. It was still miniscule compared to other infectious diseases. The estimated mortality rate for the 1918 flu was around 2.5%. Compare the adult mortality rates for smallpox (30%), bacterial meningitis (20-40%), or Ebola (50-90%).
One of the reasons why flu spreads so widely is precisely because it doesn’t kill very many people, allowing it to multiply and spread. More terrifying diseases, like Ebola, kill so fast that outbreaks tend to be fairly limited.
Eh, good point. Either way, I think we can agree that the odds of a “super-flu shot” are about as good as presidents getting “super bullet-proof vests” made of Mithril or whatever.
Well. Have we ever seen you and Obama in the same room together?