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I only got this because spanish for flu is gripe (gree-pay)

No - what's really tragic is someone dying from a preventable disease.

Diptheria
Polio
Whooping Cough
Tuberculosis

All scams. Probably Truman's fault. I could never trust a president who wore lenses. It's just not manly.

Kurt

If you don't want to get the flu shot,

and,

you don't want to catch the flu from one of your students,

I have the answer!

Their tuition is reduced by the cost of one lesson by showing you their flu shot certificate.

Yeah sure, it's a scam... I bet you see scams everywhere you look.

Here is one possible reason the flu shot is being promoted for everyone.

http://www.hrsa.gov/vaccinecompensation/index.html

This shows that the national vaccine injury compensation program is funded by sales of vaccine. A 75 cents per dose tax goes to the fund. 100 million flu vaccines given per year adds 75 million to the program.

You will not hear interviews about vaccine injuries by Oprah because part of the process of being reimbursed for injury involves a legal agreement not to talk about it.

Here's a report of problems from Sweden. But you won't hear this sort of thing in the US. http://health.yahoo.net/news/s/nm/insight-evidence-grows-for-narcolepsy-link-to-gsk-swine-flu-shot

I currently work in healthcare. Every employee and volunteer is required to have the flu shot. It's mandatory. It's that important. Those who refuse (or are in some way unable) to take the shot are required to wear a mask at all times while at work for the protection of themselves and others or they don't work there anymore. Personally, I regard the mask as a bit of overkill, perhaps even punishment for not getting with the program, but I do recommend the flu shot. Unless you have some serious allergy that prevents you from taking the shot, it's a no brainer. Those who have the luxury of to cook up conspiratory theories and those gullible enough to believe them, are coasting along on herd immunity. People die of the flu every day. My grandfather's entire immediate family was wiped out by the 1918 epidemic. He was "lucky" enough to be still overseas with the army in France at the time. It's not just a bad cold or a tummy bug. It kills.

Did you notice how the flu epidemic of 1918 was not repeated the following year? Or even in the next 95 years. And without the intervention of modern medicine. Hmm.

I wonder what changed. I wonder if improvements in nutrition and sanitary conditions made the difference.

Just be glad you've been have the luxury to entertain all your skepticism, Ann. It's because of modern medicine (and there's been a ton of intervention)and that "suspect" vaccine. The 1918 epidemic wasn't repeated because the virus mutated to a less lethal strain. There have been other pandemics as widespread but not nearly as lethal because of the intervention of modern medicine and the rest of us are doing our part.

I am here today because of modern medicine. Otherwise I would have been one of those who died in childbirth. My hat is off to modern medicine in general.

I also like to have full information. And I see issues around vaccines to be shrouded in the don't ask don't tell mentality.

Thank you for admitting that vaccines were not the answer to this one.

I would look at the conditions around the epidemic...conditions in WWI camps...malnourished, overcrowded young men with birds and pigs kept nearby. Then travelling and spreading the disease.

You can also approach this from the point of preventing the conditions that lead to this disaster.

This probably only muddies the waters, but The Ethicist column in the New York Times tackled just yesterday the question of whether one should get a flu shot:

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/01/27/magazine/must-i-get-a-flu-shot.html?_r=0

The bottom line was that people should get the shot but were not ethically obligated to. I'm not sure I entirely agree with him on this, at least when it comes to childhood vaccines for life-threatening diseases. It's one thing to say that you don't want the pain and inconvenience and very small risk of complications for yourself, but when that decision endangers other children, the issue becomes more complex.

Put me in the camp that, yes, everybody who is eligible should get the flu vaccine (and other vaccines). Vaccines have saved millions of lives throughout history. There will be some small number of complications (and that number is very, very small with the fluvax), but the greater social benefit is enormous and indisputable.

Smallpox killed more people throughout the history of humankind than all our wars combined, and it's eradicated now only because of vaccines. That's pretty compelling to me.

I didn't admit anything. The vaccine is a preventative, not a cure. There is no cure. There are palliatives they may shorten the course but the body ultimately has to ride it out. Yes, of course better nutrition helps the body withstand the disease by making it healthier, which is why it is usually the elderly, the chronically ill, and young children who are most likely to perish. Better hygiene is a two edged weapon in that it can help prevent the spread of water borne diseases such as cholera (which the flu is not) but too much of it tends to weaken the immune system. Toxic shock syndrome is the result of too much cleanliness and part of the rise in the incidence of asthma may be from the same cause. The best preventative we have now is that vaccine (or those vaccines as they have to be tailored each year to what strains are believed to be prevalent). Some years the vaccine is more effective than others for this reason. Do you understand how herd immunity works? It works be creating a "herd" of resistent individuals so that the virus tries to infect a lot of "dead ends" and is it's ability to spread is limited. The vulnerable, the unvaccinated and those in which the vaccine did not "take" are protected by being part of this herd. The bigger the herd, the greater the protection.

Getting heated, eh?

There are arguments this way and that. Just because something is advisable for healthworkers or immuno-compromised people doesn't mean it's a good idea for everyone to have it.

Just imagine if we all got vaccines for everything (and our immune systems get out of practice for the real thing) and then something really lethal does come round.

Like I say, there are arguments this way and that. But for those who have said "I get the jab because it's the responsible thing to do" - do you think I'm irresponsible for not getting it?

Maybe this thread could inspire a composer. The music could take the form of a 2 part invention. Or 3 part invention with a little voice creeping in to say that they see a link between certain childhood vaccinations and autism. And then a thunderous crash could completely drown out the little voice.

"...If people would STAY HOME when sick, sneeze and cough into their sleeves..."

We also have something called a handkerchief. It is more sanitary, and far less disgusting.

I suspect that those who believe our population enjoys better nutrition than those who lived in 1914-18, are living in a fool's paradise. The Surgeon General says that the data suggest otherwise--- today we have fatter people (look around) who are actually malnourished.

Monica has hit the snail on the head--- the "we don't vaccinate" crowd, who are depending on other 'more ignorant' people's children being vaccinated to prevent their own kids from coming down with diseases which can have deadly consequences, should just have their necks wrung and let's get it over with. They might do well to Google up the word 'polio'--- and it has plenty of company.

Many kids were killed outright by this disease, before the Salk and Sabin vaccines were developed. Others were paralyzed for life, or lost the use of one or more limbs. Some could only be kept alive by being in an 'iron lung,' a machine which breathed for them. Quite a life, eh?

Smallpox was benign by comparison; those who weren't killed were merely disfigured.

"Marketing," Ann--- really. If you work in public health and don't know any better than this, maybe some other career would be less destructive.

This composition could be too boring if we just shout our viewpoints. Let's have a movement in which we are all required to switch sides.

I've left. But while there, I towed the company line and kept my opinion to myself. And gave flu shots to those at risk since that was the recommendation at the time.

+1

Immunization is not a substitute for the immune system. It works by stimulating it.

If you are a teacher, dealing with a lot of students, do you think you might become a vector? Will you feel responsibility for those who catch it from you? If you get sick, are you comfortable with the loss of income when you cannot teach? What do you think your responsibility is?