Isn’t it about that time of year for all the Crazies that Won’t get a Flu Shot To Come Out Of The Woodwork?

8 thoughts on “Isn’t it about that time of year for all the Crazies that Won’t get a Flu Shot To Come Out Of The Woodwork?

  1. I haven’t had the vaccine in years, mostly because it’s all a guessing game. Last couple of times I got the vaccine, I still got the flu. Why? The CDC tries to predict which strain of flu will be most prevalent any given year (there are many, many strains, always evolving), and create vaccine from that guess. To create the vaccine in time for flu season, they have to predict far in advance. Often they get it wrong, though sometimes they get it right. So, you know, what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. That said, older folks with weak immune systems should probably take the vaccine. Also, Penn and Teller have turned into grumpy old farts shouting at kids to get off their lawn. There could probably be a better messenger.

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  2. The flu shot is not 100% effective since the virus mutates. But the CDC takes a pretty good guess and covers the bases by including the three most prevalent viruses.

    If you are middle aged and do not have a compromised immune system then the flu is not going to kill you. But by not getting a vaccination you can carry it home and give it to the aged or the very young or the new baby next door. If you do not interact with old people or young people or any people, by all means do not get the vaccine. But if you do interact with people with compromised immune systems, the old, the very young, you may kill them.

    In 2011 over fifty four thousand US citizens died of the influenza virus. What percentage of those deaths were caused by people carrying the virus to those susceptible people? 100%. That is how viruses work. An old person can get the flu shot but can be easily infected by someone who did not get the shot.

    Do you want to be that person? Why? Because you don’t believe in vaccines? Then you get to be called crazy. It is also pretty easy to call you selfish and lazy and stupid.

    Currently there are outbreaks of whooping cough in California. Hot spots are rich suburbs where the mother believes in holistic bullshit and does not vaccinate her kids. So those kids carry the whooping cough home and infect the newborn baby next door because the baby has had the shot but it was too early for the vaccine to take. So that holistic mom turned her kids into a baby killer because the baby next door coughed herself to death. Coughing so hard she broke her ribs. Three weeks of coughing and then death.

    Vaccines work. I believe you are certifiably crackers not to get the flu vaccine (or any of the currently available vaccines.) Scientists do not debate the efficacy of vaccines. One can always find a few scientists but mostly pseudo-scinetists who are nuts and do not believe in vaccines. They make a website, sell their snake oil, make a lot of money, and create a debate that really would not exist without the internet.

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  3. Paul, isn’t comparing the flu vaccine to the whooping cough vaccine like comparing apples to oranges? By calling someone lazy, crazy, selfish, and stupid, and inferring that they are a killer because they do not take subscribe to taking a flu shot, you don’t win any arguments.

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    1. I am comparing apples to apples. Both are vaccines. In both cases the fact that people are avoiding the vaccines is causing the premature death of people. Maybe I shouldn’t call the person who avoids the vaccine lazy, crazy, selfish, or stupid, but I cannot see how they are at least one of those. Ignorance is not an excuse anymore.
      I am not trying to win an argument or couching my terms in politically correct speech the way the CDC does. Avoiding the flu vaccine leads directly to the death of people. The same with whooping cough and german measles vaccines.
      The fact is that flu will likely kill somewhere in the neighborhood of fifty thousand people in the United States this winter. If people followed the recommendation of the Center for Disease Control and get the vaccine now there would be considerably fewer deaths. Apple to apples. Dead is dead.

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