(single strength). I have had friends/colleagues hospitalized with influenza complications--not me if I can help it.

Get it annually and get it early! It really isn't a big deal. Free with insurance, but if you are pressed for time, just shell out the $20 (more expensive elsewhere other than Costco, though) That is really minimal in the long run.

the preferred pharmacy chain for my Medicare Advantage plan. In and out in five minutes, and I did a little grocery shopping while I was there, since my pharmacy is in a supermarket. How convenient!

My parents, who are in their mid 90s have had theirs, as well, thank goodness. The nursing home where my mother is breezed in last week and wouldn't take "no" for an answer from either my mother or my father. Zap, you're immunized. The Flu is deadly for old people with other health problems. So, if you are around old people, you need to get your flu shot to protect them, as well.

Found out they had it in, made an appointment because they had several sick kids in the cinic.

We went from 92 to 45 over night.

And a nice reminder. I should be able to get the shot this week.

That's the vaccine effectiveness of last year's vaccine for anyone 50 or older.

https://www.cdc.gov/flu/vaccines-work/2018-2019.html

5th box down.

once since then. I can't answer your question, though. I don't know. I do know that I have not had the flu, except that one time a few years ago. I got it a week after my flu shot, so the vaccine hadn't had time to stimulate my immune system well enough yet. My case of the flu, though, was milder than usual, so apparently I got some protection.

Perhaps I am one of that 12%. I can't say. What I can say is that I march in and get my flu shot every year, usually the last week in September. This year, I'm late, because a had a bad cold then, and decided to wait until I was over that.

1972. One case of the flu since then. Why 1972? Because I ended up in the hospital in 1971 with complications from the flu.

How effective will this year's vaccine be? We won't know that until later.

I live in South Texas.....

It was my first time getting a flu shot. I've never gotten them because I usually don't get sick. But I've gotten sick over the past 3 winters, so when it was offered to me, I took it.

It is an early flu season this year I heard. I got mine last week and the pharmacist said there have already been cases reported.

since in the >65 age range the vaccine was remarkably more effective for the early flu season than the late. I can't find the numbers quickly, again, but the effectiveness in the late season in that age range was, statistically, 0% (i.e. too small to measure).

because I wanted to get it last month when it became available and he said your immunity would be fading right at the peak of the season if you get it now... So I am aiming for some time next month (my next appointment with him). I'm not 65 or older (am 57) but the advice makes sense from a scientific standpoint.

As it is, it's kinda rare that they even had it so early (August) this year because they have to wait to see which strains are prolific and then have to do the egg thing. And as I understand, they delayed confirming/going with one of the (I think) H3N2 strains before starting the vaccine production and release.

but we do know that, on average, it is only 41% more effective than no vaccine - and has only been greater than 50% more effective 4 times since 2004.

Were I in your position, having been hospitalized with complications of the flu would likely alter my current posture - which is that, for me, the risks outweigh the benefits. If I ever develop impaired respiration (asthma, emphysema, etc.), that would change my decision.

The last two times I've had the flu were 2003 and 2009. I don't have records or specific recollection before then - and I come into contact with hundreds of people daily.

Even a partial immunity can be the difference between life and death.

Anyone seeking to discourage people from getting their vaccine is either misguided or malicious.

What I suggested is that there is information about effectiveness that individuals would find relevant in making their own decision to vaccinate or not.

As medical professional, I am sure you would not withhold accurate but potentially discouraging risk information from your patients when recommending a treatment out of fear they might not accept your recommendation. (if for no other reason that it would be unethical, and you could set yourself up for malpractice.)

Yet you choose to label a discussion of the effectiveness of the flu vaccine (which has not exceeded 60% since 2004, and which was 12% for my age range for last year's vaccine) as "misguided or malicious.

Suppressing or discouraging disclosure of information that would allow people to make informed decisions, because they might make a decision we don't personally like is an odd position for both progressives and medical professionals to take.

The practical upshot of which is: get your flu vaccine. It's not a matter of their personal choice, since, by declining the vaccine, what they are essentially choosing to be is a carrier of the influenza virus, and run the risk of infecting people who, for one valid reason or another, are not able to get immunized.

Concern-trolling can sometime be very subtle. But I can still see through it.

The infection rate is generally 5-20% per year. Insisting your patients who choose not to be vaccinated "are essentially choosing to be is a carrier of the influenza virus," is hyperbole.

By declining to be vaccinated, in the most effective vaccine year (60%) - with the worst influenza outbreak (20%) 6-8% of your patients declining vaccination are choosing to be a carrier. Last year (assuming the worst outbreak ever - since I don't feel like chasing down the actual infection rate), 1.8% of your patients who declined vaccination (who would have fallen within the added protection from the vaccination had they gotten it) "chose" to be carriers.

Further, because the effectiveness is so low (unlike other vaccines), and herd immunity depends on the flu encountering not just a vaccinated population - but a vaccinated population that develops an immunity to the virus, it is virtually impossible to create herd immunity for influenza that would protect those who cannot protect themselves.

So it really is a personal choice. And people making personal choices about their health need relevant information on which to base those choices.

For someone who spends a lot of time writing "That's not what I said" and "Did I say that?" you don't seem to acknowledge that that's not what I said. I didn't say anyone who declines the vaccine is 100% certain to get infected, did I?

The whole issue is centered around probability. The probability that you will get the flu is much, much lower if you get vaccinated than if you don't. There was a time when the mere probability of getting the flu was enough to convince people to get vaccinated.

With the advent of the internet, it became easier to disseminate misinformation much more quickly, and not incidentally, lend one's position a little false validity by couching it in concerns over personal choice.

The people who lose family members to the flu aren't going to care that there was only a 5-20% probability that they would get infected. That doesn't assuage grief and the pain of loss.

Aside from the generic hand-to-hand transmission that is independent of immunity status, you can't be a carrier if you are not infected. Since you said essentially they were choosing to be carriers, that comment means esentially choosing to be infected.

I ran the numbers to demonstrate that he probability is not "much lower" with vaccination than without. Given the relatively low rate of infection, and the low rate of effectiveness, the probability is moderately lower (and in a low-infection-low effectiveness year barely lower at all).

I agree with your final point about (albeit not the numbers - which are the overall infection rate, not rate by which infection will be reduced by vaccination, which is a much smaller number).

But it is still a personal choice. When I was diagnosed with breast cancer a few years ago, I chose radiation (which creates a very very small risk of a very aggressive cancer) over simple surgery (which carried a much larger risk of a recurrence of a very slow growing cancer). Whether I made the choice my doctors were pushing, or not, if either ultimately kills me, my family members will feel the loss. But the decision of which risk to take was mine, and I deserved the informaiton (good and bad) to make an informed choice. Just as anyone deciding to vaccinate for influenze (or not) deserves the same.

Literally - all I am doing is injecting scientifically accurate infomation that is almost certainly (based on the reaction I get when I raise it) intentionally excluded from the conversation - in the same way the doctors I fired intentionally exlcuded information about the small, but very real, long-term risks of radiation - because they wanted me to choose radiation.

No - this is not the same choice as radiation v. not. But the principle is the same - in any medical decision, patients have the right to complete and accurate information.

Who needs experts and professionals when we have the internet.

At least we don’t see outright and vaccine shit here like we used to. It’s more subtle now.

Everyone is a little different in terms of the severity of symptoms they'll experience. Not everyone is diligent about minimizing exposure risk.

We've all seen those people at work who plow on despite being sick enough to be home in bed.

Even if it only decreases the chance of getting a potential fatal illness by only 41%.

Wearing a seatbelt does not mean I won’t die if I crash my truck. But I still wear it.

I think I understand odds pretty well.

The odds include that your chance of getting potentially fatal illness are only 5-20% in the first place. So a decrease for me, assuming an average flu year and my age range (since complete infection data is not yet available) means that instead of having an aproximately 13.2% chance of having the flu, I would have had an 11.7% chance of having the flu.

Not nearly as dramatic as a 41% reduction sounds, since the 41% reduction applies to the already relatively low risk of contracting the flu in the first place.

And - just because - knowing that informaiton would mean that you choose to get the vaccine doesn't mean everyone else would react to that information the same way. My dad still doesn't wear a seatbelt - even though not only does he know the statistics, but his father died in a car accident. Tons of motorcyclists ride down the road bare-headed - even knowing the grim statistics of surviving a motorcycle crash.

I have no interest at all in telling people what choice they should make. My interest is solely in sharing the accurate information that is typically excluded from these conversations.

The OP was about a member who got a flu shot and other details some might find interesting because we all read their post often.

Nowhere in the OP was condemnation for those who do not get a shot.

Then you chime in with a post that reads, your intention or not, that the flu shot is a bad choice. Maybe not how intended, but how everyone here took it.

You proceed thru most of the thread basing your decision not to get the shot on odds alone which is not supported by the medical community.

Then, late in the thread you decided to inform us you have personal medical issues that make you a bad candidate for the shot which is a totally different kettle of fish than your previous posts.

Had you just stated you have medical issues that make the shot a bad idea and remind us that there are others in that position our reaction would have different.

More like ‘sorry for your condition’. And best wishes for a low flu year.

In my younger days I worked it out that I caught influenza about every 7 years. Good immune system and all that. Then my luck ran out and probably my immune system wasn't what it was any more. I guess I was in my 50s. My in-laws were old and frail, my daughter works with babies and toddlers, and I did not want to be the cause of passing this crud on to someone who might die of it. So I've kept up my immunizations for flu and pneumonia since then.

I hate having the flu. So, I get the shot, and mostly it has worked. Since the vaccination is free, why not get it?

the old farts version. She got the flu and I didn't. She had a relatively mild case that lasted 2 or 3 days and was off her feet only 1 of those days. However, if I had gotten it there is NO way I would ever characterize it as "mild". So there is that!

For me - yes. My post is purely to make sure people have information on which to base their own choices - since the get-a-vlu vaccine-hype every fall rarely mentions the piss-poor effectiveness of the vaccine.

I can't make choices for others, and do not attempt to do so.

get-a-flu-vaccine-hype.

(Note: the post to which you responsed said, "Then you apparently made the correct choice, for you." I altered my post when I realized I had connected my response to the wrong post."

I explained why I got the shot. No hype. I do not wish to get the flu. I am likely to be exposed to people who are infectious. So, I got my flu shot now, because I am very likely to have to take a flight to California on short notice.

I am perhaps more sensitive because every year at least one person suggests people who don't get the flu vaccine are killers - and the season for that is ramping up. In other venues, the suggestion has already been explicitly made (of course, with no information about hte actual effectiveness of the flu vaccine).

How odd...

I provided informaiton you (and others) may not be aware of by way of a question.

Truly I do.

And yes, I tell people to get their flu vaccine. It's part of the job. It's not hype; it's healthcare. This is America, so I'm not surprised that there are some who can't tell the difference between the two.

You would not be my doctor for longer than the few seconds it took to discover that posture.

It IS hype, rather than hype, when (1) accurate information about the effectiveness of the flu vaccine is intentionally omitted from articles or discussions about vaccination and (2) in the event it is added to the discussion, those sharing such information are labeled "anti-vax," uninformed, or malicious.

The reality is that the flu vaccine is incredibly ineffective compared to the effectiveness of other vaccines. The fact that there are scientific reasons for its ineffectiveness does not alter the fact that its peak effectiveness since 2004 is 60% (meaning it is only 60% better than no vaccine at all). The average effectiveness in that time period is 42%. Last year the effectiveness for my age range was a whopping 12% - and 0% if you look only at the late season influenza.

That track record is not dissimilar from any other year - at least since 2004. That information is information that is relevant to my personal decision about whether to get a vaccination this year. It will be weighed against a lot of other information (general risk factors, personal risk factors, etc.). Intentionally suppressing that information (and labeling people who share it anti-vax, malicious, or uninformed) in order to avoid the risk that someone might make an informaiton-based decision not to vaccinate is, indeed, hype.

I understand the allure of vaccination-concern. I understand the thrill that goes with telling people "I know something you don't know. I'm better informed than you. I'm not just one of the sheep who does what he's told."

The influenza vaccine saves lives. You can twist it any way you want; you have that luxury. It's possible that herd immunity will keep you safe from the flu; who knows?

What I know for sure is that a hundred years ago, in 1918, the flu killed fifty million people around the world. There was no immunization against it. And if there had been, I don't think anyone would have seen the reports of people dying in the millions and said: "Well, you know, Jennie McCarthy says..."

Little, if anything, she says is based on actual science.

What I am sharing is scientifically accurate information - collected by the CDC.

If you can't tell the difference, you have no business being in health care.

As to herd immunity - see my other post. You are confusing the ability to create herd immunity based on an effective vaccine with the reality of the low effectiveness of the flu vaccine. The ability to create herd immunity depends on % of population vaccinated - AND - the effectiveness of the vaccine. The less effective the vaccine, the higher the rate of vaccination needed to create herd immunity - and the influenza vaccine has such a low effectiveness rate that is is next to impossible to create herd immunity (the way it can be created with vaccines with a near 100% effectiveness).

I'm afraid you just lost with that one.

The medical program that trained me says I belong in health care. The licensing board that reviewed my board test results says I belong in health care. The state licensing agency that granted me a license to practice medicine says I belong in health care. The health care organization that hired me nine years ago says I belong in health care. My medical colleagues say I belong in health care. The doctor who audits my chart notes says I belong in health care. My patients obviously think I belong in health care. And my record for positive clinical outcomes is a pretty good objective indication that I belong in health care.

So some random malcontent on a website comes in pretty low on the list of people who get to determine if I belong in health care.

Don't blame yourself; "You don't belong in X-profession" is a pretty common tactic. It's easy to fall into. You've got a lot of company.

You implied I was a Jenny McCarthy acolyte.

I clarified that

We know you are not in healthcare. Because healthcare workers, at least those in reputable institutions, are required to get the shot.

Because science.

Science, by the way, works on as complete and accurate information as is available. That information includes the effectiveness of the vaccines being recommended - which DU members are, for some reason, afraid to discuss.

Attempting to discourage others is not.

because I am sharing accurate information about the effectiveness of the influenza vaccine, so that people have information on which to base their own personal decisions?

So you appear to be suggesting the accurate information, which suggests that the flu vaccine is not as effective as the hype makes it appear should be suppressed? Were you, personally, aware that for individuals age 50 or over that gettig the vaccine was only 12% more effective than not getting it (which translates - to a difference between an average of 13.5% infection rate in that age range v. 11.7% infection rate in that age range). Don't you believe that is information that at least some individuals in making the decision whether to get the vaccination or not might find relevant?

Here I thought that progressives valued making decisions based on full and accurate information.

For the record, I am not anti-vax. I am for informed decision making - and information is in short supply because anyone who dares provide any information that might suggest the influenze vacccine is anything less than a miracle is labeled "anti-vax."

Personally, everyone in our family is vaccinated against the major, life-threatening, illnesses for which there are reasonably effective vaccine available (MMR, Tetanus, polio, Smallpox and -for our daughter with a liver disease - the relevant hepatitis vaccines & the HPV vaccine because she is sexually active).

As to the others, which are either prevalent only in limited circumstances (E.g. HiB - young age, primarily a risk in child care settings my daughter never experienced), we make an individual determination based on personal and family history with autoimmune diseases, risk of exposure, risk of the disease if contracted, use of adjuvants in the vaccine, and the effectiveness of the vaccine.

Flu season has already begun and deaths have been reported.

Discouraging people from getting vaccinated is wrong.

Nice.

So - if your doctor thinks radiation is good for you, and is afraid you might refuse it if you had full information, is it right for her to withhold the information that even though radiation makes the kind of cancer you have less likely to return, a small percentage of people who have radiation develop a cancer later that is - essentially - a death sentence?

That is essentially what you are suggesting. You are afraid people won't get vaccinated - so you believe disclosing information that might lead some people to make a decision you personally would not make to be "wrong."

All decisions should be based on full information. The reality that the influenza's effectiveness has not exceeded 60% since 2004, and has only exceeded 50% three times since 2004, that overall last year's vaccine effectiveness was 29% - and only 12% among my age range - and, effectively 0% for the late season influenza is information. Pure and simple. What the recipient does with the information is their business.

Others, not so much

I am not making a recommendation one way or the other. I'm merely including the CDC information that has (almost certainly) intentionally been excluded from most flu vaccine discussions on DU and elsewhere.

Is there something about people having complete, accurate information, so they can make informed decisions that is scary? Sure seems that way, given the response anytime anyone offers actual scientific information that suggests the vaccine is less than perfect.

Just like the CDC recommends.

Don't listen the Anti-Vaxxers - they know nothing.

yup

Even in the worst infection rate & the most effective vaccine, the number of lives saved by vaccination is around 780. In a low infection rate year, with the least effective vaccine it is about 48.

So - not the dramatic change you are probably imagining.

And, again, not an anti-vaxxer - my entire family is fully vaccinated against all inherently life-threatening illnesses for which there is an effective vaccine, and 1/3 of my family is vaccinated against the flu.

I am in favor of making information available and sharing it so that everyone can make their own informed decisions.

Which could endanger lives.

Yup

it's not worth it - at least not yet. We have personal, and famial, autoimmune disorders. I intentionally muck with my immune system as little as possible - since most flu vaccines use adjuvants (adjuvants intentionally amp up the immune response, and an autoimmune disease means my immune system is already amped up). At some point, when respiratory infections pose a greater risk, I might make a different decision. But I have never had a flu vaccination, and have not had the flu since 2009 (the last year prior to that was 2003).

I don't push my choice on others - BUT I do think it is important that people make information-based choices. The "everyone must get the flu vaccine" ramp up every year - bordering on hysteria - rarely mentions that it is a rare year in which the overall benefit of a flu shot exceeds 50% (4 times in the last 14 years). The overall average is 41%, since 2004. So when I see the inevitable fall posts, which never mention one side of the information needed to make an informed choice, I am inclined to provide it.

I'd be opposed to such a thing.

while simultaneously failing to mention how ineffective the vaccine actually is.

Everyone should make their own choice. There are truly people on DU who do not believe that - and even many of those who say it is a personal choice either don't know, or don't share, information on both sides of the question.

Instead, I explained my situation, which may require me to take a flight on short notice. So, if I wish to be protected, it's a good idea to do that sooner rather than later. I'm OK if others don't get the vaccine. That's their choice. I get mine to protect myself from those who do not.

I also explained that my 90-something parents are in a nursing home environment. That nursing home requires its staff to get the flu shot, because not all of the elderly patients there are able to take it. My parents are, but they are very old and likely not to be well-protected, since their immune systems are not as active as they once were.

So, the staff at that nursing home is required to be vaccinated. Anyone who refuses simply will not be working there, and probably in any other healthcare facility, since those rules are pretty much universal in such places.

But, you don't have to get vaccinated. I hope you avoid the flu. If you avoid crowds and are scrupulous with your hand-washing, etc., you can probably avoid it. Be especially careful in places like supermarkets. People with the flu still have to eat, so they tend to still shop. Handles on shopping carts are an easy way to be exposed. Take good care.

When I worked for a boss who insisted he was not sick when he actually was - and I was headed into surgery and could not afford a delay due to a respiratory illness. That was in 2009 - and I can count on one hand the number of colds and/or flu illnesses I've had since then.

Flu is also transmitted via micro-droplets - that's hard to avoid, except by keeping a distance. (Likely how I came down withthe 2009 flu, when I picked my daughter up from the airport so we were in a tight enclosed space for the drive home.) But keeping a distance has been effective, so far.

I can't avoid crowds - I encounter hundreds daily. But the practices I've developed (or perhaps my overactive immune system) have kept me healthy for the last decade.

Maybe I have missed this mantra, but who is using this hyperbole?

It seems a bit OTT.

generally in the midst of a thread about health care professionals getting vaccinated. I don't have any saved that I can easily point to. But I'm sure there will be one shortly. (The closest so far in this thrad is the suggestion that the 12% saved thousands of lives, but I assume that was just referring to people who died from the flu who didn't get a vaccination. The hype is normally connected to Typhoid Mary kinds of statements.)

But - that kind of OTT accusation is why I have a hair trigger response in threads like this one.

some good articles on the flu vaccine

Flu shot: Your best bet for avoiding influenza

https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/flu/in-depth/flu-shots/art-20048000



Interim Estimates of 2018–19 Seasonal Influenza Vaccine Effectiveness — United States, February 2019

https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/68/wr/mm6806a2.htm



How Effective Is the Flu Vaccine?

https://www.webmd.com/vaccines/how-effective-is-flu-vaccine#1



The Flu Vaccine Might Be Mismatched, but You Still Need Your Shot

https://www.healthline.com/health-news/the-flu-vaccine-might-be-mismatched-but-you-still-need-your-shot



Flu jab is not a 'waste of time'

https://www.nhs.uk/news/medical-practice/flu-jab-is-not-a-waste-of-time/



On the other hand, here in Sweden (where I am at now for uni) the failure that year was even worse

This winter's flu jab gives no protection

https://sverigesradio.se/sida/artikel.aspx?programid=2054&artikel=6087401

You must have missed them, but they were here...exactly as you described them.

In generally, the facts from the CDC that you quoted are not looked upon with any enthusiasm here.

spreader of the flu because I choose not to get a shot. See my post number 77 above.

was a fail that year, in which case it again doesn't matter what you did.

I suppose they could be slagging you out for making other non-vaxxed people sick, but those non-vaxxers are to blame too when they themselves get sick.

We do not get the shots normally, as we (my wife and I) are both 23, and usually not in the US most winters, and the flu vax fail rate is high where we are at (UK and Sweden, plus other assorted places as we travel a tonne.) When we get older, decades from now, hopefully they will have sorted it out so that the vax works much better.

The whole thing is hardly on my list of priorities in life, and these threads seem designed to have a go at people and gin up anger and resentment from both sides. I understand that the average age here is vastly older than I am, so people have more skin in the game I suppose.

cheers and good luck!

that the general advice to get a flu shot feels like coercion to you?

wow.

MOST people should make the choice to get the vaccine.

A FEW people with special issues, like you apparently, should talk to their doctor first, and SOME of those few shouldn't get it.

but being called anti-vax, malicious, misinformed (as has happened today) and a killer (as happens nearly every year around this time) goes beyond "general advice to get a flu shot."

And when doctors point blank refuse to treat patients who have not had the flu vaccine (a comment from a prior year's thread), or refuse to give their patients accurate infomation about how effective the vaccine is (as one in this thread suggested he would), that also goes beyond general advice.

if you had just said something like...hey guys, just remember a small number of people are known to be allergic to the flu vaccine so make sure you check with a doctor to make sure you aren't...or words to that effect, no one would say boo to you.

You took it WELL beyond that, which is why you are getting the deserved grief you are getting.

Folks, get the flu vaccine. If you have a reaction to it, talk to your doc, or if you know you have an allergy to one of the components, talk to your doc first. Otherwise, get it. End of story.

I think we're moving in a new direction with the flu vaccine, though. They're working hard on one that works in a different way and will be more effective in a broad-spectrum way. I hope their research pays off soon.

Some people, though, apparently feel that any positive information about vaccination is somehow coercive. I don't understand that, though. I related my own reasons for getting the shot, and they're good ones. I did not tell anyone that they must get vaccinated, because that's not my job.

I get the flu shot to protect myself and others I encounter. If I don't get the flu, I can't spread it. If others don't get the vaccine, my shot will help protect me from them. That's why I get it, and it has worked admirably well, now, for decades in my case.

Each year, thousands die from complications of the flu. Some years, its as many as died in the Vietnam war. Preventing any of those deaths is a good thing. Medicare and most health insurance plans cover the cost of the flu shot. That's a good thing. It helps make it available to anyone who wants it.

Those who don't want a flu shot don't have to get one, unless they are required to by their employer, typically in healthcare facilities.

and about 780 in the worst year.

Kinda risky to tell a mathematician to do the math, unless you've done it yourself and understand what the results will show.

Which is part of the point of making the post in the first place. There are very valid reasons for getting the flu shot for most people. For some people there are medical contraindications. Those distinctions are being lost in the "saved thousands of lives," and direct or veiled accusations that those of us who choose not to receive a flu vaccination are killers

Deciding to vaccinate for the flu does not present the kind of black and white choice that deciding to vaccinate for polio or measlies does - yet it is being hyped as if they are identical choices, and the information needed to make those choices is either hidden by (or unknown to) those equating the two choices.

and five years from now? What happens when they improve the predictability?

This isn't simply "math," it's also human nature. And humans often need to do things over and over until it's a habit or they slough it off.

Your cavalier attitude works against that. It's highly important that people get into the habit of getting a flu shot every year. Just because at this moment, there are glitches in prediction or efficacy doesn't render it a worthless exercise.

And be consistent, either there are valid reasons or there are not. You present it as being such a minimal affect as to be not worth it. Saving 48 lives a year in a nation of 330 million would certainly seem almost pointless wouldn't it using your numbers.

Yet, you hedge and say, well there are very valid reasons for getting the flu shot for most people.

So which is it? Are there "very valid reasons for getting the flu shot for most people" or is it a fruitless exercise that doesn't even save a tenth of a tenth of one percent of Americans from death from the flu?

AND if there are "very valid reasons for getting the flu shot for most people" then why are you discouraging people on here from talking about getting the flu shot? Would seem to me you are just being a contrarian in that case if you truly believe that. What harm is it to you other than annoyance for posts you don't have to read?

The contraindications for the dead virus are VERY limited...not to children under 6 months, not to folks allergic to it (duh), and...well, that's it.

1. generally free
2. has little to no side effects
3. by your own admission stops at least SOME transmission of the flu which can be deadly

is "not worth it?"

or think they can't. So, they don't want you to take it either, for some reason. Or something like that.

and the only contraindication there is literally being allergic to the components of that shot (and everyone is allergic to something).

I know you are being sarcastic but just wanted to be clear to everyone else.

And wanting conversations about the influenze vaccine to include accurate and complete information about it.

Dire warnings aboout how critical it is for everyone to get the vaccination this year that do not include information about how relatively ineffective it is are not complete and accurate information - especially when such dire warnings are coupled with assertions that anyone sharing accurate (but not rah!rah!) information about the vaccination are anti-vax, misinformed, or malicious.

2% of Americans have a real problem with it. No question about it. It real fucking serious if you are one of them.

But 12% think they do.

I have both personal and family autoimmune diseases - and the general rule of thumb is that when you have one, there are others lurking.

Autoimmune disorders involve an overactive and misguided protection system against intruders. I'll use my daughter's, since her system is simpler to explain than mine. My daughter's involves being activated by an actual intruder (in this case something eating she is allergic to), and then mistaking parts of her body that are in contact with the intruder (in this case her colon) for being part of the intruder, so instead of attacking just the actual intruder ( the stuff she is allergic to), it attacks her own body (her colon). Then, even after the intruder is gone, her body cannot figure out how to stop the attack. It costs $200,000 in medical care every year to control her autoimmune response - and when she fails to contain it, the cancer risk that is associated with inflamation increases. That's a simplified explanation - but it may help you understand the nature of the risk.

On the vaccine end, vaccines are often not strong enough to provoke the immune response needed to create immunity - so they are often paired with adjuvants, whose only job is to rile up your immune system so you have a stronger response. So an even more amped up immune response to a system that is already overactive and confused creates a risk of greater autoimmune damage (and the cancer risks that go along with it).

My own immune disorders (at least the two I've been diagnosed with) are a lot blander - but the system works the same way - so I'd rather not rock the boat unless there is a good reason.

Good reasons include highly effective immunizatins against inherently deadly diseases (measles, polio, tetanus, etc.). My daughter has had all of the major childhood vaccines - and the HPV vaccine (she is sexually active), and hepatitis vaccines (a second autoimmune disorder involves her liver) - so the benefits of those outweigh not insignificant risks.

Personally, at least at this stage in my life, the risks of a relatively ineffective influenza vaccine or the pneumonia vaccine (the effectiveness of which I have not explored) don't outweigh the benefits. I rarely catch the flu (twice since 2003, and I don't have a good recolletion before that). I rarely catch colds (and those I do catch are relatively easy to hasten away now that I have discovered zinc), and there is nothing wrong with my respiratory system.

I don't know the personal circumstances of everyone considering whether to get the flu vaccine - but everyone has the right to full information on which to make the decision. Most conversations completely omit how ineffective the influenze vaccine is - and, unfortunately, when it is raised the messenger is generally attacked as being anti-vax.

we all got it...for you, you think there is some risk that is particular to you.

So don't get it then...what's the point of you going around using your particular exception, which docs already track and are aware that there is a small group of folks who can't take the flu shot, in opposition to the GENERAL precept of getting your flu shot?

So what if it's ineffective (i.e. less than 100 percent not completely ineffective) when for the vast majority it is harmless, it will likely improve with research, and docs already account for some not getting it.

If you'd simply say, be sure to talk to your doc if you have any immune disorders or whatnot, then no one would be giving you grief. For whatever reason, you've turned it up to 11.

If you weren't interested, why bother asking?

You may or may not care that it is ineffective - that's your personal posture. Others may care - and for those who care, accurate information is important.

No one on DU - for any reason I can think of - should be opposed to including scientific information in a conversation. But when it comes to vaccines, when real scientific information - in this case from the CDC - is offered, people who don't want anyone to stray from the party line start calling the messenger names and trying to silence the messenger.

Is there other factual informaiton you believe is too explosive or tempting for DU members to handle - and to whom should we refer them if we aren't allowed to talk about actual facts?

that does nothing for anyone.

I didn't ask, are you one of the few people who can't take it because I already knew there were a few people who can't take it, just like I've been asked before every time I've been given a flu shot if I was one of those people.

You can weakly attempt to turn this back on me in a Trumpian accusation of doing the very thing you are doing, but I'm not really interested in playing that game.

Even the CDC recommends some should not get the flu shot or get it only in a hospital setting.

Here is the CDC chart of adjuvants in the various flu vaccines available

https://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/pinkbook/downloads/appendices/b/excipient-table-2.pdf

But I believe most (maybe all) last yearwere adjuvants free. The opposite seems to be true this year.

Stat clear of those that vax. I also stay out of hospitals. I only go to doctors if I hit my head, break a bone, get a cut or some other trauma. I am 62, take NO pills, and dropped my blood pressure meds, mostly a scam. They keep lowering the threshold on what's high bp. I am 130 to 140 over 80 to 95 on average, doc says high, BS! Simple research proves it.

Some (but not all) of this year's vaccines use live attenuated virus (although I have not seen any suggestion that anyone with a normal immune system has contracted influenza via vaccination shedding). It's a significant risk for the chicken pox vaccine - shedding happens over a longer term, and it is a significant risk for peope who have previously had chicken pox, since the virus hides and can be reactivated as shingles.

I don't avoid doctors (I have my annual physical, and quarterly follow-up for breast cancer). But, by and large, I have doctors who work with me to minimize the need for medication when there are effective treatments that do not require medication.

I just make personal decisons about relatively ineffective vaccines for illnesses that are not inherently life threatening.

And, even then, you will not "shed" (lulz).

It would be really helpful if people lost the knee-jerk reaction to conversations about vaccines and did a bit of research before hitting the ridicule key.

The reality of using live attenuated vaccines is that a significant number of recipients shed virus for a while - typically not for long (flu vaccines are about 2 weeks max; chicken pox is about a month).

Specifically, as to the flu:

But I'll reserve special scorn for the tried-and-true, self-righteous 'It's my clean livin' that keeps me healthy!" nonsense...

I read these posts about how beet juice is an elixir and doctors are really all about harming people. Too much education apparently can make one think getting vaccinated can help (sarc).

I take no pills, eat only organically and have had borderline blood pressure. If my blood pressure creeps up, I can lower it with beet juice and a one or two day fast. I've never had a flu shot. Had to go to the doc for a broken bone and a rattlesnake bite, but just stopped all their yearly visits and tests. If i feel really good, I know all is well so why mess with it.

is somehow harmful to your health I just have to shake my head.

There are all sorts of things that can be wrong that lead to serious medical issues that you will not detect using an "I feel good" detection system until you don't "feel good" and something that was at the beginning and cheaply and easily treatable has now moved to a worse state where it's harder or impossible to treat and more expensive.

SMH

HYSTERICAL. "Shedding" --

With the flu shot, which doesn't use a live virus. IT IS LITERALLY IMPOSSIBLE! No matter how much anti vax propos try to make it so.

I didn’t realize it was that low.

a true believer. It's worth having a sore arm for a couple of days.

the next two weeks. It can take one to two weeks for your immune system to benefit from the vax.

BTW, I recently took the new, improved shingles vaccine, Shingrex. Be forewarned, it is an injection followed by a booster three months later, and either or both can cause fever and chills and flu-like symptoms (except respiratory). My symptoms from the first shot were mild, but the booster really messed me up, starting half a day afterwards, and continuing for forty-eight hours.

I get my flu vaccine in early December, I think.

I have passed on the Shingles vaccination. It's a risk, I know, because I did have chickenpox as a child. My wife had a shingles outbreak a couple of years ago, and that was no fun at all. I'm still debating that one in my own mind. I've had both pneumonia vaccinations, with the 13-valent one last year or the year before.

The Shingles vaccine is not covered by Medicare or by my Advantage plan. So, it's rather expensive. My wife got it, since she had had a shingles outbreak. I may regret it someday.

Being a health care professional I can you tell that EVERY year is a “bad” flu year. I appreciate each and every person who gets immunized.

Edit, best wishes to your Mom, I used to do that kind of nursing. It was hard but I loved it.

I fly right out there. He is very hard of hearing, and often doesn't understand what people tell him. So, he probably didn't hear or understand someone telling him that my mother had a UTI and that was the reason for her apparent delirium. When my brother-in-law showed up, the ER folks explained it to him and he explained it to my father.

I don't take my father at face value when he is panicky about my mother. I have flown to California twice on an emergency basis, only to arrive and discover that there was no emergency at all. So, I'm a little slower to book a flight these days. I usually say, "Well, let's see how she does overnight, and I'll decide tomorrow."

It's hard being a long-distance son of 90-somethings. I'm on the emergency call list pretty much everywhere now, but not at that particular ER. I have added my name and number there, now, too. The pros get that my dad doesn't hear well and doesn't always understand medical explanations, so they call me directly and give me the details, which I translate into things my dad understands.

My brother-in-law does that, as well, but my father sometimes doesn't listen to what he says.

He listens to me, though. Anyhow, we sort of have all of this stuff down to a routine. I don't immediately book flights any more. I wait until I understand the situation fully. It can be difficult, though, when my father calls in a panic. He worries so much about my mother - all the time. It's difficult.

You are left behind as a spouse when your beloved has Alzheimer’s, I think people cling to each and every moment with such desperation. It is some the the most uplifting and the most heartbreaking situations I have ever seen.

I’m glad you are taking care of yourself

He's pretty OK, but his reasoning abilities aren't what they were. This is a very difficult time for them, for sure. When I'm out there, it doesn't help that much, really. Frustrating.

I have to take care of my own life, too, which complicates things. I'm still working, and time away is time I can't do that. So, I try to fit trips out there into what schedule I can manage.

To make sure you keep your vitamin D3 levels up, too. That's a factor in Winter-born illnesses, as well. Less sunlight, which is how we synthesize the vitamin.

I am basing that on studies that indicate the correlation and the fact that, generally, people in the US tend to have deficiencies of D3.

If you have a good doctor and are concerned, (especially if you are aging and immunity is important) you can get an easy test for your level of D3.

Otherwise, a quality supplement in the right IU is recommended. Doctors take it, too, in amounts higher than the recommended dosage. I won't recommend the amount to take, that's where people should do their own research.

My arm felt like someone stabbed an ice pick in the joint. Darned thing stayed swollen, itchy and warm to the touch for about 7 days afterwards. Never had a reaction to a shot before. I told hubby now I understand why babies are cranky when they get their vaccines.

Hope you fair much better than I. I am glad though, that I got it and hopefully will dodge the flu.

You probably got injected near a nerve in your arm. That can hurt.

Posted about the need to get a flu shot today and received a somewhat hostile response from one individual

Because, well, reasons that person doesn't get the shot. As if...

My brother-in-law actually got polio as a child in the 50s, but recovered.

I wouldn't dream of missing it.

shot (Shingrix) #1 about 2 weeks ago.

I've had the Hong Kong flu in 1969, and the Swine Flu in the mid 70's and I NEVER want to get influenza ever again. I was 20 the first time and about 26 or 27 the 2nd time and I thought I was going to die! The Shingrix shot made my arm so sore I could hardly move it for the better part of a week! But it beats the hell out of shingles, which I've had 3 times!

I also come by my fear of the flu honestly. My dear grandmother immigrated to the USA at the age of 19 from Northern Ireland in 1910, with her fiance and her 3 maiden aunts as chaperones (all teachers). The aunts settled in Philadelphia, and my grandmother and grandfather traveled to Montana to stay with my great uncle Bill and live in the Western frontier. They married at Deer Camp Montana and settled in Billings where my grandfather was a professional baker for the hotel there.
My grandparents had four beautiful kids in a row, like many Irish Catholic families, with my dad the oldest at 5, and another on the way, when my grandmother caught the flu during the great pandemic. She got sick on a Sunday, and died on Wednesday. That's how it worked. My grandfather was older and never even got sick.

Thank goodness for ANY sort of defense!

My Mom has COPD and was in the ICU for a month last year with the flu. We almost lost her. It was scary as hell and are doing everything we can to make sure it doesn’t happen again.