<p>Are we seriously still debating this? Oy vey. </p>
<p>Vaccines protect your life by preventing disease. </p>
<p>Prevent does NOT mean they’re perfect. </p>
<p>By your logic, Niquii, we should never wear seatbelts because they ain’t perfect.
You’ll excuse me, but I’ll keep using the seatbelt as it saved my dad’s life.</p>
<p>Pfft, that’s not my logic, romani. Tell me when I said people shouldn’t get flu vaccines? I’ll help you out: Never.</p>
<p>Looks like Niquii77 got hit by friendly fire. You guys are on the same side.</p>
<p>One of my young healthy co-workers - 30 years old- has pneumonia. Missed more than a week of work. It was the full blown flu a week ago, and it has progressed into pneumonia.</p>
<p>Refused the flu shot, because she never gets sick. </p>
<p>We had a discussion sbout flu shots just before the holidays and how she thought that was flu shots were a waste of time. I wonder if next year she will change her tune?</p>
<p>SamuraiLandshark, I would be interested to know if she does, too! </p>
<p>My fiance says he will get his next year, but that if he gets sick within two weeks again then he will stop-- idiot, he wasn’t fully immune yet after a week and it wasn’t magic that made him better after only four days. He’s never had the flu before and even though he knows better he still finds it “strange” that he got the flu for the first time the year I made him get the shot. Like it isn’t just as logical that I knew this years flu was really bad and that he had a high chance of getting it, so I made him get the shot, and then I was right and that’s exactly what happened. Maybe don’t wait until January to get your shot next year. His coworker that got sick the same day he did has still not returned to work, he has been sick a week now. He didn’t get a shot.</p>
<p>I am beginning to feel surrounded by sick people. Almost everyone I know is sick. And NOBODY got the shot, so I am worried about all of them! I hope they are smart enough to get someone to take them to the ER if they are having trouble breathing, and to go to the doctor and get tamiflu.</p>
<p>The flu shot is made with a “killed virus.” It cannot replicate. A virus must be able to replicate in order to cause an infection. Therefore, the flu shot cannot cause the flu. It’s physically impossible. </p>
<p>Tell your DF that he is engaging in magical thinking. The fact is that he was exposed to the flu virus before he had a chance to develop immunity. It’s as simple as that.</p>
<p>Ema tell him that if he gets the flu in a no shot year that he’s on his own.</p>
<p>A close friend who’s a pharmacist “never gets the flu shot” and came down with it this year. It turned into pneumonia. She’s been in the hospital - part of the time in the ICU - because of it. </p>
<p>I would never NOT get a flu shot. My husband and boys always do as well. I had the H1N1 strain five years ago and never want to be that sick again.</p>
<p>Lastminutemom196’s LA Times piece (in post 797) also links to this</p>
<p>[Jenny</a> McCarthy, Anti-Vaccination Movement to Blame for Whooping Cough | New Republic](<a href=“Jenny McCarthy, Anti-Vaccination Movement to Blame for Whooping Cough | The New Republic”>Jenny McCarthy, Anti-Vaccination Movement to Blame for Whooping Cough | The New Republic)</p>
<p>And here’s a good Q & A on pertussis (whooping cough).</p>
<p><a href=“http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2012/08/whooping-cough-outbreak-cdc-answers-your-questions.html[/url]”>http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2012/08/whooping-cough-outbreak-cdc-answers-your-questions.html</a></p>
<p>I have a public health degree and have NO respect for that “expert” Jenny McCarthy. Why do people listen to her? <em>sigh</em> But I figured this was the case.</p>
<p>That article about pertussis provides a very good explanation for why I say failure to vaccinate your kids and yourself against dangerous diseases is unpatriotic.</p>
<p>I’ve told him, and he says “he knows,” but part of him doesn’t really believe it. It’s a testament to how sick he really was that he let me take him to the doctor that first day and took his medicine, because he is normally really anti-medicine and would have refused to go. (This is something we had to discuss before getting engaged, because my children and I will be seeing doctors and taking medicine whenever I damn well please!) It’s ignorance. I am hoping once he has some time to think about it he will realize that, because he does seem to KNOW he’s being silly.</p>
<p>There was a big argument on the radio about this this morning with tons of people chiming in to insist that flu shots gave them the flu and that “the benefits don’t outweigh the risks.” If you think that, you have a vastly exaggerated sense of what the risks are and are seriously underestimating the benefits. I don’t know how medical providers don’t get terribly frustrated. I am getting terribly frustrated. After seeing what I have seen this year, I am REALLY worried about the people I know who are sick right now.</p>
<p>My mother has been in the hospital since 12/29 and in the ICU since 12/31. She was on a ventilator for two weeks and is still on 50% oxygen. She had H1N1. She’s only 71.</p>
<p>BT, because people are idiots and our science education in this country is about as backasswards as you can get.
Alternatively, she’s a pretty face on what the nuts already know to be true!</p>
<p>vandygrad, I hope your Mom has a full recovery.</p>
<p>VandyGrad - I hope your mom is on the mend. That’s very scary.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>This falls under a much bigger problem umbrella. It is much easier to pick a ‘hero spokes person’ and follow in lock step than it is try an understand an issue and make a decision for one’s self. Probably these same folks turn to Springsteen and Streisand when making their voting decisions.</p>
<p><em>blink blink</em> You mean I shouldn’t listen to Barbra when it comes to voting?</p>
<p>One thing I use in the office to try to counter the ‘flu shot makes me sick’ argument is to tell them that the shot is made of ‘pieces’ of killed virus. When your immune system sees them, they, like an army, are mobilized to attack. The pieces help them practice. Some of the mobilization and getting ready to fight the whole virus, if it sneaks in, may resemble a ‘real fight’-- and some of those preparatory action may feel like symptoms-- sniffles (because pouring mucus can wash the virus away), fever (because viruses don’t like to be baked), etc. I use this slightly inexact war imagery because it helps families envision the action. It often helps a lot. And I stress that these symptoms are never, never as bad as real influenza. If you have to wonder if you have influenza, you probably don’t have it. If you think maybe being hit by a truck might be preferable to what you have, you probably have influenza. </p>
<p>And yes, it is frustrating.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Because people tend to call almost anything “the flu”, they may think that “the flu” is no big deal, so they do not see why it is worth getting the vaccine for But the real flu is a much more severe illness than what people tend to call “the flu”.</p>
<p>I.e. you are likely correct that people underestimate the benefits of flu vaccine, because they underestimate the severity of the real flu.</p>