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Yes, get the flu shot.

It isn't always effective for the flu variants bandying about every year, its annually designed for predicted strains. Some years they get the prediction spot on, some years not so much. Still get it tho.

Even if the vaccine isn't spot on, it may impart a partial immunity.

So if you get the flu, it'd feel more like a short common cold. As opposed to being curled up in bed for a week (or having to go to an ER for fluid support).

Last year's vaccination match wasn't too great, we were seeing confirmed flu positive folks into August. Confirmed via very sensitive testing.

Now, folks who chose not to get the flu vaccine, then get the flu, then pass on said flu to immunocompromised folks (older/younger/transplant/cancer cohorts)....well if I could simply kick those folks in the junk everyday for the rest of there lives wouldn't be enough payback.
 
Not to beat a dead horse but yes get the shot even if the "guess" is not right.

The folks who are "guessing" are PhD trained virologists and epidemiologists who have access to state of the art sampling tools and years of statistical models to guide them.

These scientists try to predict the 8 - 12 most likely strains that will be in the wild the upcoming year, and formulate the vaccine to handle these.

Say they only get 4 right. You are still protected from those 4 strains so will not get sick or become a carrier passing the strain along to others.

Say a newly mutated strain appears. If it mutated from one of the chosen strains you will have partial immunity and if you catch it the severity and length of illness will be less, and you are less likely to pass that strain on to others.

Even if they totally miss, which rarely if ever happens, you are better protected because you have in a sense "warmed up" your immune system to the possibility of an infection by influenza and it will respond more quickly if an infection does occur.

Look at it this way. We all know that safety glasses won't stop every type of eye injury possible stemming from shooting, but we wear the glasses right? What's the point when we still may suffer an injury? Well the answer goes without saying ... glasses will stop most injuries and there is no real down side to wearing them other than perhaps a bit of discomfort.

A flu shot works much the same way.
 
I liken the immune system to a fired up drunken redneck. Once it's fired up, it's gonna fight someone. Might be the original offender who ticked him off, might be his friend, might be an innocent bystander, but someone's getting swung on. Vaccines are for your immune system what shots are to rednecks. Get the shot. Don't buy rednecks shots.
 
I got the flu shot back in August. I too got the quadruple dose because of my age. I felt fine except my arm was a little sore in the area of the shot, for about a week. No other reaction.

Every year for decades I got sick with the crud (felt mostly like a cold, but also fever, chills, aches, etc. - so probably the flu). It would go from my head down into my chest. The last couple of decades it would get worse, lasting for weeks, then a cough for a month or more - until about 5 years ago I got acute bronchitis, got anti-biotics - did that two years in a row.

So I decided to get flu shots each year. The first couple of years I didn't get even the sniffles. Last year I waited until September to get my shot, but got the crud first, so I had to wait until November. This year I got it in August and I am glad I did. I got the crud two weeks ago today - it progressed thru the weekend, and by Monday I was a lot better. I had a sinus infection for a few more days and then that cleared up. For me, this was about the lightest episode I have had.

Also, over the last year I had two pneumonia vaccine shots, so that if I did get sick, I would stand a smaller chance of winding up in the hospital with pneumonia.

Flu shots are not perfect. Flu mutates and there are many different strains, but they help and IMO are worth it.
 

That's probably the most perfect, sensible report on the subject that I've ever read... Thanx for sharing!!! There are anti-vaxxers in my family and in my circle of friends. I have fought them on FacePhuck for years and really get tired of it... no progress at all on that front as they are like anti-gun people driven by emotion and won't listen to reason. :oops::oops::oops:
 
Yup, I got the extended dose flu vaccine this year, and it made my arm very sore. A few days later I was wondering if I was coming down with something, and then I remembered I had just gotten the flu shot. :rolleyes:

Anyway, I suffer from several chronic disease conditions so besides age there are other reasons why I am immunocompromised. And it really peeves me about all the superstitious junk going around on the interwebs has people choosing not to immunize. They are putting my life at risk. So some people ask why I want to put their children at risk... aren't I being very selfish? Well, no actually. Read the article posted by Hueco, there are ways to head off almost all vaccination risk, and to mitigate anaphalaxis caused by vaccine response.

The Vaccine Injury Compensation Program and VAERS are both bunk!

People need to get real...
 
The folks who are "guessing" are PhD trained virologists and epidemiologists who have access to state of the art sampling tools and years of statistical models to guide them.

Yes, but Jenny McCarthy and Jim Carrey continue to blind us with their brilliant insight on the matter. :s0165:
 
I don't get it because I don't wanna catch the autism.

True Story.

Two years ago I had a health crisis. LifeFlight to Portland kinda deal.

The Hospitalist (the DR in charge of making sure nobody talks to each other) offered me a flu shot during my admission.

I told him, "No thanks. I don't need any more autism.".

He didn't even look up from his paper. He replied, "Yeah, you have enough already.".
 
Might have been fake vaccine from china

Oft-heard words around my place. When all else fails, I blame China. It's a pretty safe move, without knowing anything about an issue, I'm likely to be right at least 50% of the time. They're such a big hand in so many games.
 
From an article earlier this flu season:

This year's flu shot is already outperforming the vaccine issued during the tough 2017-2018 influenza season, federal health officials reported Thursday.

The 2017-2018 flu shot offered just 25 percent effectiveness against the predominant strain of flu that season, H3N2. But this year's shot offers 47 percent protection against all circulating strains, according to researchers at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

In other words, getting the current vaccine could nearly cut in half your odds of acquiring a severe case of the flu.

The news was even better for vaccinated kids.

"For children aged 6 months to 17 years, overall vaccine effectiveness was 61 percent," the CDC team reported.

And even though the last season's vaccine was only 25% effective against the predominant strain, there were the other non-prominate strains where it did work well. So, since I was vaccinated, I may have not been taken ill by the number two strain, or the number three strain, who knows? You can't disprove a negative, but you can take advantage of all possible methods to help you to keep from getting, or spreading the disease.
 
Look up sv 40

SV40 - Wikipedia

Hippie News version

Which one is right? It is a 50/50 sort of thing. Much like something else I can't quite place...

From the Wiki page you cited:

"...Some vaccines made in the USA between 1955 and 1961 were found to be contaminated with SV40, from the growth medium and from the original seed strain. Population level studies show no evidence of any increase in cancer incidence as a result of exposure,[15] though SV40 has been extensively studied.[16] A thirty-five year followup found no excess of the cancers putatively associated with SV40.[17]..."

What is the relation to the Flu vaccine?
 
Two weeks ago got mine and so did my wife.

Anti-vaxxers base their conclusion on spurious to say the least...non-evidence.

So let measles, smallpox, etc. make a comeback because our MD's, heck the entire health care folks all want to kill us...
 

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