Caius
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quote:
ORIGINAL: MrRodgers
quote:
ORIGINAL: angelikaJ
quote:
ORIGINAL: MrRodgers
I wouldn't take any flu shots at all. I don't trust them.
where is the pandemic ? Where are all of the 100's of 1000's if not millions of new patients ? There is none, there was never going to be any because there were never more than a few cases per 100,000 same or less and many viruses and in fact less pandemic than what people have been contracting for decades...and more.
But flu pandemics do happen: 1918 The Spanish Flu killed at least 50 million people. In 1957-58 The Asian Flu killed 2,000,000. 11 years later, 1968-1969 The Hong Kong Flu struck killing one million.
This year, the A/Perth that is included is a varient of the H3N2 strain: The Hong Kong flu.
Yes, they do but they really did spread fast and almost exclusively because of their discovery far too late plus our early ignorance of how it was being spread and our actual inability to come up with a working virus [presume you meant vaccine here], tested, vetted and effective before millions were lost.
So...pandemics of this nature are no longer such a threat because we have proper prevention, therefore we don't need prevention?
quote:
ORIGINAL: MrRodgers
In the most recent cases, there were was no great pandemic going on as the virus wasn't spreading with speed. This allowed a scare to be developed and because there was still no way to have any vaccine truly vetted and tested...we just threw out 'a' vaccine.
Look, I don't know what immunopharmacological experience you're drawing on here in labeling this vaccine -- I presume you are speaking to the 2009 swine flu vaccines, of which there were actually at least four independently developed variants -- as particularly rushed and unvetted, but ultimately it's turned out to have more-than decent efficacy and an occurrence of severe reaction in less than one in every 200, 000 inoculations, which is pretty much as close as you get to a gold standard in any kind of prophylactic medicine. Previous to this, several rounds of trials, including thousands of subjects each, were run over the course of months, without a single severe reaction. In fact, companies were derided by some in the medical research field for dragging their feet in a concerted effort to appear to not be rushing because of the bizarre conspiracy theory culture which surrounds vaccines these days. Though to be fair, they have a history of being scapegoated in this area that goes back to the 70's and on the production side they are handicapped by the fact that they are unable to use some of the newest and more efficient processes available to their European counterparts because a leery U.S. government has not seen fit to approve them for fear of upsetting the status quo in a policy area that used to give the federal government headaches.
The fact of the matter is, vaccines tend to be amongst the safest medications in existence since they are, comparative to a majority of other pharmaceuticals, largely bio-physically inert, at least with regard to adverse reactions. But as for effectiveness, you often just don't know the true viability of a vaccine until a widespread release. But, putting the price tag aside for a moment, it's certainly better to err on the side of caution. Contrary to your stated belief that there is no real threat in such things and that they are mostly manufactured hypes, pandemics can and will happen. It's true that our understanding of epidemiology has come a long way in the last century or so, but ultimately our not having been hit with a world-scarring disease comes down more to dumb luck than anything. Trust me, somewhere out there there already exists a virus which is just a few minor mutations away from being the next Spanish Flu. It's inevitable, and the only question is whether it will kill "only" one half of one percent of the world's population or four percent, a margin determined mostly by how quickly we react to it. Try to remember that while preventative measures exist and are readily available for most anyone participating in this thread right now, much of the world lives in the perpetual shadow of even diseases which have been easily curable/preventable for decades.
On a side-note, your assertion that anyone connected with the production or administering of the swine flue vaccine is immune to liability for negative repercussions is a bit of an exaggeration. There is no such thing as blanket protection of such nature for any such product; if the companies which developed the vaccines were found to have ignored or lied about possible repercussions arising from their use, or to have been negligent in its production, heads would surely role. The immunity you speak of, a policy going back decades itself refers to good-faith applications and even in these cases the rare person harmed by a vaccine is still entitled to compensation -- they simply get it from the federal government rather than the vaccine developer, and even this shift in liability has to be approved on a case-by-case basis and was made necessary in the U.S. because of the mass-litigation witch hunts which drove many vaccine producers straight out of the country, or out of business altogether, in the 80's and 90's.
And lastly, the WHO, that's whose motives you question in this hot mess? Hey, no one can blame you for being suspicious of the motives of a pharmaceutical conglomerate, but really don't you think if the World Health Organization were completely in the pocket of the industry they might...I don't know, not make it their primary mission to stamp out diseases by using preventative measures that have nothing to do with, and in fact drastically reduce the demand for, pharmaceuticals of many different varieties? There's a lot more money to be made in treating a disease than in preventing it, after-all.
Edited to add: Oh, but I did hear the flu shot will totally give your kid autism.
Oh and I suppose I ought to respond to the OP as well, hmm? Angel, despite the determined argument I make against the ant-vaccine culture above, I nonetheless think that if you are relatively young and healthy, with a none-compromised immune system, this particular vaccine is probably superfluous. However, I would of course suggest you adjust your own decision based on how many people you are likely to come into contact with during the average day during flu season and in what context you interact with them as well as what you've observed your own susceptibility to such bugs to be in the past.
< Message edited by Caius -- 10/1/2010 10:11:52 AM >
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RE: Flu Shot -- shall i or shall i not - 
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