• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Flu Shots

ChaoticLimbs said:
I take medical advice from my doctor, not anonymous internet-people.
He went to school for that.
Click to expand...
So what is your point? That the medical providers in this forum somehow can't make a simple statement about the risks vs benefit of flu vaccinations?

I'd be careful if I were you about putting so much faith in your personal physician. I teach my patients that they should consider health care more of a buyer beware situation. The more you know about your medical care, the better you can determine together with your provider what the best course of care should be.
 
No, Jerome, unless you want evolution divorced from all technology. Are cars making us poorly adapted creatures? What about horses? Shoes? Houses? ........
 
No. It prevents healthy people from dying as well, it keeps young children out of the hospital, and some of those elderly people you speak of have plenty more to contribute to the world if they stick around longer.

And, you asked about evolution. Since the elderly are past reproduction, evolution is not going to be affected anyway.
 
skeptigirl said:
No. It prevents healthy people from dying as well, it keeps young children out of the hospital, and some of those elderly people you speak of have plenty more to contribute to the world if they stick around longer.
Click to expand...

But mostly the sickly succumb. I found this: Flu-Related Deaths Up Sharply

To the original point:
Despite the advent of a vaccine four decades ago, flu-related deaths in the United States have risen dramatically since the 1970s...
Click to expand...

Flu deaths have increased since the advent of the vaccine?
Maybe the distributors also believe that the vaccine mucks with evolution?



And, you asked about evolution. Since the elderly are past reproduction, evolution is not going to be affected anyway.
Click to expand...

No, we have drugs that allow for the elderly to procreate. This goes to the same question. Should we use drugs to allow the elderly to have children? Is this stifling evolution?
 
JEROME DA GNOME said:
But mostly the sickly succumb. I found this: Flu-Related Deaths Up Sharply

To the original point:

Flu deaths have increased since the advent of the vaccine?
Maybe the distributors also believe that the vaccine mucks with evolution?
Click to expand...

I do not understand your point. The article you quoted explains it all.
The rising death toll is attributed largely to the nation's growing number of elderly people, who are especially vulnerable to the flu.

Only about 65 percent of older people get vaccinated, and the annual shots do not protect aging immune systems as well as they do younger ones.
Click to expand...
In other words the death toll would have been even higher if the vaccine did not exist.
 
JEROME DA GNOME said:
Are vaccines stifling the progress of evolution?
Click to expand...
Would that be a bad thing?

But to answer your question - no. All it does is change the selective pressures, just like any other change to the environment.

A flu vacine means the those who put their resources in to things other than preventing themselves from getting the flu, and fighting it when they've got it, are more likely to survive. Say there were a mutation that caused it's bearers to be more likely to be able to run fast, but also to have a slightly greater susceptibility to the flu. The vacine would remove a selective pressure against this mutation, and it might begin to spread through the population. Is that stifling evolution?

Such an idea isn't all that far fetched. Sickle-cell anemia and it's relationship to maleria is a good example of exactly what I'm talking about.
 
JEROME DA GNOME said:
No, we have drugs that allow for the elderly to procreate. This goes to the same question. Should we use drugs to allow the elderly to have children? Is this stifling evolution?
Click to expand...
Wrong. In the case of women, no amount of "drugs" will let them pass on their genes once they are past the menopause; post-menopausal mothers have no eggs of their own and have to use donor eggs, which are invariably from healthy young women. Men can produce sperm and pass on their genes at any age; the only drug they are likely to need is Vl@gr@.
 
JEROME DA GNOME said:
No, we have drugs that allow for the elderly to procreate. This goes to the same question. Should we use drugs to allow the elderly to have children? Is this stifling evolution?
Click to expand...
If we are making it easier for the elderly to procreate what sort of evolutionary outcomes would you expect to occur?
The only ones I would expect would be positive:
By making it possible for the elderly to procreate we change the selective landscape, and health in old age would be selected for. If people can reproduce longer, dying at sixty, rather than seventy, is suddenly selected against.
So, if anything, I would expect the outcome (long term obviously) of this to be evolution toward longer lifespans.

Again, how is that bad, exactly?
 
Women past menopause can still influence evolution if you take into consideration the Grandmother Hypothesis. The additional care provided by a grandmother could increase the chance of survival of her grandchildren and therefore the genes that they share.

Linda
 
A money making scheme? It's primarily the government pushing flu shots. There's no money in it for them. Very little, if any, money in it for doctors and nurses who dispense it, and they're the other folks telling people to get them. If there was money in it for the manufacturers, there would be advertisement. I've never seen a commercial advertisement pushing flu shots.
 
Michael Redman said:
A money making scheme? It's primarily the government pushing flu shots. There's no money in it for them. Very little, if any, money in it for doctors and nurses who dispense it, and they're the other folks telling people to get them. If there was money in it for the manufacturers, there would be advertisement. I've never seen a commercial advertisement pushing flu shots.
Click to expand...

Then it is obviously a scheme by the government to control your brain and make you blind to the great conspiracies they are leading while making you hate communists. :P

I'm getting mine monday... I don't like shots :boxedin: But I hate flus even more!
 
It's being pushed because the same manufacturing facilities used to make the seasonal vaccines can be quickly converted to make birdflu vaccines in the event of a pandemic.
So a while back the WHO decided that the best way to save the world from birdflu would be to increase seasonal vaccine uptake by 75% in the developed world.
If people don't buy the seasonal flushots every year, then the manufacturers will withdraw from the market, close the plants, etc. and then we'll be up the proverbial creek without a paddle when we really need a gazillion doses of, say, an H5N1 vaccine.

Hence the CDC's ever-expanding recommendations which appear (and are, I'd argue..hi, skeptigirl. :)) rather bizarre on the surface, and strange things like this:
http://www.local6.com/spotlight/14350182/detail.html

Strip Club Offers Free Flu Shots
Click to expand...

CASSELBERRY, Fla. -- An adult nightclub in Casselberry is offering free flu shots to Central Floridians.

Rachel's Gentlemen's Club launched a free flu shot service at the business located on Semoran Boulevard in Casselberry.
Click to expand...
 
Last edited:
rjh01 said:
I do not understand your point. The article you quoted explains it all.

In other words the death toll would have been even higher if the vaccine did not exist.
Click to expand...

The article stated; according to the CDC, that flu deaths have increased fourfold since the introduction of the vaccine.

Fourfold is 4 times as many.
 
Michael Redman said:
A money making scheme? It's primarily the government pushing flu shots. There's no money in it for them. Very little, if any, money in it for doctors and nurses who dispense it, and they're the other folks telling people to get them. If there was money in it for the manufacturers, there would be advertisement. I've never seen a commercial advertisement pushing flu shots.
Click to expand...

The governmnet advertises for the manufactures.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom