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Flu Shots

UnrepentantSinner said:
...- getting the vaccine is an overprecaution unless we have a killer strain. Since I'm only 39 I've chosen to forgo the vaccine and will do so for the next year or couple. ...
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I had a discussion about this risk perception issue today. The person was choosing not to get a flu shot because he didn't perceive himself at risk of flu. His particular rationale was he didn't feel he knew enough about the safety of the vaccine.

I was trying to point out he was comparing the vaccine risk vs 'nothing' because he wasn't considering the flu risk in his thought process.

So what was my point? Simple. You have this belief about the risk of flu that you have very likely never really looked in to. What have you done to evaluate if you are at risk from influenza? Have you read studies? Looked at the epidemiology in 39 yr olds? Anything?

Not likely. Yet that was supposedly OK and reliable, while in this guy's case he felt he needed to actually look at the research on the vaccine, couldn't trust any health care provider (not just me) to give their opinion on the vaccine, and he didn't think the disease risk warranted looking into the vaccine.

So how is it you know what your risk is of getting influenza in any given year and how is it you know you cannot suffer from any serious complications from flu? Have you ever actually looked at the data?
 
Capsid said:
I don't think you can be absolutely certain that you had the flu unless you had a test to confirm this at the time. There are many, many viruses that would give you flu like symptoms. If you were laid up in bed for about a week then that could have been flu.
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You can make a reasonable assumption if:

Influenza is in the area
You have fever >101F (37C)
Sudden onset
Muscle aches and headache
No appetite
And severe coughing
Bronchitis is also more typical since the virus often infects the cilia in the trachea
 
MosheJW said:
I remember reading once that repeated use of antibiotics makes your immune system "lazy" and less capable of dealing with pathogens on it's own (and then when you get something, it hits you much harder...)
I really don't know much about how the immune system works, but I would think that the same problem would happen with vaccines (also against viruses).
Is this true?
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This is a common misunderstanding of antibiotic resistance.

The actual resistance develops in the microbes, not in the host.
 
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Acleron said:
The infection by flu virus at present occurs in those people who do not recognise the antigens
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Indeed. Young children, for example; who, having less extensive immunological histories, would be expected to exhibit poorer antigen recognition, and would therefore be expected to get sick more easily, get sicker, and stay sick longer -- which is exactly what the data indicate. Clinical attack rates and case fatality rates are both much higher in young children than in other age groups, and they typically shed virus for a longer period of time. Same strains of virus, poorer antigen recognition, more severe illness.

the virulence must be the deciding factor.
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It's not that simple.
 
Dymanic said:
Indeed. Young children, for example; who, having less extensive immunological histories, would be expected to exhibit poorer antigen recognition, and would therefore be expected to get sick more easily, get sicker, and stay sick longer -- which is exactly what the data indicate. Clinical attack rates and case fatality rates are both much higher in young children than in other age groups, and they typically shed virus for a longer period of time. Same strains of virus, poorer antigen recognition, more severe illness.

[Re virulence is the difference] It's not that simple.
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It's not just virulence, neither is it simple immunological history.

Virulence, exposure dose, route of entry (eg inhaled vs skin contact), and a number of host factors such as but not limited to previous antigen exposure can make a difference in disease severity.

Age alone matters for many infectious organisms. For example in the H5N1 bird flu and in SARS, a cytokine storm is suspected as the reason young healthy patients suffered respiratory failure while some elderly patients did not. Measles, mumps and chicken pox all affect the very young and adults more severely on average than they affect children from about 2 yrs to their early teens**. I'm not aware if this has been explained yet, perhaps someone else knows the pathophysiology making the difference. Hepatitis A is often asymptomatic in kids under age 12 or so. And for that matter, hepatitis B and C are harmless in some patients and at least in the case of hepatitis C, those infected at younger ages are more likely to clear the virus and remain unaffected by it.

** And just to head off the repeated arguments we should let some kids get those infections naturally, the rate of secondary, sometimes fatal skin infection in kids with chicken pox is greater than in adults (probably owing to the fact kids scratch with dirty hands), one cannot assure kids will get mumps in childhood if left up to nature, leaving them vulnerable to severe disease as adults, and with all three, infection before age 2 is riskier and even if complications occur at a lower rate, deaths and severe disease still occur at all ages.
 
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skeptigirl said:
** And just to head off the repeated arguments we should let some kids get those infections naturally, the rate of secondary, sometimes fatal skin infection in kids with chicken pox is greater than in adults (probably owing to the fact kids scratch with dirty hands), one cannot assure kids will get mumps in childhood if left up to nature, leaving them vulnerable to severe disease as adults, and with all three, infection before age 2 is riskier and even if complications occur at a lower rate, deaths and severe disease still occur at all ages.
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Nice work skeptigirl, technically correct and all the right wishy-washy terms:

"sometimes-fatal skin infection"

"severe disease as adults"

"before age 2 is riskier"

"deaths and severe disease still occur at all ages"

Is there a recommended minimum number of times to use the word "death" (or its synonyms) when talking to parents about vaccination?

Do similar tactics usually work to persuade healthy 5-49 year-olds to pay to have flu shots they don't need?
 
Ivor the Engineer said:
Nice work skeptigirl, technically correct and all the right wishy-washy terms:

"sometimes-fatal skin infection"

"severe disease as adults"

"before age 2 is riskier"

"deaths and severe disease still occur at all ages"

Is there a recommended minimum number of times to use the word "death" (or its synonyms) when talking to parents about vaccination?

Do similar tactics usually work to persuade healthy 5-49 year-olds to pay to have flu shots they don't need?
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Care to paraphrase my statements with your alternative language substitutions so we can judge which is more accurate?
 
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Ivor the Engineer said:
I would have thought in the case of seatbelts, physics and demonstrations using eggs and dummies would have been quite sufficient.
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Would you have thought that the "tactics" used to persuade people of the importance of wearing seatbelts did not include mentioning the numbers of fatalities that might have been prevented?
 
Dymanic said:
Would you have thought that the "tactics" used to persuade people of the importance of wearing seatbelts did not include mentioning the numbers of fatalities that might have been prevented?
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Almost certainly not. Big numbers when it comes to fatalities are good at scaring people, especially when they are not put into proportion or context.
 
Physiotherapist said:
I still don't see the point in getting a flu jab if I have never had flu. I really don't see any reason to start now, especially as they don't give you full protection against all strains out there. What is the point. To my mind it is a waste of money and time.
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Spending two days moaning on the couch might convince you otherwise...

Physiotherapist said:
...I have had quite a few colds over the years, that have not really stopped me doing anything, but not flu. I do know the difference...
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So, that super-duper immune system is doing its job, huh? If you can get one, you can get the other.
 
The better your diet is at providing everything that you need from it and with regular exercise, the more efficiently your body will function and this includes the immune system.

The evidence speaks for itself in that I have not had flu since childhood - as stated before some 25 to 30 years ago.
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I have never had the flu myself that I am aware of.

Unlike yourself, I have a crappy diet (full of processed sugary foods), only recently began exercising in any real way. I'm anaemic as well, but I rarely get anything more then a cough in the winter. Every once in a while I will get stuffy nose.

By your standard, I should have been dropping sick a lot more then I ever did and now that I have started working-out, I shall be invincible!

Honestly, its because of attitudes like that to the flu shot that after I got mine I had to come into work with a killer headache. If I had called in sick, half the office would blame it on the flu vax.

To recap: I've never had the flu and iI got my flu vax to help keep that so.
 
I have a very active life. I do a lot of exercise and a good diet and yet I've had flu 2 times in the past three years. BAD ones. You know, the type where you puke your stomach out? Yea. Not fun.

So this year I had my flu shot. And as you can see, I'm just fine! I had a sore arm for 2 hours or so and that's it. Maybe a little weird feeling a few hours afterwards too but by the morning I was perfectly new.

Flu shots are the way to go!
 
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Actually, I think one of the major factors is the probability of exposure. If you work in a closed environment with lots of other colleagues then the chance of you catching a new infection which your immune system has not seen before is greatly increased. This is also why schools are such efficient breeding grounds for viruses/bacteria. Lots of uneducated immune systems waiting to be deluged with thousands of new antigens; exposure is inevitable.
 
My son has a fever and is throwing up today :( I didn't have the money to get the kids any flu shots this year.

Nobody else is sick yet. I'll find out how well this flu shot works soon though, I'm sure. I need to be in good shape for a new job, argh. Silly germy kids, lol.

I was feeling well enough for a work-out yesterday myself (finally beating this sinus infection).
 
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Capsid said:
Actually, I think one of the major factors is the probability of exposure. If you work in a closed environment with lots of other colleagues then the chance of you catching a new infection which your immune system has not seen before is greatly increased. This is also why schools are such efficient breeding grounds for viruses/bacteria. Lots of uneducated immune systems waiting to be deluged with thousands of new antigens; exposure is inevitable.
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Oh absolutely. I mean, when I went to college I would desinfect my keyboard before using a computer. That way, everyone in the class had the flu but I did not

Computer lab keyboards are like the #1 flu source.
 
Ivor the Engineer said:
Almost certainly not. Big numbers when it comes to fatalities are good at scaring people, especially when they are not put into proportion or context.
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Is this like telling people it is more hazardous driving their kids around than getting them vaccinated?
 
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