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icarusAnd this would be why I don't get a flu shot:
Resistance to flu drug widespread in US: study
Viruses are highly adaptive. We've overused antibiotics. Many antibiotics are now ineffective. Now three flu drugs are ineffective: rimantadine and amantadine and Tamiflu. It's obvious to me that we've overused flu vaccines. Those should be for small children, the sick, and the elderly. Not pushed by companies that don't want to pay for sick days.
In other news: looking at a mountain of work for school.
Starting. That's the hard part. Starting.
ETA: Folks keep thinking that I'm mixing up vaccines with the drugs used to treat influenza. No. I'm not.
Doctors will still say get the flu vaccine, the same way they used to prescribe antibiotics like candy.
I was leery back in the 80s when everyone was prescribed an antibiotic for everything.
I evaded the antibiotics then. I'm not a bit surprised to find they were overused to the point of uselessness. People argued with me then, too.
Now I'm not buying it on the flu vaccines.
This is just one person's anecdotal observation, but I've noticed the flu season has been getting worse and worse. That spike began in the mid-to-late 90s when flu vaccines started being used to inoculate everyone who'd take it, and not just the vulnerable. (Actually, the spike started when flu vaccine makers began marketing to businesses that they'd have less loss of productivity if they got their employees to take it.)
Mark my words. In three to five years we'll start seeing studies that show an increase in the severity and number of flu viruses. In ten, we'll see a link between overuse of flu vaccines and the sheer variety and severity of flus.
Flu vaccines just aren't the same as your typical mumps, rubella, etc. vaccine. Viruses mutate. That constant mutation is why the flu vaccine has to be different each year, and why it only includes an immunization for the top seven or eight viruses the CDC guesses will be the "bad ones" for the season.
Resistance to flu drug widespread in US: study
Viruses are highly adaptive. We've overused antibiotics. Many antibiotics are now ineffective. Now three flu drugs are ineffective: rimantadine and amantadine and Tamiflu. It's obvious to me that we've overused flu vaccines. Those should be for small children, the sick, and the elderly. Not pushed by companies that don't want to pay for sick days.
In other news: looking at a mountain of work for school.
Starting. That's the hard part. Starting.
ETA: Folks keep thinking that I'm mixing up vaccines with the drugs used to treat influenza. No. I'm not.
Doctors will still say get the flu vaccine, the same way they used to prescribe antibiotics like candy.
I was leery back in the 80s when everyone was prescribed an antibiotic for everything.
I evaded the antibiotics then. I'm not a bit surprised to find they were overused to the point of uselessness. People argued with me then, too.
Now I'm not buying it on the flu vaccines.
This is just one person's anecdotal observation, but I've noticed the flu season has been getting worse and worse. That spike began in the mid-to-late 90s when flu vaccines started being used to inoculate everyone who'd take it, and not just the vulnerable. (Actually, the spike started when flu vaccine makers began marketing to businesses that they'd have less loss of productivity if they got their employees to take it.)
Mark my words. In three to five years we'll start seeing studies that show an increase in the severity and number of flu viruses. In ten, we'll see a link between overuse of flu vaccines and the sheer variety and severity of flus.
Flu vaccines just aren't the same as your typical mumps, rubella, etc. vaccine. Viruses mutate. That constant mutation is why the flu vaccine has to be different each year, and why it only includes an immunization for the top seven or eight viruses the CDC guesses will be the "bad ones" for the season.
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no subject
Date: 2009-03-04 01:02 am (UTC)Here there's been a big marketing push to employers, who then pressure their employees to get the flu shot. This has built up peer pressure to get the flu shot. Now when you get sick, people will ask, "Did you get the flu shot?" If you didn't, then getting sick is your own darned fault. *shakes head*
What I've learned here from a microbiologist and someone's immunologist is:
1) You sacrifice your long-term health for your short-term health by taking the flu shot, because the antibodies from the flu shot are temporary, while the antibodies from getting sick and recovering are permanent.
2) Only those in serious danger from the flu should get the shot.
3) You should only get the kind of vaccines that you take through the nose. It's the point of entry for viruses and they are far better.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-04 03:31 am (UTC)*snort* Flu-like symptoms. Someone gets the genius award.
Makes sense, it would after all be why suffering from small pox and surviving makes you perfectly immune. The risk of course being the non survival, but as the regular flu will not kill an averagely healthy person, then trust in your own immune response. Anyway, its the secondaries that will get you :P
Yeh, of course. Those who are weak and in a position to be exposed to multiple viruses should get it. Anyone else, well the big SARS flus .. you are just plain screwed.
Staying away from people, birds and what not also helps. :P As it is I won't get the vaccine until I need it and am aged, if I can survive 1,000s of students everyday thus far, I figure I can continue onwards.
no subject
Date: 2009-03-04 04:23 am (UTC)Sneaky, isn't it? It's right up there with "side effects."