<p>Niquii, your link doesn’t support your assertion at all. </p>
<p>Is the vaccine 100% effective? No, absolutely not.
Is it very effective? Yes
Can you still get the flu if you have the vaccine? Yes, but most of the time you’re going to end up like my fiance rather than Ema’s or other stories we’ve heard on here- very sick, but at least able to move about and not feel like you want to die. </p>
<p>You mentioned you’re terrified of getting the flu. Get the vaccine! This really, really isn’t complicated. Not even a little.</p>
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<p>It’s unreasonable to blatantly ignore good, proven scientific evidence and indirectly cause deaths because of one’s trust issues.</p>
<p>I’m not sure if your first comments were to me, Romani, but I’m not terrified of getting the flu. I would probably get the vaccine if I was.</p>
<p>Anyway, you’re just not speaking loud enough to convince me. My questions and concerns seemed reasonable enough for you to answer them; that is, since you’ve taken it upon yourself to give a general rebuttal.</p>
<p>Why exactly do you not trust vaccines, rmatrev? I don’t understand the link between anything you said and vaccines being harmful, nor do I know what sources you’re using as the basis of your argument.</p>
<p>I get that some people don’t trust doctors or modern medicine, and that’s fine when your own health is on the line. But vaccination is a public health issue, not just about personal medical choices. There’s no obvious right answer here or it wouldn’t be a discussion at all, but I personally find it hard to really get on board with anti-vaccine arguments (unless, of course, you can’t get the vaccine for a medical reason).</p>
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<p>It does, but it only provides protection for certain strains of the flu. The influenza virus mutates very rapidly–that’s why there’s a new flu vaccine every year–and they basically guess at which strains are going to be the most prevalent for the upcoming flu season. Sometimes, the vaccine matches really well with the circulating strains, and sometimes it doesn’t. The efficacy of the vaccine also depends on the individual person (I believe how high functioning their immune system is). Does that mean the flu vaccine is useless and people shouldn’t get it? No, it doesn’t. But it’s not perfect, which is also why it’s good to practice good general habits like covering your mouth when you cough and washing your hands. Nothing’s perfect, but it all helps.</p>
<p>You’d have to show me some numbers regarding smallpox, baktrax. For example, let’s say the mortality rate of smallpox in a county declines by 50%. In order for this to be a mark in favor of vaccination, what should correspond to the decline is a similar percentage increase in vaccination. This is certainly not the case by any numbers I’ve seen and is even the opposite, but I’d like to see what you can provide. I think it helps to look at less recent history, when the variety of infections were most prevalent and the statistics more obvious.</p>
<p>Here is an example of a town that got rid of smallpox by getting rid of the vaccine, while other towns’ infections were increasing with higher vaccination rates: “During the 50 years (1885-1934) since compulsory infant vaccination was definitely abandoned in Leicester there have only been 53 deaths from smallpox, and in the last 30 years (1905-1934) there have only been two deaths. During the last 50 years the percentage of children vaccinated has been 8.5. During the last 10 years, indeed, the percentage has dropped to 4.6.” Dr. Killick Millard, who apparently originally supported vaccines.</p>
<p>Here’s another interesting quote about smallpox: “Provided no mischief be done either by physician or nurse, [smallpox] is the most safe and slight of all diseases.” -Thomas Sydenham</p>
<p>The reason I don’t trust vaccines is because of the apparent dangers of vaccination. For 200 years doctors have been speaking against vaccines and providing statistics to show rates of vaccination, rates of infection, and mortality rates. Very many doctors have considered vaccines one of the most damaging to public health, and they’ve provided statistics to prove their claim. If you will say vaccines have improved in efficacy, I again ask for the evidence.</p>
<p>There is also the issue of the ingredients and the aborted babies, and that’s enough to unsettle any favor I might have for the vaccination industry, no matter the efficacy.</p>
<p>Having said that, getting flu shots is not about “favor” for the vaccination industry, it’s about doing one’s part to contribute to the greater good of public health.</p>
<p>You keep talking about the “very many doctors” who don’t support vaccination, but I have yet to see your evidence.</p>
<p>Just found out that my housekeeper had/has the flu. She usually comes twice a week but called a week and a half ago to say that her daughter was sick and called a couple of days later to say that she was sick. When I didn’t hear from her on her last scheduled day I suspected flu. Today she showed up coughing and said that she and her daughter each spent three days in the hospital. Her parents are still there. I sent her home for the next week with the promise of pay for today and her next scheduled day.</p>
<p>rmatrev-
The Leicester Method, as it came to be called, involved a heavy use of compulsory quarantine, not only of the infected person, but of everyone with whom the infected person had been in contact.</p>
<p>Smallpox is nothing to fool around with. According to the CDC the general historic death rate for the most common form of smallpox, variola major, is 30 percent, with some subforms, in particular flat and hemorrhagic smallpox “usually fatal”.</p>
<p>One of the problems with getting people to get vaccinated is that most Americans have never seen a case of smallpox, polio or diphtheria. I read a study about vaccination a couple of years ago in which it was found that vaccination was higher in immigrant populations than the general public. As this group was otherwise less likely to use health care services it was an anomaly. The researchers felt it was likely, at least in part, to the fact that many immigrants were coming from countries where infectious diseases still killed large numbers of children, whereas most Americans were more complacent about getting vaccinations because they’d never seen the destruction these diseases wrought.</p>
<p>If you die of a pneumonia which you most certainly wouldn’t have gotten had you not had the flu, you have died from the flu. It’s a complication of the flu, but nevertheless caused by it. Roughly 50 million people died of the Spanish flu. Please show us evidence that people all over the world were overdosing on aspirin in the course of a day, and that it and not influenza complications (the “cytokine storm” referenced earlier) which killed people in proportions rarely seen in modern times.</p>
<p>I read a very interesting book about this influenza virus. The politics which were involved made for very compelling reading, in addition to the great scientific/medical explanations of how a relatively typical initial flu virus mutated to become one of the most horrific pandemics in recent memory.</p>
<p>Before smallpox vaccine was discovered, people feared smallpox enough that when what appeared to be a less virulent strain came around, people would intentionally try to get it in hope of surviving with immunity to the more virulent strains that sometimes came around. This “variolation” procedure of using real smallpox to vaccinate against smallpox was certainly more dangerous than the cowpox-based vaccine or later smallpox vaccines (which themselves are a bit riskier than vaccines for other diseases today), but the danger of more virulant strains of smallpox was great enough that people risked doing it anyway.</p>
<p>The Spanish flu (the 1918-19 pandemic) killed by pneumonia, caused by a cytokine storm in the lungs induced by the virus. When people die from the flu, usually it’s flu-induced pneumonia that carries them off. The aspirin poisoning explanation doesn’t explain the deadliness of the flu in places that didn’t have access to aspirin, like India and Ghana.</p>
<p>Exactly. The death caused by a bacterial pneumonia is a superinfection, a complication of influenza. Therefore, an influenza death. Cholera death is caused by massive dehydration from diarrhea. Death is from dehydration, but do we say that cholera didn’t cause that death? </p>
<p>We don’t have a vaccine for scarlet fever because scarlet fever is a toxin-related form of strep pharyngitis, ie, strep throat. We have antibiotics for strep throat. Few people die of strep throat (or scarlet fever, to be honest. If you’re going to die of streptococcal infections it’s because you developed glomerulonephritis or Rheumatic Fever, not scarlet fever.)</p>
<p>Epidemiologists have refuted the spurious arguments about vaccines ‘not working’. If people want real-time, real-world numbers, just look at the resurgence of pertussis near the pockets of the unvaccinated on the West Coast, or the comeback of measles in Europe (and also seen in Canada) which are felt to be due to lowered vax rates that resulted from Andrew Wakefield’s malpractice in 1998.</p>
<p>rmatrev, post #760:
“The major deadly diseases were declining with the growing availability of clean water and proper sewage disposal.”</p>
<p>Proper sanitation helps prevent disease, it doesn’t eradicate it. My parents grew up during the Great Depression. Sanitation in their community was good, they had “modern” conveniences, and their homes were clean, yet children they knew (who also came from well kept homes) were crippled, scarred, or died from what we now consider typical childhood diseases. Immunizations were fervently wished for and parents were grateful when they became available. I have friends who don’t immunize, and my mother told me if they grew up with the fear and dread that her generation did, they’d have been grateful for the opportunity to vaccinate their children too.</p>
<p>rmatrev, post #760:
“…there is no vaccine to take credit for the decline in scarlet fever.”</p>
<p>Scarlet fever, like rheumatic fever, is a side effect of strep infections that are improperly diagnosed or treated. Treat the initial cause (strep) and you don’t need a vaccine to prevent the complications. </p>
<p>Some of these diseases have lifelong repercussions. Rheumatic fever, for instance, can leave you with heart and kidney issues. Whooping cough scars the lungs. So people who survived those childhood illnesses still died from complications caused by them many years later. And the quality of their lives inbetween was less than it could have been. Still, they considered themselves the fortunate ones.</p>
<p>Matrev hews to the standard anti-vaccine line, which ignores the overwhelming preponderance of scientific evidence. As a retired pediatrician I have heard it all and tried to listen patiently, and I have tried to work with families who ask for alternative immunization schedules. I have also had patients admitted to the ICU with life-threatening chicken pox. I have seen patients die from meningitis and others who have lost limbs. I have seen the incidence of life-threatening epiglottitis decline because of the use of vaccines. I have seen measles, which is not the mild illness claimed by some. I have seen mumps in unvaccinated adolescents and young adults with its attendant worries at that age. I remember the polio epidemic of the 1950s and standing in long lines to receive the vaccine. My wife is a physician who works with Rotary International and its program to eradicate polio: she has seen the victims of polio in India, crippled and forced to walk on all fours. I am grateful that because of vaccines I have not seen my young patients suffer from tetanus and diphtheria.</p>
<p>Serious reactions to vaccines are mercifully very rare, and my heart goes out to those parents who sincerely believe that their children have been damaged by vaccines, but I have no sympathy for the charlatans who prey upon them and encourage unfounded fears among others.</p>
<p>Irishdoctor-- do you remember the wards filled with Hib meningitis kids? I trained at the tail end of those times (I was a student). By the time I finished residency, the new students and interns had never and would never see another case of Hib meningitis. During the first years of my practice, we eradicated Pneumococcal meningitis (though I still had a patient with deafness from it–she was one of the first to get a cochlear implant). Still saw kids dying of meningococcal meningitis and meningococcemia. That should continue to go away with the newer vaccines. How anyone can deny the efficacy of vaccines totally astounds me. </p>
<p>And the story of polio… our grandparents would be so angry if they listened to the vaccine deniers. They remember being terrified every summer for their children. And that we are close to eradication–amazing.</p>