“You got the flu from it?”
Not the day I got the shot, but within the next few months. By the way, if you press any of the liars you meet about this, they will then change their tune and say that the shot may not keep you from getting the flu, but that the flu you get will be ‘milder’ because you had the shot.
I always answer, “the flu I’ve gotten while not taking the shot has been even milder yet - none at all!”
I am absolutely convinced the flu shots are nothing more than a huge profit for the drug companies and have absolutely NO benefit to society.
You’re a “free rider” on the immunization bus. If enough other people get the flu shot, odds are you won’t get the flu. If too few get the flu shot (below a threshold of about 2/3 of the population), the odds of an epidemic jump — and you’re likely to get sick.
Yes, flu shots can cause illness. Too few people treated invite epidemics. Those who get flu shots are “taking one for the team”. Those who don’t are free riders. A lot more deaths result from regular epidemics (to say nothing about pandemics), than from regular flu shots. Those are just the facts — now, what’s the right thing to do?
Not the day I got the shot, but within the next few months. By the way, if you press any of the liars you meet about this, they will then change their tune and say that the shot may not keep you from getting the flu, but that the flu you get will be ‘milder’ because you had the shot.
I always answer, “the flu I’ve gotten while not taking the shot has been even milder yet - none at all!”
I am absolutely convinced the flu shots are nothing more than a huge profit for the drug companies and have absolutely NO benefit to society.
No one is lying, nor is anyone "changing their tune" about the flu. The reality is that flu is an extremely complicated disease, and scientists are doing their best to try to combat it.
The major problem is that there are many different flu viruses, and the flu shot only protects against three of them. Newer flu shots protect against four. Furthermore, flu viruses are always mutating. Since it takes 6 months to make flu vaccine, the public health officials are forced to make educated guesses about which flus will be epidemic in the upcoming flu season. The vaccines are then manufactured to protect against those predicted flus. People in public health don't have crystal balls, so if a new flu pops up, the current vaccine can't protect against it.
It takes about 2 weeks for a vaccine to "kick in". So it is very possible to get the vaccine and come down with the flu a few days later. That doesn't mean the vaccine didn't work, or that it caused the flu: it means you were exposed before the vaccine had a chance to work.
If you get the flu after the vaccine has had a chance to "kick in", then the flu was not one of the three (or four) flus the vaccine was meant to protect you against. In that case, the flu may be much milder than it would have been without the vaccine. That's because of something called "cross-protection." If the flu virus you got was similar to the one in the vaccine, your immune system might still recognize it, just not very well. (Kind of like using a 6 mm wrench on a 4 mm bolt; it works, but not very well.) So instead of being bedridden for days, and maybe dying, you just feel bad for a few days while your immune system "fine-tunes" its response against the virus you actually got sick with.
This year's flu vaccine is made to protect against H1N1 pandemic flu, H3N2 seasonal, and flu B Yamagata. If you are exposed to any of those, you will not get sick, or your illness will be very mild. But if you are vaccinated and go to the fair and get exposed to pig flu H3N2v, you will get sick because the vaccine doesn't contain pig flu H3N2v.
Flu kills between 3,000 and 49,000 Americans every year, and over 200,000 are hospitalized. It is a HUGE health problem. In terms of "profits", those illnesses and deaths cost far more than the vaccines.
I know this is kind of long, but you raised issues that simply must be addressed. Please feel free to ask for clarifications or more information; I am a public health professional, it's my job to know this.
I’m with you - have eschewed the flu shots most of my life and always get sicker during the seasons I got the shot. Huge profit making scheme with little efficacy.