Bookmark, Thank you.
I never get flu shots, haven’t had the “flu” since i was young.
I have never had a Flu shot, but for those who do...
Thanks for the ping, Joe.
The article does not give much detail on the vaccine being tested, although it did give the study lead researcher, which helps.
Why they had to include a quote from an anti-vaccine kook is beyond me. There was no reason to include that, and anti-vaccine kookery is responsible for real people dying. So what if the flu vaccine is an “extra” vaccination? The flu vaccines save thousands of lives every year; I’d say the price of a few sore arms is worth it to save thousands of people.
Anyone, of any age can die from the flu. Young children (below age 2) and seniors (above age 65) are the most likely to die because their immune systems are weak. However, even young and healthy people can die; I believe it was last year that the flu death of a 17 year old athletic boy in Maryland was publicized. The flu can kill directly, or it can kill by weakening the immune system so that people get deadly bacterial infections. The 1918 flu was a bit different; since it was a new strain that no one had seen before, young and healthy people’s immune systems went into overdrive and killed them.
I’ve never had the flu, but I do get the shot every year. Well, I don’t have much of a choice about it, being in the military...
Call me doubtful. No matter what they come up with, it is a “static defense” against an ever mutating enemy. And to make matters worse, influenza is particularly good at adaptation.
The chief epidemiologist of Vietnam made a discovery that really surprised everyone. Searching for H5N1 exposure, he found a herd of pigs, each of which had around five different mutations of the virus. These would compete with each other until a winning strain would exist in that pig.
Then, the winning strains of each pig would compete with those of other pigs, until the grand champion strain of influenza dominated in the entire herd.
He postulated that there were herds and flocks all over Asia doing much the same thing, and in the process, acting like an immense supercomputer, to develop significantly improved strains of the virus.
With worldwide tracking, a first, hundreds of unique clades of H5N1 influenza have emerged since it was first discovered. Here is a picture of 12 years (1996-2008) of “detected” clades of H5N1.
http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/images/08-0655-F2.jpg
To make matters much worse, the different types of influenza swap genetic material with each other and other organisms. This swapping is so extensive that the entire genome of at least two ancient viruses has actually been integrated into human DNA. Almost like a fossil record.
DO NOT GET FLU SHOTS.
