[Squantos]

Lot to be said for hand washing and some stuff I find works pretty well in preventive medicine per se is ......airborne....from airbornehealth.com....great stuff and available over the counter at local drugstores also.

It's basicly a herbal and vitamin version of alka-seltzer that taken before and after work keeps the flu at bay....cough...wheeeze ...snif snif .........:o)

Stay safe Muttly !

[Mamzelle]

The best thing you can do is carry around that alcohol stuff for the hands, use it, wash hands frequently and avoid sitting around a hospital ER waiting room.

As for the efficacy of flu shots, the best way to study is to look at rates of infection and morbidity of hospital personnel, who are generally either required or strongly encouraged to get the shot. Sometimes people get the shot too late, come down with the flu and blame the shot. Sometimes the shot merely ameliorates the infection (you don't get as bad a case). Sometimes we don't know--but vulnerable people, particularly elderly, would probably be advised to stay vaccinated.

[Barnacle]

Lot to be said for hand washing

Indeed. So much of disease is spread through hand to mouth or hand to eye contact. Now that we live in a fast food world, think about how few people wash their hands before eating lunch.

I heard about the results of multiple studies showing that the Purell is more effective than hand washing in health care settings.

http://www.purell.com/consumer.htm