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I understand what you are saying about how the vaccine is developed. That is not my issue. What I am saying is that after three years of mandated flu vaccinations to keep my job, there has been NO effort to collect information as to whether we remained flu free. I know coworkers with small children who all got the swine flu even though they were vaccinated. They were sick enough to go to the Pediatrician who confirmed that it was the H1N1. But, if you just tough it out at home for a few days when you first get sick, no one official knows anything about it. (I really am starting to despise those folks who still come to work ill.)

In most cases testing for flu is cost prohibitive contrasted with the benefits of testing. Unless there are complications that require a trip to the doctor’s, the ER or a stay in the hospital or someone is at high risk for developing serious complications or there is a real need to receive an anti-viral medication, it’s better to day at home and treat the symptoms, get plenty of rest and not spread the disease by going out in public while sick. Although it is not a subject without some disagreement.

http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2004/03/01/hlsd0301.htm

In Michigan, the State health dept. no longer collects flu death stats independent of pneumonia, which is the real killer. No one is pushing for the pneumonia vaccine. Why not?

I don’t know anything about the Michigan department of health, but flu monitoring and the monitoring of the efficacy of each year’s flu vaccine isn’t tracked by individual state’s health departments – that’s done by the WHO and the CDC and it isn’t necessary to test each and every suspected case of influenza in order to gather enough statistical meaningful data. As far as flu death’s most influenza deaths are the result of secondary infections like pneumonia so I’m not sure what you are saying here. And it would seem that The Michigan Department of Community Health does track and report cases of flu to the CDC.

http://www.michigan.gov/mdch/0,4612,7-132-2940_2955_22779_40563_48357-191487--,00.html

And as far as the pneumonia vaccine, pneumococcal conjugate vaccine (PCV13) is part of the routine infant immunization schedule and for older kids with certain medical conditions. The other is pneumococcal polysaccharide vaccine (PPV23; Pneumovax) which is only recommended for adults at increased risk for developing pneumococcal pneumonia including the elderly, people who have diabetes, chronic heart, lung, or kidney disease, those with alcoholism, cigarette smokers, and in those people who have had their spleen removed but otherwise healthy adults are better just to get a flu shot.

Any how, the bottomline is that I never got the flu until they started making me get the vaccine. I don’t take care of patients - I work in a small office with a small number of other staff. I agreed to wear the surgical mask, but was denied that option, which in my book is Wrong! Do you agree?

If you got a flu vaccine and “got” the flu, one of several things might have happened; you caught the flu in the first week or so after getting vaccinated before immunity has built up; you caught one of the strains that that year’s vaccine didn’t cover; you caught a common cold and only thought it was the flu; you are one of those people who have a poor immune response or conversely you have a strong immune response which can cause some people to get flu like symptoms after receiving the vaccine, but bottom line is that the flu vaccine did not give you the flu. As far as why your employer makes a flu shot mandatory for someone like you who works in a small office with a small number of other people, you’d need to ask your employer. But while you don’t work directly with patients, I presume you come in contact with those who do, and with visitors and or patients in the elevator, in the cafeteria, etc.

Do you agree that I should have been allowed to wear a mask while at work?

“As far as flu death’s most influenza deaths are the result of secondary infections like pneumonia so I’m not sure what you are saying here.”

I am agreeing with you that pneumonia is the threat, not the flu, for most Americans—the State of Michigan now combines the flu and pneumonia in “cause of death” stats because it is difficult to determine the culprit in too many cases. I have never been told I have to have a pneumonia vaccination. I guess because GSK hasn’t given The Joint Commission money to shill for that one...yet.

“As far as flu death’s most influenza deaths are the result of secondary infections like pneumonia so I’m not sure what you are saying here.”

I am agreeing with you that pneumonia is the threat, not the flu, for most Americans—the State of Michigan now combines the flu and pneumonia in “cause of death” stats because it is difficult to determine the culprit in too many cases. I have never been told I have to have a pneumonia vaccination. I guess because GSK hasn’t given The Joint Commission money to shill for that one...yet.