SO! Got Flu Shot?

[GoodSpeak]

Thanks to the proverbial "Invisible Hand of the Marketplace" which outsourced it's flu vaccine to England and Canada....you know, the place to buy substandard medicine which President Pinhead opposes....we have more Viagra-like products available then we do lifesaving vaccines.


Now, isn't that interesting.

[Ron Thorne]

No, but I hope to get mine this Friday, if supplies hold. I was planning to get it last Friday, but decided against possibly complicating an already miserable cold. Patti already got hers, and I'm glad she did.

I loved the way the administration trotted out Tommy Thompson yesterday to hold a press conference and look like a late inning batting hero. All of a sudden, Canada's medical supplies aren't looking so funky. What a crock!

[Monte Smith]

I won't be getting a flu shot. I've gotten one twice in my 33 years and have yet to die of the flu or even a cold. Carmen might get one, since she works in a hospital and they usually tend to innoculate health workers and first responders and the like. About our boy, we shall ask the doctor. I don't have any concern, though. I might do if he was in daycare, but he isn't.

As was mentioned on another thread, it's the frigging flu, man. It's not the Black Plague.

[Ron Thorne]

Originally Posted by Monte Smith

As was mentioned on another thread, it's the frigging flu, man. It's not the Black Plague.

A typically flip remark from someone who apparently has neither a compromised immune system, asthma or diabetes, for instance.

Lucky you!

[Monte Smith]

Originally Posted by Ron Thorne

A typically flip remark from someone who apparently has neither a compromised immune system, asthma or diabetes, for instance.

If you have these, then you should get a flu shot. And hope it doesn't give you the flu. If you are healthy, you don't need a flu shot. How long have flu shots been around anyway? Ten years on the outside? And yet the human race somehow muddled thru.

[Dennis Gonzalez]

During the great flu epidemics, uncompromised people died by the millions.

[Monte Smith]

Originally Posted by Dennis Gonzalez

During the great flu epidemics, uncompromised people died by the millions.

Now that is true. What, have there been three pandemics of the flu in recorded time? And let's remember: what you are receiving into your arm is the vaccine to last year's strain of virus. The incompetents at the White House Office of Flu Control haven't even serumed up the current mutation! If there is a new, lethal pandemic of the flu, odds are that your vaccine could be as ineffective as we hope it is effective.

But all that aside, most years you don't see millions of healthy people dying of the flu. It's so rare that you can almost say it never happens. Y'know, God willing and the crick don't rise. And unlike 1918 or other years of influenza dread, this is 2004 and we do have modern medical resources to swiftly care for and contain victims of an epidemic.

Is the flu a problem? Sure. For Ron, for Goody, and for old ladies. But then so also problematic are all the viruses that we don't have names for, let alone vaccines. Where is the White House Office of Knowing What Vaccines We Need on that?

And I'm scared to death of extinction by asteroid. Is anyone working on an asteroid vaccine??

I mean get a grip. Breathe. Breathe, people. In, in, in, in and ooouuuuut.

[Vince Kargatis]

Got mine, as member of a high risk group: parent of newborn. Feel kinda guilty it costs two flu shots to protect one at-risk person, but oh well... way it goes.

[mke]

I'd always heard that flu shots were for old people and at-risks, rather than the general, healthy population. I've never had one.

[Chris D]

As an ashtma sufferer, I'm eligible. I was in for my med check last week, and I could have gotten one. Being relatively healthy otherwise, I passed, figuring it would be better spent on the seniors waiting in a long line in the lobby.

[Gary Sisco]

Many, many, many more people die of the flu every year than in any Wild West shootouts in the here country. Tens of thousands, every year. You don't have to point to the great epidemic.

We'll be getting ours, as Bronwyn's on the high-priority list (flu could easily kill her, as it would almost certainly progress to pneumonia in her case, which would almost certainly kill her) and so am I, as her primary caregiver. I've been getting a flue vaccine every year since '88 and haven't had the flu once, since. I used to get it like clockwork, every year, and be down in bed for four or five days. Can't do that anymore, as I can't take time off anymore. The stuff I do has to be done, period, every day, sick or not. Ain't any "calling in" if you work for yourself. Bronwyn has to be taken care of, and our horses have to be, along with the barn chores. Time off for us means having to pay someone else to do everything 24/7.

Monte -- You might -- I know it's a radical concept -- try remembering that if you get the flu, you will inevitably give it to someone else, who might actually die, whether or not you know it. Flu is communicable *presymptomatically.* In short, you (anyone) can be spreading the disease before you know you have it. In fact, you can be a carrier without ever developing symptoms, so you could be spreading it to someone with a weaker immune system (or none), without ever knowing it.

I used to make people who worked for me at the shelter get the vaccine. If they objected, I told them they had the choice of getting the vaccine or finding another job, because when you have that many people crowded every day in one place, you're working in petrey dish. You're going to get sick. Which means, minimally, that other people are going to have to work your shifts. Which ain't happening. So get the shot or take a walk.

[GoodSpeak]

Monte,

At the risk of sounding maudlin, you are aware, of course, that we teachers come in contact with millions of school aged children on a daily basis. If I were contract the flu, how long do you think it would take before it spread throughout the school then to the entire district then to the community, eh?

Not having the flu vaccine available to people like us who have daily contact with the public is not only dangerous but irresponsible.


But hey...if it keeps a few Demon-crats from being able to make it to the polls in two weeks, what the hell, right?

Originally Posted by Sisco

Many, many, many more people die of the flu every year than in any Wild West shootouts in the here country. Tens of thousands, every year.

Hahaha........

Love those tricky analogies.

More people died from the flu back in the Wild West days than those who die in motorcycle accidents every year.

[Jazzzoline]

Flu vaccines, and many others, are free where I work. But last year, I heard those who had it got the worst flu they ever had during their life.

I prefer to die riding my motorcycle.

[Jazzzoline]

A little word about Canada's medicine...

Québec city is a tourist place. and every year large cruise boats stop and let millions od tourists walk around. Those who profit the most from them are ... the drugstores...
American tourists bring their prescriptions and have their pills for years. They say they are way cheaper here.

Originally Posted by Jazzzoline

Flu vaccines, and many others, are free where I work. But last year, I heard those who had it got the worst flu they ever had during their life.

I prefer to die riding my motorcycle.

Me too.

The Flu shot is a sham, as I already stated in another thread.

Originally Posted by Jazzzoline

A little word about Canada's medicine...

Québec city is a tourist place. and every year large cruise boats stop and let millions od tourists walk around. Those who profit the most from them are ... the drugstores...
American tourists bring their prescriptions and have their pills for years. They say they are way cheaper here.

Yep, and at least 40% of the patients who came to the facility I worked at in Florida to get their cataract surgery done were Canadian.

Why?

Because they didn't want to wait for years and years. Most said they were 4-6 years back on the waiting list.

[bostontricky]

Originally Posted by Monte Smith

And unlike 1918 or other years of influenza dread, this is 2004

Monte, I'm going to cross-post your sentiments on the baseball thread. Go Sox!

[kedoane]

My hubby and I won't be getting flu shots this year, but trying to find one for my mom is another question. She is over 65 and has various health problems. I am hoping and praying that her doctor will have the vaccine on Monday. Otherwise, I hope and pray that I, nor anyone else in my family gets sick.

[graypencil]

I got lucky two weeks ago ..my doctor happened to get a vaccine shipment just before the supply shortage was announced ..

however, as of now there are still a couple places here in Baja British Columbia that have some supplies for the hi riskers, but not much...

Todays paper said that the wait at the Blaine I-5 border crossing was averaging 2.5 /3 hrs ..all old folks and such crossing into a clinic in Surrey BC set up specifically to help Americans get a shot.

Its too bad the poor pharma industry cant make enough of a profit on manufacturring vaccines ..they're too busy advertising and selling silly shit like hard on pills and chlorestorol meds ..

(of course, the appointed pinhead in chief says it's all the lawyers fault as usual ..)


an afterthought: after reading Montes remark about this being 2004 and not 1918 ..reminder to self not to take Montes' astute ( not) medical advice ..

I thought the shortage was due to accidental contamination.


Am I missing something here?

[Ron Thorne]

Originally Posted by Scott Dolan

I thought the shortage was due to accidental contamination.


Am I missing something here?

Possibly the fact that many Americans would have preferred that we not had all of our eggs (sorry) in one offshore basket.

Your apparent disinterest in the flu vaccine pretty much trumps other concerns, however.

In other words, the contamination story is correct?

What the hell are you talking about?

I haven't really looked into this story, but what little I did hear reported that there was a massive contamination.

That's all. Why are you acting like such an asshole? I was just trying to address some of Gray's assertions.

[Ron Thorne]

For the record, I attempted a response, but not in time, obviously.

Timing is everything! That's been my mantra for several years, now.

[Tanager]

It *is* a contamination problem at Chiron's (the US-based company which makes about half our vaccine supply, give or take) manufacturing facility in the UK. The word from various analysts is that Chiron's originally fairly rosy predictions of their speedy return to manufacturing capability will turn out to be wrong, and Chiron themselves are saying as much - they are now hedging their bets as to whether they'll even be back in the game for the 2005-2006 season, for which manufacturing starts in March of 2005. The contamination problems are supposedly tied to a host of QA and process-oriented issues, none of which will be easy to fix, and all of which will involve substantial regulatory involvement.

That doesn't mean "we" didn't screw up by putting this many eggs in one basket - we did, and this, I have to think, goes way beyond Shrub (as in to Clinton and predecessors).

[Gary Sisco]

There was a great letter in the local paper yesterday asking why it is that it might be "dangerous" to import prescription medications from Canada (the drug dealer, er, corporations' party line) but the US will be importing flu vaccines from the UK. "How stupid is that?" More accurately, how stupid do they think we are?

Please note: It's not possible to get the flu from the vaccine, as the vaccine doesn't include live virus but particles sufficient to activate one's immune system to create antibodies. If anyone ever got the flu after the vaccine it was either an entirely different influenza strain than the one covered by the vaccine (no fault of the vaccine if so) or, more likely, a cold -- an entirely different virus and illness, with different symptoms, though they are very often confused. Mostly, though, what you're dealing with here is urban legend.

And, again, if you care at all about the people around you, or the ones they're around after being around you, get the vaccine if you can. If you don't, well ... don't.

[walto]

I had a dr. appt last week and tried to get both a flu shot and an pneumovac shot (I had pneumonia last year around xmas time). They wouldn't give me either. The doc joked that he'd be sent to jail if he gave even a codger like me either one.

[Gary Sisco]

True. VT has issued orders to doctors not to give vaccs to anyone that it isn't on the state's high-priority list -- and the order comes with time and a large fine attached.

I got the pneumovac (and every available vaccine for every known disease that has one) whilst working at the shelter.

[Pete C]

Originally Posted by Gary Sisco

Please note: It's not possible to get the flu from the vaccine, as the vaccine doesn't include live virus but particles sufficient to activate one's immune system to create antibodies. If anyone ever got the flu after the vaccine it was either an entirely different influenza strain than the one covered by the vaccine (no fault of the vaccine if so) or, more likely, a cold -- an entirely different virus and illness, with different symptoms, though they are very often confused. Mostly, though, what you're dealing with here is urban legend.

Absolutely correct. I wouldn't consider the inhalation alternative because it does include live virus.

I've also noticed that some people have this weird belief that it's a sign of weakness to protect yorself against disease.