The Flu Vaccine Cult

[greymalkin]

So at the MAJORHO$PITAL where I work (apologies to rimrunner for stealing her notation style), there's been a full-court press to induce everyone who works there to get the flu vaccine. It's like a freakin' cult, I swear; everywhere you turned, there was someone asking if you'd gotten your shot yet. They actually literally had nurses wandering the halls,

Comments

[rimrunner]

a) of course there's a financial motive, companies exist to make money. But the margin on a $20 flu shot is pretty slim, and if it doesn't sell, it's not like they can just sell it later, because

[greymalkin]

b) influenza mutates really fast. No, I mean really fast. That's why there's a new vaccine each year. It's based on the previous year's strain because it can't be manufactured in time to be effective by the time the new strains start circulating.

Which is my point, exactly. The virus mutates too quickly for any vaccine to keep up, and as all evidence seems to point to the finding that a vaccine providing immunization to one strain or substrain doesn’t necessarily provide immunization to any other strain or substrain (and might, in fact, make you more susceptible; see below), I don’t see what all the urgency is about getting everyone vaccinated. It might as well be a $20 placebo.

Hmmm…

c) no vaccine is 100% effective. None. That's why everybody's so worried about whooping cough; you can get vaccinated and still get sick. More people immunized lowers the odds of the disease spreading. That said, some protection is better than none, and we're overdue for a pandemic.I'm not anti-vaccine; there are some, like polio and smallpox,

[greymalkin]

(Cont.)

At your suggestion, I went and checked out PubMed. I don’t know, maybe you have an advantage - as a librarian, someone used to working with various information-delivery systems - but I find the site not terribly user-friendly, nor, ultimately, very informative. There is a lot of technical jargon which I, despite 25 years’ experience in the medical field and a fair amount of formal education, had difficulty penetrating. Much of it seems to deal with various studies and/or research projects addressing some specific, narrow area of study. At the same time broad, unsupported statements crop up. Case in point:

“Influenza is a common viral infection during pregnancy associated with increased adverse maternal and perinatal outcomes. Pregnant women represent a unique population with increased risk for influenza morbidity and mortality. Annual immunization is an effective strategy for prevention of influenza. Despite the universal recommendations for influenza vaccination during pregnancy, 50% or less of pregnant U.S. women on

[greymalkin]

(Apologies for all of the e-mail notifications you may have received about edited versions of this reply; I was having technical difficulties, and then had to correct a logical flaw I spotted.) My thanks for your patience with my lack of technical skills.

[tzaddi_93]

I've never had a flu shot. I don't remember hearing the constant drumbeat of "GET A FLU SHOT" until I moved from Texas to Seattle. When I moved to Seattle, there was a flu vaccine shortage, so they were asking healthy adults who didn't work in health care settings or prisons to NOT get shots so there would be enough left for more vulnerable populations. So, for several years, I didn't worry about it, even after the shortage was over.

Sometimes I get the flu, sometimes I don't. In general, I am fairly healthy. I've only had one really, really bad flu, and even though I missed a week of work, I never felt sick enough to think I needed to go to the hospital. My winter ailments tend to be either sinus infections or stomach bugs, and the flu shot isn't going to help me with that.

Even though I never bother with a flu shot, I'm not anti-vaccine. I certainly agree with a lot of the points that rimrunner brought up, particularly about vaccines other than the flu.

[greymalkin]

I never meant to suggest that all vaccines are bad. Polio, for instance, and smallpox, are great examples of effective vaccines which have improved human existance.

I'm just a little uncertain as to why a vaccine, the efficacy of which is doubtful at best, is being pushed so hard by the medical community, on an annual basis.

It also disturbs me, more than a little, that the only controls on vaccines seem to rest with the companies producing them - and call me cynical or paranoid (for I am both), but I'm not at all confident that what is best for me and my well-being will always jibe with what is best for those companies' bottom lines.

[tzaddi_93]

I didn't take your post as being anti-vaccine. For some reason, rimrunner's comment struck me as implying that being anti-flushot = being anti-vaccine...which it doesn't, really, now that I re-read it. My comment was more of an anecdotal "anti-flushot =/= anti-vaccine."