The whole flu shot deal is BS.
Same is placebo then. Even 23% is pretty poor.
But.. but.. but my doctor sez that flu shots are very effective?
They can only guess which strains of the flu will spread, over the next year, when they decide what will go in the vaccine.
Sometimes they guess right, sometimes they guess wrong.
But I’d rather the CDC be working on this, than researching gun ownership or trying to convince everyone that we’d be healthier on a low-fat diet.
remember when an issue with the flu vaccine was the fault of the president?
I have contended for years that the flu vaccine is highly ineffective.
1st. The vaccine released every year is targeted at a scientific best guess as to which strain will be most prevalent during the season.
2nd. The vaccine is generally only some 60% effective against a particular strain, less effective against 2 or 3 close variants and has zero effect on other strains.
3rd. There are some 15 strains or variants each season, so mathematicaly the effect of vaccination is reduced from the the current targeted strain and reduced to near zero effect, as a matter of probabilities, against the panoply of flu’s.
I do not get them and view them as pointless.
Take plenty of vitamin D3 and get lots of sleep.
This only tells half the story. Vaccines are also effective at reducing the severity of the flu, if you do catch it anyhow. For most people (no egg allergies, etc.) there’s little downside risk to getting the shot, and considerable upside benefits (even 12% is far better than 0%).
BTW, if you’re counting on “herd immunity” to protect you — your best strategy would be to attempt to convince everyone else in your “herd” to get vaccinated. Campaigning against vaccines for other people is your worst strategy.
BTW 2, you shouldn’t count on “herd immunity” to protect you.
I have receive the flu shot twice and both times caught the flu soon after.
I erroneously thought, and told people, that the flu shot gave me the flu.
A recent report though says that, in some people, the flu shot can temporarily compromise your immune system. So, while the shot didn’t give me the flu, it lowered my resistance and I caught it anyway.
A lot of this becomes clear when you consider how vaccinations are selected at the start.
Throughout the course of the year, estimates are made of any number of flu strains and subtypes, called clades, of which there are thousands. These are compared to the known “immunity estimates” of people.
Say, as a group, people have been in recent years exposed to 30 different subtypes of a strain of H1N1 flu. But in the past year, seven new clades have emerged. Some of them are so closely related to a former strain that they aren’t worth consideration, because as a group, people are immune to them.
But say three of them are far enough away, say second to fifth cousins, so that our immunity doesn’t reach that far. But which of these three are spreading, actually infecting people? Say two of them are.
So these two are candidates for the vaccine, but only in the sub-finals with other candidates from other strains.
Eventually, it boils down to an educated guess, with only three types of flu vaccines to be included in the vaccine.
Most of the time, they guess right. However, this year, they missed the clade that hit. And sometimes, before the flu reaches the US, it mutates again, well out of the range of the vaccine.
Right now, in the US, there might be 50 different strains and clades of flu, with only a few being symptomatic. We live in a very septic world.
I never have gotten the flu vaccine, but have gotten the flu several times ... :-) ...
This year I got it pretty bad and I’m still recovering, about two weeks later.
A young woman in Nashville died the other day from the flu even though she had a flu shot this year.
My wife got the flu shot. This year. Then she got the flu. Took three weeks to knock it back. Spoilt Christmas and New Year’s.
I didn’t get the flu shot this year. I lived in the same house with my flu-soaked wife for the duration. I didn’t get the flu.
Maybe I’m lucky.