Flu shot supply grows, demand withers

Billings Gazette ^ | December 13, 2004 | WILLIAM C. MANN

[Do not dub me shapka broham]

I really need to start reading people's comments before I start replying to them.

Ahh, one of these days...

[backhoe]

Flu Vaccine Crisis- Government Cure, or Government Problem?
various FR links | 10-17-04 | The Heavy Equipment Guy
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1247729/posts

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Thanks backhoe!

Bump!

[backhoe]

( lest it slip my poor old mind later! )
My best to you and those dear to you for the Holidays.

[MikefromOhio]

I just got over the flu out here...nasty nasty stuff.....

[kittymyrib]

The media was only interested in hyping the shortage to hurt Pres. Bush during the campaign. Of course, the Pavlovian geezers bitched and moaned on cue that they were all going to die (idle threats) if they didn't get their shots. My prediction: fewer vaccines will equal less flu will equal fewer flu deaths this year.

[muggs]

Thankfully, my immediate family includes some of the most antisocial people imaginable, so I usually don't run into that problem.

Wonder if we're related?

[Samwise]

The sky is rising!

Oh no! You mean we're all not going to die?!

[Buckeye McFrog]

just like oil prices...the pre-election crisis withers....my, my my.....

[Rubber_Duckie_27]

You're fortunate! I have mild asthma that is illness-induced...a simple upper respiratory infection has had me sounding like a TB patient for nearly 3 weeks now. I finally got antibiotics on Friday and am almost entirely better, thank God. My lungs totally go to hell any time I get sick. I go from carrying a rescue inhaler that I don't need to use, to being on 6X daily nebulizer treatments and oral steroids.

I'm prone to developing asymptomatic "walking" pneumonia from such simple upper respiratory bugs and the one time I had the flu I wound up with serious double-lung pneumonia. I've been informed that if I were to catch influenza again I'd be probably need to be hospitalized. Yet when this flu shot shortage was happening I had to wait for the elderly folks to get their shots...I got mine finally in mid-November and hopefully it'll do its job again this year. I don't get the rationale of a perfectly healthy and fit 60 year old having precedence over me, but at least I got the shot in the end.

[Ditter]

Sigh* You are so mistaken. The flu shots that are made now do *not* make you sick. They are no longer made from a live virus. A slight sore spot where you received the injection is all there is. I would much rather take one for $20. than have the flu and take the chance that it goes into pneumonia, which it sometimes does. I had one last week so I know what I am taking about.

[Ditter]

You got your shot in the end? Gosh, they gave me mine in my arm.

Sorry I couldn't help it. tee hee

[Echo Talon]

How come everytime I got a Flu shot in the past 8-10 days later I got the Flu? The years I refused the Flu shot I never got sick...

[Ditter]

How long ago (in years) did you get the flu after taking your flu shot?

#1 Back when they used a live virus and you got the flu it happened right away not 8-10 days later more lke 24 to 36 hours later.

#2 It takes 2 weeks before you are protected by your shot so you had been infected before your got your shot or before you had antibodies to protect you.

#3 Another thought is there are more flu viruses out there than can be included in the shot. They only protect you from the one or two strains of flu that are most prevalent. You can still catch one or more of the less likely ones.

I also refused flu shots back when they contained live virus but having the flu every year for about 8 years that my kids brought home from school, I relented and haven't had the flu since I started taking the shot.

For those of you who have never had the flu, it is NOT a really bad cold. It is an entirely different animal.

[Steve_Seattle]

"It's because the election is over and the media isn't scaring the hell out of Seniors anymore."

That's exactly it. That whole "crisis" was a media-generated flap intended to influence the election. In previous years, the press has generally been skeptical about flu shots, warning of the dangers, etc. But this year, just before the election, the temporary absence of flu shots was treated as a national crisis and a scandal, sending thousands of people looking for shots who'd never had them before.

[crz]

Like I said. It effects people in different ways.

BTW. This one came back at me today. I left to go to work and stopped to get a can of soda and it hit me while I was talking to the clerk. I left and headed back home and sat on the pot for 3 hours. Never did revert back to wretching though, thank God for that.

[Echo Talon]

I know the FLU is puking, diarrhea at the same time with swollen glands wheezing snot flying and all that...

[Ditter]

No thats not it, not even close. Vomiting and diarrhea is lower intestinal tract, a stomach virus. The flu is influenza upper respiratory tract, congested chest, body aches, fever and then coughing coughing coughing that last for weeks.

[Echo Talon]

I get that along with the rest...

[Ditter]

You poor thing, 2 viruses at once.