flu shots

[snugglekitty]

A quick note- Cambridge and Somerville are offering free flu shots to residents this week and next week. There's more information on the city websites. If you are a person who should have a flu shot, consider using the service. The Cambridge page gives us some guidelines for who should get them.

Comments

[hugh-mannity.livejournal.com]

Nobody should get flu shots. At best they're useless, at worst they're actually dangerous. There was an article about it in the UK Times a few days ago (which I'm afraid I can't find right now).

I won't touch them.

[lady-anemone.livejournal.com]

Source, please?

[tisana.livejournal.com]

I don't believe that. I've had a flu shot every year for the last 10 or so, and the one I wasn't able to get one--due to the shortage a couple years ago--was the year I got the flu so bad I fainted on the bus attempting to get to work.

That, however, is anecdotal, and not terribly scientific, I'll grant.

A little more scientific is the fact I work at the Harvard School of Public Health--probably the most reliable source of advice on things of this matter--and they advocate getting a flu shot, and host flu shot clinics for their staff. I asked the author of Overkill: Repairing the Damage Caused by Our Unhealthy Obsession with Germs, Antibiotics, and Antibacterial Products whether flu vaccines fit into the same kind of irresponsible use of medicine, and she said no. (The possibility that we are breeding stronger virii being one possible argument.)

It is possible that they'll get the strain wrong and it won't help, but that's as dangerous as they usually get, unless you count feeling like you have a mild cold for a couple days. Therefore it is more accurate to say that at worst, they make you feel sluggish for a day or two, at best, prevent certain high-risk groups of dying from a completely preventable illness.

So while I understand if you yourself don't get them, I don't understand why you'd advocate others shouldn't as well...at least not without serious research backing it up.

[hugh-mannity.livejournal.com]

The TimesOnline article seems to have disappeared and the other site I would have linked to www.knowledgeofhealth.com, is down with an unhelpful "Service Unavailable" notice.

Just as a point of curiosity on my part, how much money does your employer get from (a) the Federal Government and (b) pharmaceutical companies? I suspect it's a significant amount and that might well affect what they look at and how they look at it.

[tisana.livejournal.com]

True, this is a good thing to check when looking at a study or any kind of research. My university doesn't take money from pharmaceuticals as far as I know, but does take money from government groups. This does not, however, mean that it's politically biased and the study results are up to the highest bidder--the main groups that fund research grants are CDC and NIH--rather respected organizations in health.

[hugh-mannity.livejournal.com]

They may be respected, but they are not entirely uncompromised. Don't have time to look up the research right now, but both organizations get pharmaceutical funding (either directly or indirectly by listening to consultants who are paid by the pharmaceutical companies). I have more issues with the NIH than with the CDC at the moment...

[hugh-mannity.livejournal.com]

A bit more searching found some similar stuff, not what I was originally looking for though. From NVIC (http://nvic.org/Default.htm) a paper entitled:

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A bit more searching found some similar stuff, not what I was originally looking for though. From <a href="http://nvic.org/Default.htm">NVIC</a> a paper entitled: <a href="http://nvic.org/History/Newsletters/%203770Reaction.pdf>Flu Vaccine: Missing the Mark</a>

<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/10/22/AR2005102200042.html>Washington Post Article</a> on flu risks.

My feeling is that there's no point in vaccinating oneself against a disease that one is unlikely to get in the first place, will develop better immunity against if unvaccinated, and carries something like a 0.01% death risk. Especially when the vaccine contains crap like mercury which is a known neurotoxin.