Does the flu shot really work?

[MaryG12]

Some of the people in my office have had the flu recently - for one person, it also included pneumonia. I heard there is a different strain of the flu going around for which the present vaccine is ineffective.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/flu-va...ffective-for-the-h3n2-strain-researchers-say/

I've never had the flu myself, no vaccine either.

In the event flu does happen, I'm a staunch advocate of natural home remedies of the food variety.

 

[LadyL]

lots of flu-related deaths around here lately
I'm glad I have my flu shot

https://www.ctvnews.ca/health/flu-u...ths-15-500-cases-so-far-this-season-1.3757919

 

[DAnthrplgst]

Yes, the flu shot works. Up until I was about 22 I didn't get the shot and I got the flu every year like clockwork. I finally got the flu shot and guess what, no flu that year...WOOHOO!!! I've gotten the shot every year for the most part ever since (I'm 44 now). Now, in an interesting twist, in the years I failed to get the shot I still didn't get the flu.

I'd like to answer a challenge that was leveled a few comments back. Someone demanded peer-reviewed "proof" that vaccines are safe and effective. The proof is right in front of your face, it's all around you in the faces of the billions of people who have received vaccines since the days of Edward Jenner and his cowpox vaccine. Millions upon millions of people have gotten various vaccines and have never gotten sick from them and they haven't contracted the horrendous diseases those vaccines are designed to prevent. Those same millions of people have gone on to live long, productive lives with no side-effects from the vaccines they have received. You call the vaccines "poison", please provide peer-reviewed proof that vaccines contain "poison"? You are entitled to your opinion and what you choose for yourself and your child but as a very wise person once said "I'd rather have an autistic child then a dead child. I can't hug a casket."

 

[Trident]

Some of the people in my office have had the flu recently - for one person, it also included pneumonia. I heard there is a different strain of the flu going around for which the present vaccine is ineffective.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/flu-va...ffective-for-the-h3n2-strain-researchers-say/

I've never had the flu myself, no vaccine either.

In the event flu does happen, I'm a staunch advocate of natural home remedies of the food variety.

I'm old, never had a flu shot, never had the flu either. From what I'm reading, this years "shot" doesn't do much good anyway.

I 'm curious about the home remedies of the food variety. Care to share?

 

[southernmimi]

I'm over 65 and haven't been sick in years. I do take a flu shot, always use sanitizer, and wash my hands often. It's easier to avoid crowds and stay a little more isolated during flu season if you are retired.

 

[Trident]

I'm over 65 and haven't been sick in years. I do take a flu shot, always use sanitizer, and wash my hands often. It's easier to avoid crowds and stay a little more isolated during flu season if you are retired.

Yes, it is. I usually do my shopping around 7/8 AM. Not many people around then. However, today I had to go around 11 AM and don'tcha know there was a woman in there coughing and wheezing. Well, I refused to breathe while I was still in sight of her. I've "heard" the germs/virus hangs in the air. Washed my hands when I got home.

 

[Lilibet]

I am 70+ and I can well remember all those childhood diseases including a sibling who got polio, another who had whooping cough and all of us got the measles and the chicken pox.

I have gotten the flu vaccine every year for many years now. It has never, ever made me sick at all. Nor does it make any of my family members sick that I know of.

I have never had a severe flu. It has been years since I've had even a lesser flu. I had one cold last year that was the first cold I had in two years or so.

I consider myself to be lucky. And based on my own personal experience I will continue to receive an annual flu shot.

I’m 72 and I well remember the fear of polio. The vaccine was a blessing and it never made me ill. I had chicken pox, measles and scarlet fever as a kid. Missed the mumps, whooping cough and German measles.

My daughter had all the immunizations available in the 1970’s and is fine. I’m not sure where all these cases of autism are coming from, but I don’t believe it’s from vaccines.

I’ve gotten a flu shot for years and it’s never made me sick and I haven’t gotten the flu. Some years, like this one, I don’t even get a cold. I always get the enhanced shot for those over 65, but I heard that might not help this year. So far, so good. I have some friends in their later ‘70’s who won’t get flu shots and get very sick every year. I doubt they got the pneumonia shots either, so they are putting themselves at great risk IMO.

 

[Mjoachim]

I get the shot every year. It works.

Sent from my Pixel 2 XL using Tapatalk

 

[ZaZara]

Not the flu shot, but a video about a POLIO survivor from the recent times when no vaccine was available.



[video]https://youtu.be/gplA6pq9cOs[/video]


Paul Alexander is one of the last few remaining polio survivors that depend on iron lungs—half-century-old machines that force inhabitants to breathe.

Read the full feature about the Last of the Iron Lungs here http://gizmo.do/5YzAxdk

 

[FrostOwl]

An other airborne childhood disease returning to Europe and claiming victims due to low rate of vaccinations is measels, 41.000 new cases in the first six months of 2018 and at least 37 dead.
European measles cases skyrocket over 2 years, at least 37 dead in 2018
Not everyone can be vaccinated, perhaps due to allergy or weak immune system, so those who can be vaccinated should do it.

 

[MelmothTheLost]

I’m not sure where all these cases of autism are coming from, but I don’t believe it’s from vaccines.

It's now pretty well established that autism is overwhelmingly hereditary. Around 80% of cases have a hereditary factor. I guess in the past severe cases were usually institutionalised, so weren't seen outside the family, and the less serious ones remained in society but were regarded as "a bit strange" or "eccentric" or suchlike.

 

[MelmothTheLost]

An other airborne childhood disease returning to Europe and claiming victims due to low rate of vaccinations is measels, 41.000 new cases in the first six months of 2018 and at least 37 dead.
European measles cases skyrocket over 2 years, at least 37 dead in 2018
Not everyone can be vaccinated, perhaps due to allergy or weak immune system, so those who can be vaccinated should do it.

It's not just down to the fall in vaccinations in Western Europe, but also due to the influx of people from Eastern Europe where vaccination rates have been much lower historically.

 

[Satchie]

To the question of "do vaccines work?", I point to smallpox. It used to kill at least 20 million people per year. It was the primary disease that wiped out most of the populations of indigenous people, wherever Europeans landed. It is now eradicated because of worldwide vaccination programs.

 

[Jmoose]

An other airborne childhood disease returning to Europe and claiming victims due to low rate of vaccinations is measels, 41.000 new cases in the first six months of 2018 and at least 37 dead.
European measles cases skyrocket over 2 years, at least 37 dead in 2018
Not everyone can be vaccinated, perhaps due to allergy or weak immune system, so those who can be vaccinated should do it.

A woman I work for will not vaccinate her children for anything, and claims that their steong immune systems keep these diseases at bay-she discounts the “herd immunity” explanation. In fact, whenever there is an outbreak of the measles, she claims it is from vaccine recipients “shedding the virus”. In other words, she thinks that the vaccines cause the outbreaks and endanger those who aren’t vaccinated. She requests that I not receive the flu vaccine for the same reason-but if I was inclined to get the shot, I’d get it.

 

[FrostOwl]

It's not just down to the fall in vaccinations in Western Europe, but also due to the influx of people from Eastern Europe where vaccination rates have been much lower historically.

In Sweden there are mainly three groups where the degree of immunisation is low among children, one is a group of anthroposophists in a local area, a second is some of the immigrants from Somalia, and the third is migrants living in Sweden without papers. In the two first groups parents often wait until the children get older than the age they are in the immunisation programme. In the third group parents would like to have their children vaccinated but they are afraid to get arrested if they seek health care. In Sweden all children under 18 years of age living here have the right to free health care and vaccinations, regardless if they are citizens or living here without papers.

 

[mickey2942]

25 years ago, I was teaching school, and caught the flu, it was literally life changing. I was so debilitated, I could barely walk. I probably should have gone to the hospital, but who does that in their 20's? I was exhausted for months.

I will never miss a flu shot, that is not an experience I want to repeat.

 

[MelmothTheLost]

the third is migrants living in Sweden without papers.

I may be wrong but I was under the impression that it was virtually impossible to get deported from Sweden, and that the country has been running an asylum on request model for decades.

 

[FrostOwl]

I may be wrong but I was under the impression that it was virtually impossible to get deported from Sweden, and that the country has been running an asylum on request model for decades.

Not true, almost 20 000 persons was denied asylum in Sweden 2017, about half of them returned of their free will to their home countries/where they had been staying, and in 43 percent of the cases the police were asked to help with the deportation. It's only in cases where there is a danger to the life of the asylum seeker if they are sent to their home countries they can be allowed to stay even if the reason why they are seeking asylum is weak. Among those who live hidden many are appealing the deportations, trying to show that the reason for denying them asylum is wrong.

Sewden had a high influx of asylum seekers 2015, but today the numbers are much lower: Statistik

 

[MelmothTheLost]

Not true, almost 20 000 persons was denied asylum in Sweden 2017, about half of them returned of their free will to their home countries/where they had been staying, and in 43 percent of the cases the police were asked to help with the deportation. It's only in cases where there is a danger to the life of the asylum seeker if they are sent to their home countries they can be allowed to stay even if the reason why they are seeking asylum is weak. Among those who live hidden many are appealing the deportations, trying to show that the reason for denying them asylum is wrong.

Sewden had a high influx of asylum seekers 2015, but today the numbers are much lower: Statistik

I gather things have changed significantly in the past couple of years. If you go back over recent decades Sweden has had a very high level of immigration one way or another from Africa and the Middle East which has been causing wider social and cultural problems for years now. The massive additional influx of migrants invited into Europe by Merkel in 2015 may have been the proverbial straw for Sweden (if not for Germany) and may well be the single biggest factor in the rise of a new right wing nationalism in Sweden of the like never seen before.

 

[FrostOwl]

Well, it's not only those of African or Middle Eastern ethnic background that some of those right wing nationalists doesn't really accept as Swedes, even when having Swedish citizenship. There are those who consider me as a non-Swede (and not really welcome here), as I was born in Finland and have lived in Sweden for more than 50 years, and I speak fluent Swedish without any accent. I'm no longer sure I want to stay in Sweden anymore.

As for right wing nationalism in Sweden, it's been around for a long time, but was splitted in many groups, and many have shared their opinion, but didn't openly talk about their views as it was seen as not politically correct. Now the memories of what happened during WW2 have dimmed, and the Sweden Democrates have managed to polish out the tarnish reputation of the right wing nationalism, so more people dare to say openly "I'm not a racist, but ...."

Perhaps time for this discusdion on an ohter tread.