Damn that flu bug!
- Thread starter maureen
- Start date
Bill Lundstrom
Bill Lundstrom
Classic! I laughed for the first time today....Merci monkey.
Sharon Bowman
Sharon Bowman
+1
I was listening to one of those funny microbiology call-in shows the other day, and one of the laff-riot characters described seeing a biofilm of Pseudomonas on the Purell dispenser in his doctor's office as he sat waiting, right up to the point where the ethanol stopped being food and became poison.
Very true. The early arrival of this year's season likely helped fuel the intensity by hitting weeks earlier than many of the efforts to get people vaccinated were scheduled to start.
Usually between 30-35K annually in the US.
B is usually less severe than A. Our hospital is finally back down from 120% occupancy this week so you may be right - time will tell.
robert ames
robert ames
i got my flu shot. the more people that get the vaccine the smaller the number is of people will come down with the flu (including those that don't get vaccinated). the flu sucks. getting the vaccine is good for you and for your fellow (hu)man--even for the wacko conspiracy theorists that don't get it because of paranoia that lacks any shred of logic.
that being said, as quoted from above regarding the number killed per year by influenza:
"Usually between 30-35K annually in the US." i.e., they'd still be around if they hadn't gotten the flu (either because they didn't get vaccinated or because they were in the portion that the vaccine didn't protect).
how many of these were already just a metaphorical misplaced banana peel away from checking out? statistics like this imply that the end can be dodged if you're savvy enough.
the bottom line is, regardless of when each of us goes, we each have lived a lifetime.
that being said, as quoted from above regarding the number killed per year by influenza:
"Usually between 30-35K annually in the US." i.e., they'd still be around if they hadn't gotten the flu (either because they didn't get vaccinated or because they were in the portion that the vaccine didn't protect).
how many of these were already just a metaphorical misplaced banana peel away from checking out? statistics like this imply that the end can be dodged if you're savvy enough.
the bottom line is, regardless of when each of us goes, we each have lived a lifetime.
The other way to count is to be an actuary and look at years of life lost--dead 20 year-olds count more than dead 80 year-olds. Different flu seasons give different distributions (and a wide spread on the simple 'mortality' number), but there is usually a large contribution from the very old.
This was much less true with the novel H1 a couple of years ago, for instance. One study reported "We estimate that globally there were 201 200 respiratory deaths (range 105 700—395 600) with an additional 83 300 cardiovascular deaths (46 000—179 900) associated with 2009 pandemic influenza A H1N1. 80% of the respiratory and cardiovascular deaths were in people younger than 65 years and 51% occurred in southeast Asia and Africa."
So, it depends.
Sharon Bowman
Sharon Bowman
Oh, you didn't....
Jeff Grossman
Jeff Grossman
I go to my doc for the shot; I'm not persuaded that discount pharmacies take care of the serum or the needles very well. (But that is just suspicion... anybody know?)
Jonathan Loesberg
Jonathan Loesberg
I find the intolerance being expressed here for those with beliefs I consider absurd to be distasteful if not ethically offensive. The state surely has a right to make taking such vaccines mandatory, but in the case of flu shots it has not. Not taking one may be foolish, but it does not merit the language being used here.
I will also note that the history of obligatory medical treatment is not so entirely without elements of class oppression as to make our confidence in the health of current treatments enough to justify a certitude in the rightness of making them obligatory without at least some modest hesitation.
I will also note that the history of obligatory medical treatment is not so entirely without elements of class oppression as to make our confidence in the health of current treatments enough to justify a certitude in the rightness of making them obligatory without at least some modest hesitation.
Tom Glasgow
Thomas W Glasgow
not to freak Brad out, but anytime someone gives you a needle you should watch them to help ensure they wear gloves, clean your skin and remove the needle from its packaging, etc.
You miss the bigger point, Professor. Not getting a flu shot is willfully participating in the needless death of fellow citizens. If someone wants to be an idiot on their own dime, fine. But this isn't their own dime, this is PUBLIC HEALTH. I would go so far as to say that this is a moral and ethical obligation of every citizen.
In the case of the HPV vaccine it can prevent your daughter from getting cervical cancer at an astonishingly effective rate. Having known several women burdened with this disease, I find it repugnant that someone would inflict that risk upon their daughter due to some belief system that bears no correspondence to reality.
Sure there is some bad history, but you're just going to have to trust someone. IMO, thus far vaccines are the biggest medical breakthrough in human history.
Jonathan Loesberg
Jonathan Loesberg
I'm not missing the point, I'm disputing the fact that it justifies your intolerance. If you started a movement to make flu shots obligatory, with only a little more evidence than I (I stress I) am aware of about the general costs of not getting them, and a lot more argument about the social costs of legislating such an obligation, I might support you. I would, even then, distance myself from your style of controversy.