On Sick, Two Sick, Three Sick, Flu Sick
Recently, the CDC announced that the strain of influenza virus chosen as the basis of this year’s vaccine does not match the common strains of flu virus now circulating. In other words, the makers of the flu shot “guessed wrong” in their selection of the virus to base the shot on. To poor salt on the wound, they are predicting this to be a really bad flu season. Okay, I am not a lab guy so I am not going to be critical of how they account for which strains to put in the vaccine. And I guess some major mutation has occurred in the virus as well. My issue is that the government is still pushing hard for people to get the flu shot. Why? Do they think some protection is better than none? That makes all the sense of a mesh condom.
Wow Doug.
A mesh condom offers no benefits, and (I would guess) would actually be somewhat uncomfortable.
This year’s flu vaccine, to over-simplify, won’t be very good. But it will still help many people. 40% or even 20% fewer cases of flu has a huge public health impact, and the protection from the vaccine will work best if as many people as possible get it. Surely you know this?
Don’t get caught up in the anti-vax conspiracy stuff, OK?
I am not an anti-vaccine guy. This is just a shitty product and I am being critical of it. How else can we make things better? And by the way, I bet a mesh condom would be as effective as this flu vaccine.
wow, i thought this was authentic medicine, not anti-vaccine-conspiracy-goofball-central. lets not spread fear, uncertainty, and doubt any more. vaccines ARE authentic medicine (ie Jonas Salk), and anti-vaccine-FUD is most certainly not…
Yes, some protection is better than none.
http://www.snopes.com/medical/disease/cdcflu.asp
Technically they were 1/2 right and 1/2 wrong. There are two strains of H3N2 circulating, and one strain is covered and the other isn’t. 49% of the flu cases so far have been the one in the vaccine and the other 51% aren’t the strain in the vaccine, so it is still advisable to get the flu vaccine.